How Do Communities Define We & They?
Students draw on a classic Dr. Seuss story to explore how communities make choices regarding membership.
How Do Rules & Traditions Shape Communities?
Students create classroom rules through a group activity, and learn the relationship between customs and laws as it relates to a safe learning environment.
How Do Others Define Your Identity?
Students draw on a contemporary parable to explore how identity is formed by our own perception as well as other people's perception of us.
What is Community?
Students answer the question, "What is a community?" by writing their own definition of the word and identifying what characteristics make their classroom a community.
Exploring Contemporary Experiences of Policing and Racial Injustice
In this mini-lesson, students use their head, heart, and conscience to engage with six sources that reflect a range of experiences with policing.
Suffrage Matters: 7 Reads on Black Voting Rights and Activism
One way to deepen our understanding of voting rights is to consider the experiences of people who have been disenfranchised over the course of our nation’s history and into the present.
Getting to Know the 10 Questions
Students begin thinking about civic engagement in terms of their own passions and identities as they are introduced to the 10 Questions Framework.
The Importance of a Free Press
Students review the First Amendment, understand the importance of a free press, and consider how that freedom can conflict with other societal needs through journalists’ experiences in Ferguson.
Citizen Watchdogs and the News
Students identify the responsibilities of citizen watchdogs, summarize strategies for combatting confirmation bias and responsibly consuming and sharing news and information, and complete a culminating essay.
Confirmation and Other Biases
Students define explicit, implicit, and confirmation bias, and examine why people sometimes maintain their beliefs in the face of contradictory information.
Hands Up, Don't Shoot!
Students review the US Department of Justice report, revisit how confirmation bias impacts our understanding of events, and consider how to bridge the gap in understanding that often surrounds events like Ferguson.