Guide
From Reflection to Action: A Choosing to Participate Toolkit | For Educators in Canada
For educators in Canada, this guide contains activities, readings, lessons, and strategies to help you develop a meaningful civic education experience in your classroom.
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From Reflection to Action: A Choosing to Participate Toolkit | For Educators in Canada
Date of Publication:
March 2024
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From Reflection to Action: A Choosing to Participate Toolkit includes a flexible collection of activities, readings, lessons, and strategies that teachers can use to develop a civic action experience that meets their classroom’s specific curriculum objectives, grade level, and available time.
The resources in this guide are infused with the understanding that effective “action civics” depends not only on providing civic education—grounded in the study of history and literature—that nurtures students’ capacity for reflection and action, but also on supporting these essential practices:
- Civic education begins in learner-centered classrooms that value students’ identities.
- Civic education must confront bias and develop a sense of the common good.
- Civic education must engage with the complexities of history.
- Civic education must introduce current events and controversial issues.
This guide also contains sample projects and assignments that illustrate how teachers can structure their Facing History unit to meet the growing requirement for civic action projects in a way that leads to meaningful and long-lasting experiences for students.
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10 Questions for the Future: Student Action Project
Students create a plan for enacting change on an issue that they are most passionate about using the 10 Questions Framework.
10 Questions for the Present: Parkland Student Activism
Students identify strategies and tools that Parkland students have used to influence Americans to take action to reduce gun violence.
#IfTheyGunnedMeDown
Students explore the potential negative impact of images through the social media protest #IfTheyGunnedMeDown and develop a decision-making process for choosing imagery to represent controversial events.
The Impact of Identity
Students explore how identity impacts our responses to other people and events by examining a cartoon and analyzing an opinion poll from a week after Ferguson.
The Power of Images
Students examine how identity and biases can impact how individuals interpret images and experience the challenge of selecting images to represent news events, particularly connected to sensitive issues.
Preparing Students for Difficult Conversations
Students establish a safe space for holding sensitive conversations, before introducing the events surrounding Ferguson, by acknowledging people's complicated feelings about race and creating a classroom contract.
Social Media and Ferguson
Students explore the role of social media in Ferguson, apply information verification strategies to social media posts, and develop strategies for becoming critical consumers and sharers of social media.
Verifying Breaking News
Students evaluate the differences among news accounts about Ferguson, develop strategies for verifying news and information, and understand the challenges facing journalists as they cover complex, fast-moving events.
Facing Ferguson: News Literacy in a Digital Age
Help students become informed and effective civic participants in today's digital landscape. This unit is designed to develop students' critical thinking, news literacy, civic engagement, and social-emotional skills and competencies.
Reflecting on George Floyd’s Death and Police Violence Towards Black Americans
This mini-lesson is a guide for teachers to begin conversations with their students about George Floyd’s death and the events that surround it.
Responding to The Tree of Life Shooting in Pittsburgh
The mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue capped off a week of hate crimes and political violence in the United States. This mini-lesson help teachers and students process the events and reflect on what they mean for them and their communities.
Most teachers are willing to tackle the difficult topics, but we need the tools.
—
Gabriela Calderon-Espinal, Bay Shore, NY
