DESE Civics Literacy Conference September 23-24, 2020: Middle/High School

Click on the title of the workshop to access the materials.

Walking Through the Door: Integrating the University of Alabama

Part of fostering students' civic engagement involves their understanding of historic occasions that have led to acts of personal courage. In this hands-on workshop, participants will engage in a close reading of a primary source that illustrates the clash between state and federal powers at the University of Alabama in 1963, evaluating the rhetoric surrounding the integration of the university and studying the justifications made on each side. They will then consider the personal commitment of Vivian Malone, one of the two African American students who integrated the school, and discuss what Malone meant when, years later, she said that students need to be "prepared" for turning points in their lives. Participants will develop strategies to facilitate students' awareness of their own preparedness to take thoughtful action.

Reasoning About Civic Action

A primary goal of civics education is to enable students to plan and enact community change. Thoughtful civic engagement encompasses several skills, including the ability to research a particular issue, give reasons for and against multiple avenues to effectuate change, and determine which avenue will be most effective. Thus before action can occur, students must be able to make an argument for their chosen civic action. But reasoning skills are infrequently taught explicitly, leaving students unable to create and evaluate arguments. This workshop will introduce participants to argument mapping, a method for visually representing how claims presented in an argument work together to support a conclusion. Participants in this workshop will: Gain an introduction to the mapping process and free online mapping resources, discuss how mapping can support middle and high school Civic Action Projects, and view projects that guide students as they use mapping to plan civic action.

Using Civics in Action Speaker Series to Promote Civic Engagement during Remote, Live, or Hybrid Learning

In this workshop entitled "Using a Civics in Action Speaker Series to Promote Civic Engagement during Remote, Live, or Hybrid Learning," the audience will be pushed to consider implementing this instructional strategy to civically engage students in a meaningful manner using experiential learning. This is not your parents' "Meet a Politician" experience, which consisted of students politely listening to speeches. Instead, the civic speaker will be transformed into a classroom teacher not only sharing powerful real world experiences with students but also actively teaching lessons on such topics as the process of how a bill becomes a law, checks and balances, the workings of state, local and federal government, as well as preparing students for the Civics Action Project. All participants will be given a proven blueprint how to make this become a reality in their live or virtual classroom. Another important part of this workshop will be connecting the talks to the new Grade 8 MA Civics Frameworks, the Civic Action Project and closing the Civic Empowerment Gap by bringing in speakers that look like ALL students.

Decision 2020: Strategies and Resources to Teach the Election

Fundamental knowledge about our electoral system is something that we often take for granted. However, for students from many backgrounds and demographic profiles, that is not the case. If we are to effectively address the civic empowerment gap (or what many now refer to as the empowerment debt), we must help all students to gain a full understanding of this content. This interactive session will include examples from game-based learning, innovative curricula, and other resources available for free from iCivics and other sources to illustrate engaging approaches to teaching the election. Christian Scott, an experienced practitioner, will share insights and key advice on how to make it all come alive in the classroom.

Civic Engagement in Local Environmental Issues: Some Massachusetts Envirothon Program Experience

This workshop will include experiences and insights gained from two decades of supporting Massachusetts high school youth-led community research and action on local environmental issues. The Envirothon Current Issue challenges teams to investigate a key environmental issue as it occurs in their own communities. The emphasis is on thorough, wide-ranging research, including field trips, interviews, web searches, and town hall visits. Teams analyze the scientific and civic dimensions of the problems they find, and make a presentation to (and get real world feedback from) a panel of judges including scientists, resource managers, policy-makers, local officials, and community activists. Each year about half the teams take what they learn and put it to work in a community action project. We will focus on four areas of Envirothon experience relevant to civic engagement projects: 1) the rewards/challenges of making and sustaining connections with community resource people and organizations, 2) the variety of forms that "student-led" learning can take, and the roles that adult advisors and teamwork can play, 3) the importance of in-depth community research before taking action, and 4) the challenges/opportunities that interdisciplinary environmental issues offer.

Seek the Floor: Legislative Simulations for the Classroom

Civic engagement and agency are fueled by skills and knowledge. Powerful things can happen when students understand how government works and how they can find pathways to their own participation. This session will look at classroom simulations and role-play as vehicles for demystifying the legislative process, unpacking complex issues of national importance, and fostering a sense of political empathy through a framework of bipartisan representative democracy. We will share free resources that look at key policy areas such as climate, criminal justice, and voting right in terms of what is at stake, who is affected, and what policy solutions can and should look like. This session will address strategies for both in-person and remote learning.

Using Democracy to Shape Curriculum: Choosing to Learn About Slavery with Contemporary Picture Book About the Institution

Another way to help students learn about civics is to employ a democratic approach to the curriculum, meaning creating a way for students to have some say in what is taught and how. In this workshop, Rogers details how democratic principles were employed in a middle school history class during a unit that focused on the complex history of slavery in the United States. This workshop will also feature an approach that provides students with opportunities to examine and share their perspectives about the historiography, contemporary representation, and teaching of slavery in the United States.

Socially Just Civic Engagement: Intersectionality and the 2020 Census

In this session, participants will vigorously engage in discussions and activities that demonstrate how the theory of intersectionality is key for fostering culturally-relevant civic knowledge. We will examine questions 8 & 9 (origin & race) of the 2020 census, apply concepts of intersectionality as they relate to power and the development of an authentic civic voice. Educators will experience primary sources, join in a lesson, and participate in small and whole group discussions. The objective is to connect intersectionality for the development of culturally-relevant civic knowledge that allows for easy translation into action, that is to say, praxis.

Choosing to Participate: Facing History and Action Civics

Choosing to Participate has always been a central component of Facing History and Ourselves' approach to teaching and learning. Recognizing the need for concrete resources that support action civics, including student-led civics projects as required by Chapter 296 in Massachusetts, Facing History recently published "From Reflection to Action: A Choosing to Participate Toolkit" to support educators with a flexible collection of activities, readings, lessons, and strategies that can be used alone or in combination to develop meaningful civic action experiences for students. This session will introduce the Choosing to Participate Toolkit and share some of its resources, including examples of projects and assignments teachers have implemented to develop and strengthen their students' "participation muscles" -- a combination of civic skills, knowledge, and dispositions.

Using Dialogic Practice in the Classroom for Deeper Civic Conversations

The Civic Conversations project, funded by the Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics Award and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, is a multi-year study of dialogic practices in the classroom environment. The project supports a growing group of educators and partners as they learn, work, and use dialogue to contribute to a positive school culture and provide students the opportunity to build skills for civic life. As national discourse around civic issues become increasingly polarized and the presidential election draws near, structured dialogue encourages students to listen to each other, discuss their own values and experiences, and consider diverse perspectives. This session will:

•Model tools and exercises that educators can use to design and navigate meaningful conversations and infuse dialogic practices into their day-to-day teaching (even virtually or in hybrid classrooms)

• Explore the impact of dialogue on teaching practice through a panel discussion and Q&A session with educators who participated in the Civic Conversations Summer 2020 Institute

• Provide participants access to the Civic Conversations community of practice; a group of educators who are learning about dialogic strategies, infusing them into their teaching practice, and designing dialogue-based lesson plans