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A library program in Waltham, MA, offered teens an opportunity to practice active citizenship. The result was a powerful, practical, and often, a heartbreaking document of their hopes and fears.

All photos by Erwin Cardona

This September, teen leaders from the Waltham Public Library's Real Talk program, a centerpiece of Waltham's teen programming, engaged 350 high school students to create lawn signs and install them in front of the library.

The signs-designed by arts and civic action organization For Freedoms -begin with one of four prompts: Freedom To, Freedom Of, Freedom For, and Freedom From. Each teen was asked to finish a prompt with the one hope that they had as Election Day approached. No response was censored and no political agenda was endorsed. We simply sought to empower youth, to offer them an opportunity to practice active citizenship, and to give them a voice during election season by letting voters and candidates know what issues were most important to them.

The result was a powerful, practical, and often, a heartbreaking document of the hopes and fears of Waltham's teens-for their lives, their communities, their country, and their world. Here are some of their responses:

Freedom for the Latino children in cages.

Freedom from the fear of having my family taken away.

Freedom from having to learn a whitewashed version of history.

Freedom to have more teachers of color in my school.

Freedom from men having to act masculine.

Freedom to hold hands with a boy as a boy.

Freedom to be seen as a girl and not a sexualized object.

Freedom from a future defined by the effects of climate change.

Freedom from communities living at the mercy of real estate developers.

Freedom from fear of being evicted.

Freedom to have a disability without being stared at.

Freedom from an eating disorder.

Freedom to shave...or not.

Freedom for kids under 18 to ride the bus for free.

The entire collection can be viewed online.

A community event

At the installation of the signs on September 28, we invited the Waltham community to reflect on teens' thoughts and feelings, to consider the world they will inherit, and to become familiar with the world they intend to create.

Adults read the signs as they were staked into the ground. A teen DJ set the atmosphere with lively music. The League of Women Voters and youth trained by HeadCount pre-registered and registered voters. Real Talk leaders used the USCIS Citizenship Test flashcards in both English and Spanish as they walked the crowd and tested attendees' civic knowledge-a correct answer earned participants a raffle ticket for a chance to win prizes donated by local businesses and organizations. And people of all ages filled out Wal-Grams: postcards created to allow Waltham residents to write regularly to their elected officials with stories, requests, ideas, compliments, and thanks.

Residents and candidates for mayor, city council, and the school committee were among those who milled among the signs. All listened attentively as Real Talk leaders addressed the crowd. "Waltham youth demand to be heard. We may be young, but our experiences are real...Do not belittle us, our opinions, or experiences solely because you may see us as just kids...The world has changed, and we young people will no longer sit on the sidelines...We are watching and we are listening and we will hold you accountable to your roles as policymakers...We aren't just names on paper-we are living, breathing members of this city. We have dreams, aspirations, and needs just like anyone else here...Listen to our voices and include us in the decision-making process because only by including everyone in this city can we achieve democratic harmony."

In the coming weeks, we plan to process the signs as a Youth Participatory Action Research project. Each statement will be entered into a spreadsheet, categorized, and assigned tags to help us determine the issues the teens surveyed felt were the most pressing. By converting qualitative data to quantitative data, we can approach newly elected local officials with information that will guide their priorities and decision-making.

Local and national partnerships

Like many initiatives, this one would not have been possible without support on many levels.

For Freedoms is a national collective for creative citizenship founded in 2016 by artists Eric Gottesman and Hank Willis Thomas. It is a collaboration between artists, institutions, organizations, and people across the nation who experiment with new and creative pathways to participation. Inspired by Norman Rockwell's 1943 paintings of the four universal freedoms articulated by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1941-freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear-For Freedoms seeks to use art to deepen public discussions of civic issues and core values, and to clarify that citizenship in American society is deepened by participation, not by ideology.

Waltham arts organization Blueprint Projects brought the work of For Freedoms to the attention of Real Talk in the summer of 2018, and our first experience using their signs was so transformative that we challenged ourselves to make it an annual tradition. This year, with additional support from the Library Initiative for Teens & Tweens, we purchased nearly twice as many signs.

During September, partners from the Youth Service Provider Network of Waltham helped as we held programming in the Waltham Public Library, set up shop in the Waltham Boys & Girls Club Teen Center, and visited Waltham High School classes and afterschool clubs while making regular appearances in the school library and cafeteria.

And thanks to conference appearances and our membership in the Young Changemakers in 21st Century Libraries cohort-a collaboration between the Massachusetts Library System and Harvard University Democratic Knowledge Project -we recruited the Turner Free Library in Randolph, Springfield City Library, the Public Library of Brookline, Silver Lake Regional High School, and a collective of schools and libraries in Brockton to make signs with their teens. With support from For Freedoms we look forward to adding even more libraries and schools for the 2020 election season.

This is a fabulous project for public libraries and schools alike. Go big like we did and make it a citywide collaboration. Or simply print the templates on paper and create an installation on a wall of your class, library, or school. Either way, this can be a profound exercise for youth and community members.

Interested in creating lawn signs with us in 2020? Get in touch! Email Luke Kirkland at lkirkland@minlib.net with any questions. Email emma@forfreedoms.org and pola@forfreedoms.org to learn more about becoming an official For Freedoms partner. And visit bit.ly/lawnsigntips to view tips about helping youth create their signs.
Luke Kirkland is the Teen Services Department Head at the Waltham Public Library in Massachusetts. Follow him @lkrklnd.

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youth service provider network of waltham

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young changemakers in 21st century libraries

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harvard university democratic knowledge project

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For Freedoms | Empowering Teens in Election Season

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A library program in Waltham, MA, offered teens an opportunity to practice active citizenship. The result was a powerful, practical, and often, a heartbreaking document of their hopes and fears. All photos by Erwin Cardona This September, teen leaders from the Waltham Public Library's Real Talk program, a centerpiece of Waltham's teen programming, engaged 350 high school students to create lawn signs and install them in front of the library.

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By becoming a PBS Certified Media Literacy Educator you demonstrate your expertise in teaching students to produce media that matters and to think critically about their role as media consumers and creators.

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American Board of Trial Advocates- Classroom resources focusing on the Constitution, the judicial system, and civic engagement. Materials focus on “inspiring civics,” “decoding the news,” “major court cases,” The Constitution, Federal and State Courts, Judicial Independence, the Magna Carta, Separation of powers, and Trial by Jury.

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"Hearing the Other Side at Home and School"

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"Hearing the Other Side at Home and School"

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Civic Learning Libguide in Shrewsbury Highschool 

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Civic Learning Libguide in Shrewsbury Highschool 

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The Harvard Democratic Knowledge Project developed 10 Questions for Young Changemakers with questions to help formulate and execute a plan to make change in our community and world.
The the infographic to the right, includes the 10 questions with descriptions.

Examine yourself and the issue (Questions 1, 2, and 3)

To take your first step, you must examine yourself and how your experiences can influence your actions.

Knowing why you are passionate about an issue may help you find a path to follow. Even if you do not want to share your story with others, examining it yourself can be powerful.

Then do your research. Look at the issue more closely and how it affects people outside of yourself.
Connect with others (Questions 4, 5, 6, and 7)
Connections with others, whether in person or virtually is when real change often begins to happen, but it is also incredibly important to be cognizant of the downsides and sometimes danger of crowds.

Connections with others can give you insight into how others have approached the problem, but it can also amplify your voice if you have more allies. Your impact expands, the more you are able to make connections with other people.

Do you want to share your voice or influence others? How can your voice influence others?

Find your path through advocacy, volunteering, engaging in the political system, or your own way of being the change you want to see in the world.

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The Harvard Democratic Knowledge Project developed 10 Questions for Young Changemakers with questions to help formulate and execute a plan to make change in our community and world. The the infographic to the right, includes the 10 questions with descriptions. To take your first step, you must examine yourself and how your experiences can influence your actions.

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After reading Maya Angelou's "Still I Rise," I asked my students what issue of oppression they would rise against.

Language is an essential tool for change. Melissa Strelke used the Ten Questions for literacy education in a middle school. By reading El Deafo, The Outsiders, Of Mice and Men, The Secret Life of Bees, Between the World and Me, and The Hate You Give, her students learned the languages of social change: words such as "oppression," "agency," "prejudice," "institutionalized," "marginalized," "stereotypes," "civil rights," "equality," "equity," and "justice." Using the Ten Questions, they also explored how literary characters and historical figures created change. Read more from Ms. Strelke.

What I've found to be the most challenging, and important, step with implementing the ten questions in my classroom has been the preparation and build up to question one, "Why does it matter to me?". My eighth grade students definitely know of issues that they care about, but I find that their depth of knowledge on the subject is often limited. When I ask them why they care about an issue, they often say "because it's a problem," but cannot articulate as to why. I am happy that my students care about issues in the world, but I want to ensure that they have the language and abilities to express how they feel about an issue and why in order to use their voices to create change.

As a result, throughout the first few months of English class, we spent a fair amount of time learning essential language to be able to identify and explain issues in the world such as "oppression," "agency," "prejudice," "institutionalized," "marginalized," "stereotypes," "civil rights," "equality," "equity," and "justice." Some students have heard of these terms before, but many of them couldn't articulate what they mean nor apply them to a greater context. We not only learned working definitions of these terms, but we explored them in a greater context through literature and history. Students read texts such as El Deafo, The Outsiders, Of Mice and Men, The Secret Life of Bees, Between the World and Me, and The Hate You Give. We explored issues of ableism, poverty, mental illness, racism, sexism, and police brutality. Some of these forms of discrimination were new to students, while others were familiar, but no matter what issue of oppression we were exploring, students were eager to learn more. They began exploring the roots of these forms of oppression as well as the ways in which oppression is seen in our society today. When we read some nonfiction in class to complement the literature we were reading, many students wanted to dive deeper.

After reading Maya Angelou's "Still I Rise," I asked my students what issue of oppression they would rise against. From this open-ended prompt, students spent two weeks researching the form of oppression that they would rise against. At first, students had broad topics, but for the sake of the project, I asked them to narrow down their topic so they could fully explore and define it using reliable sources and proven facts. Their research then culminated into a persuasive speech on the issue, urging their fellow students to join them in acting against a form of oppression. Modeled after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech and various TED Talk speeches, students appealed to ethos, pathos, and logos to inform their classmates on important issues that they care about, ending with a few things every student in the class can do to make a change. Their topics ranged from LGBTQ+ employment rights and urban poverty to institutionalized racism in law enforcement and gender roles/ depictions in media and advertising.

I left school each day feeling uplifted by the passion of my students. Their will to create change in their world is strong, but at this point, we were still at question one. However, I think that their speeches will be a stepping stone on their way to creating a larger change within their community. Through looking at both literary characters and historical figures, we traced the ten questions. For example, when examining the march from Selma to Montgomery, my students analyzed how civil rights leaders like John Lewis and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used the ten steps to create change. While history often portrays horrible examples of oppression, we can often learn how to create successful forms of agency as well.

I hope to continue these analyses throughout the other texts we explore this year so my students can better grasp and explore the ten questions. My goal is by the end of the year, students will be able to pair up with someone who cares about a similar issue they gave their speech on to investigate the rest of the ten questions. Throughout the next few months, I plan on developing curriculum to scaffold each question. This should culminate into the students developing and implementing action plans to create change within their community. Students will then, in TED Talk format, report out on their issue, reflect on their implemented action plan, and urge their audience to act in a way that will continue to create positive changes. I am hopeful of the future positive outcomes, I'm sure, these ten questions will bring.

Melissa Strelke/Frontier Regional Middle School

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After reading Maya Angelou's "Still I Rise," I asked my students what issue of oppression they would rise against. Language is an essential tool for change. Melissa Strelke used the Ten Questions for literacy education in a middle school.

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For Freedoms – Springfield City Library 

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For Freedoms – Springfield City Library 

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by: Monica Ricci

Posted: / Updated:

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) - They can't vote yet, but Springfield's youth has a good handle on what issues face their community and their country.

Outside the Forest Park Library are dozens of lawn signs that look like the ones you typically see during election season. If you look closer, however, you'll see the raw concerns of Springfield's youth: gun violence, racism, and sexual harassment.

The project was spearheaded by Forest Park Library's supervisor Alex Remy and allowed Springfield middle and high schoolers to fill in what they wanted 'Freedom From' and 'Freedom For.' It was inspired by a similar project at Waltham Public Library. Photo gallery:

"It's important for the kids to look at their community and realize the issues that are present for them and to start thinking about these things because in just a few years they'll be voting and if they think about it now, they'll be better educated later and better informed," library manager Grace Larochelle said.

Larochelle said it's important for voters to know what concerns our future generations have.

"I think that maybe adults don't always think about what kids are seeing, but kids see everything," Larochelle said. "That's exactly what this shows here today."

When I was younger, I don't think I was as in-tune with current issues as today's youth is. Very interesting to see the issues important to Springfield's middle and high schoolers. pic.twitter.com/EyAXxSoIYf
- Monica Ricci (@MonicaWWLP) October 8, 2019

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Gun violence, equality: The raw concerns of Springfield's youth

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by: Monica Ricci Posted: / Updated: SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) - They can't vote yet, but Springfield's youth has a good handle on what issues face their community and their country. Outside the Forest Park Library are dozens of lawn signs that look like the ones you typically see during election season.

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Students learn a handy acronym to help them remember six key concepts for evaluating information, then test the concepts in teams. (Poster also available for download in French, Japanese, Spanish and Ukrainian.)

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Annenberg Learner- Political science resources focusing on democracy in America, electoral politics, federal deficits, judicial elections, public trust and private interests, state government, and The Constitution.

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"Bending the Arc"  - Student Research-Action 

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"Bending the Arc"  - Student Research-Action 

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NCSS 2018 - Bending the Arc through History and Literature

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Students begin thinking about civic engagement in terms of their own passions and identities as they are introduced to the 10 Questions Framework.

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Octavia Fellin Public Library , Navajo Nation

In Navajo Nation, a group of Native American teens, between 13 and 18 years old, gathered once a week and discussed books together, including Thirteen Reasons Why and Romeo and Juliet: The Graphic Novel. Because the books entail quite heavy and sensitive topics (such as mental illness, suicide and sexual violence), Anne Price, youth services manager at Octavia Fellin Public Library in Gallup, NM, endeavored to create an environment in which her teen patrons could feel safe and share candidly. Ms. Price viewed the Ten Questions for Young Changemakers Framework as instrumental in helping teens stay focused on the discussion and articulate their thoughts.

Given the nature of the discussed topics, turned out to be the most important one. The teens also found the questions pertaining to crowds--#2 How much should I share?# 6 How can we get wisdom from crowds?and #7 How can we handle the downside of crowds? --puzzling. They were glad that they had other friends who were going through the same struggles and sought comfort from sharing in confidence, but they did not want their circle to be open to the public. Although the discussion group had yet to aim for social transformation in a greater context, from Ms. Price's point of view, their opening up was already transformational for those teens.

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Book Discussion at a Teen Library (teen library)

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Octavia Fellin Public Library , Navajo Nation In Navajo Nation, a group of Native American teens, between 13 and 18 years old, gathered once a week and discussed books together, including Thirteen Reasons Why and Romeo and Juliet: The Graphic Novel.

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Using Graphic Novels to Explore Social Justice Issues with Young Adults

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Using Graphic Novels to Explore Social Justice Issues with Young Adults

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"Graphic novels can be deeply multicultural, making them exemplary resources when it comes to exploring social justice issue"'

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Picture This: Using Graphic Novels to Explore Social Justice Issues with Young Adults

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Acclaimed author Giovanni (n.d.) writes in her review of I Am Alfonso Jones (Medina, 2017) that "a comic book is no longer something to laugh with, but something to learn from" (n. p.). The combination of words and images in graphic novels can communicate information and emotions that words alone often cannot.

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Skip to main content

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Plan, Do, Study, Act

Here is a template you can use to help plan out a project. You may find this helpful when working with a partner. Feel free to adapt for your own use.

Young Changemakers in 21st Century Libraries

The Democratic Knowledge Project (DKP) at Harvard University (Principal Investigator: Danielle Allen) seeks support to develop and pilot, in collaboration with the Massachusetts Library System (MLS), professional development programs to equip public and school librarians to succeed as providers of out-of-school civic education and connected learning. The DKP is a distributed research and action lab at Harvard that seeks to identify, strengthen, and disseminate the bodies of knowledge, skills, and capacities that democratic citizens need in order to succeed at operating their democracy. The MLS serves more than 1,700 libraries of all types and sizes throughout the state, including 373 public libraries and over 700 school libraries.

We plan to develop and pilot, in collaboration with the Massachusetts Library System, professional development resources that build on existing Ten Question materials. We seek to modify and repurpose existing classroom oriented materials for use by librarians in the library context and to train school and public youth librarians in the use of the Ten Questions materials in the context of their existing programs.

Running from Oct 1, 2018, through September 30, 2019, our project seeks (a) to prepare library professionals to help youth develop into equitable, effective, and self-protective civic agents in a digital age; (b) to support libraries working for/with underserved youth in urban and rural areas to create positive civic learning experiences; and (c) to equip librarians with assessment tools to track the impact of their work on youth civic learning.

To ensure that the goal is accomplished effectively and equitably, we will select eight to ten local partner libraries--a minimum of four school and four public libraries--based on geographic location (both rural and urban), social-economic conditions (under-resourced communities), and racial-cultural diversity, in consultation with MLS. This project is funded by a Laura Bush 21st Century Library Program Award ("Young Changemakers in the 21st-Century Library.")

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LibGuides: Young Changemakers in 21st Century Libraries: Resources for Using the 10 Questions

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Skip to main content It looks like you're using Internet Explorer 11 or older. This website works best with modern browsers such as the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. If you continue with this browser, you may see unexpected results. Here is a template you can use to help plan out a project.

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Answer number one (Why does it matter to me?) in relation to your project as fully as you can. This may be reflected in your proposal but I still want you to think about it and write about it now that your project is underway.

Choose one other question to answer that feels important to where you are in your process now.  See more here

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Teaching American History- Core documents collection features letters, speeches, books, and articles from the colonial era through the modern era. The Civil Rights collection includes the writings of Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Ralph Ellison, and more.

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Gov94CZ (From Voice to Influence: Understanding Citizenship in a Digital Age) was an undergraduate seminar course offered in Harvard's Department of Government in fall 2016. Students discussed a number of topics related to digital civic agency, including changing communication patterns, policymaking processes, and emerging ethical issues. In the following class project, students chose a case (any group, any organization, or any single person) and investigated it using the Ten Questions framework. The resulting projects explored cases from all corners of the participatory politics landscape. Here, we spotlight four: Veganism, Reclaim Harvard Law, Get Out To Vote (GOTV), and the Harvard CIVICS Program.

Is Veganism Political? The Frontiers of Participatory Politics
In "Veganism: A Platform for Participatory Politics," Alice Jeon and Sarah Wu looked at how veganism has gained ground along with the rise of digital technology. Among the discussed topics were how social media played a role in community building, information sharing, and identity formation among vegans and, intriguingly, whether or not veganism is political. Their project pushed Alice and Sarah to delve into the changing notion of participatory politics and what counts as political. This resulted in a interesting and important discussion of the distinctions between intention and perception in civic activism and between means-based vs. ends-based civic groups. Alice and Sarah conclude that understanding veganism and its (non)political character requires an understanding of expanding margins of participatory politics - territory that has largely gone undefined and unclaimed. Read more.

Reclaim HLS: Law Students Respond in the Age of Black Lives Matter.
In "Reclaim Harvard Law: Students Voices Reshape an Institution," Gabbi Giotti, Michaela Murrow, and Kailash Sundaram studied the organization of Reclaim Harvard Law, a student movement at Harvard Law School focusing on issues of inclusion and diversity. They argued that Reclaim HLS was a hard-reach group, due to the high sensitivity of their core concerns and the risks involved in advocating for them. Gabbi, Michaela, Kailash focused specifically on how activists were nonetheless able to channel their voice into actual change, by any media necessary. Similarly, they documented the strategies activists used to deal with pushback against their efforts, including both straightforward discrimination and claims to "free speech." Their analysis traced how civic activism can resonate well beyond a movement's immediate aims: Reclaim HLS was never meant to go on a national level, but because of the Harvard brand and the national backdrop of Black Lives Matter, its influence quickly expanded well beyond Harvard Law. In discussing the risks, challenges, and consequences of civic agency, t his case study explored the political significance of sacrifice, a virtue that is both necessary for achieving equity and a necessarily a burden for the individuals bearing it. Read more.

Get Out the Vote: Participatory Politics' New Suffrage Movement?
While unglamorous and sometimes frustrating, voting is one of the most important and oldest forms of political participation and remains essential to modern democratic politics. Yet, it is all too often pushed to the sidelines in discussions about participatory politics. In "A Transmedia Perspective of Voting: How 'Get Out the Vote' Organizations Use Online and Offline Strategies to Encourage Participation," Avika Dua and Jonah Hahn challenged this neglect and argued for placing voting back at the core of participatory politics. In this case study, Avika and Jonah compared two Get Out the Vote (GOTV) organizations-- Rock the Vote and Mia Famila Vota. The two organizations originated from different goals for voting and nurtured different organizational visions. Avika and Jonah scrutinized how Rock the Vote and Mia Familia Vota developed different transmedia strategies according to these diverging goals. Avika and Jonah contextualized the groups in the flow dynamics model of discourse, with Rock the Vote representing structural change and Mia Famila Vota representing expressive change. Read more.

Harvard Civics: Teaching Civics as Political Action
Teaching students civics provides them with tools for responsible citizenship in a changing political landscape. But civic education goes well beyond formal teachers. Lukas Petry and Carolina Portela-Blanco examined the Harvard CIVICS Program , which places motivated undergraduates in classrooms throughout the Boston area to teach civics and government classes and inspire students to grow into active members of our society. Carolina, a civics teacher in the program herself, and Lukas studied the passion and motivation of undergraduate participants and the challenges they faced teaching young students. Carolina and Lukas frame teaching civics as political action using the Ten Questions. They write, "[Undergraduate volunteers] are not merely talking about the problem of the lack of civic instruction in K-12 schooling and how it affects participation in community, but they are doing something about it. The program takes teachers to the school - it acts upon perceived issues and intends to remedy it through education." Read more.

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"Own Your Knowledge": Gov94CZ Case Study Project

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Gov94CZ (From Voice to Influence: Understanding Citizenship in a Digital Age) was an undergraduate seminar course offered in Harvard's Department of Government in fall 2016. Students discussed a number of topics related to digital civic agency, including changing communication patterns, policymaking processes, and emerging ethical issues.

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10 Questions for the Past - 1963 Chicago Student Walkouts

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10 Questions for the Past - 1963 Chicago Student Walkouts

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What historical conditions were students responding to when they walked out of class during the 1963 Chicago school boycott?

What does "success" mean in the context of social change? How should we assess the impact of changemaking efforts?

Students will be able to situate the 1963 Chicago Public Schools Boycott within the broader historical context of northern segregation and the civil rights movement.

Students will recognize that social change is a long-term process that requires resilience, effective tactics, and a clear vision.

Although the 10 Questions Framework was designed for student changemakers in the twenty-first century, there is much for today's young people to learn from student activism in the past. Students have "chosen to participate" in consequential ways at critical moments throughout the past century of US history. This lesson focuses on a school boycott organized in 1963 by students in Chicago. On October 22, 1963, 225,000 students boycotted Chicago's public schools to protest racial segregation and unequal conditions in white and black schools. Many marched through the city calling for the resignation of School Superintendent Benjamin Willis. Although it was one of the largest civil rights protests in the North, the 1963 Chicago school boycott is relatively unknown compared to other protests of the era.

In this lesson, students examine the 1963 boycott through the lens of the 10 Questions Framework. They explore the strategies, risks, and historical significance of the students' activism, while also considering bigger-picture questions about social progress. Can changemakers, for instance, still consider their efforts "successful" if it takes years for their full impact to be realized? Is social impact only measured through immediate, tangible results? Students will reflect on these questions through an analysis of two competing narratives about the boycott's effects: a secondary source article and a 1966 interview with Martin Luther King Jr.

Six years after Brown vs. Board of Education, the landmark decision that declared school segregation unconstitutional, public schools in Chicago were still segregated. Schools in black neighborhoods were overcrowded and run down, while those in white neighborhoods were well maintained and well run. Chicago had experienced a huge migration from the South, beginning in the early 1900s-part of what was called the Great Migration. The vast majority of migrants were working-class African Americans who, due to discriminatory housing practices known as redlining, had no choice but to settle in historically black neighborhoods. With their designation of economic undesirability, those "redlined" areas were not able to draw the capital essential for investment and redevelopment. This discriminatory practice led to widespread inequality in the city, including in African Americans' access to quality housing, economic development, and social infrastructure and services.

Derelict schools were among the worst outcomes of such policies. While school segregation was formally outlawed in Illinois in 1874, a combination of federal, local, and state policies kept schools segregated. In Chicago, school officials adjusted boundary lines during the years after World War II to ensure that school districts remained as segregated as the city's neighborhoods. Benjamin Willis, who was the school's superintendent from 1953 to 1966, resisted desegregation efforts, even in the face of massive overcrowding in the city's predominantly African American neighborhood schools. During his tenure, the school district dealt with cramped classrooms by building what were called "Willis Wagons"-portable trailers for black students-rather than sending them to under-capacity white schools.

Community members protested Willis's policies. In 1963, community groups began to organize a boycott called Freedom Day. The organizers met with Martin Luther King Jr., who had delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington a few months before. On October 22, 1963, almost half of the entire school district's students (250,000) boycotted the schools. Many marched through the city, around City Hall and the Board of Education building, demanding better schools for black neighborhoods and equal opportunities for all.

The struggle to ensure equal educational opportunities is still ongoing in Chicago, as in many other cities in the US. Can we count Freedom Day as a success? What would count as success in such a case? This is a hard question to answer. "'Freedom Day' didn't succeed at its goal of desegregating Chicago public schools, but it made de facto school segregation the talk of Chicago," writes journalist Erin Blakemore. Is such attention a kind of success, if school segregation and educational inequality persist today?

One of the key lessons of the 1963 Chicago school boycott is that change takes time and the process is strenuous, risky, and resource-consuming. It is crucial for teachers to encourage students to hold onto an ambitious vision of change while preparing them to embrace the difficulties of changemaking, which requires fending off skepticism and building civic muscles. Students can learn to approach civic action with a sense of realism and resilience and make the best of the civic resources and opportunities available to them.

Building Students' Background Knowledge
We encourage teachers to help students place the 1963 school boycott in two broader historical contexts: African American activism during the civil rights movement, including high-school and college-student protest, and the persistence of residential and school segregation in northern cities. If you or your students would like more background on any of the above topics, consult the following resources:

Goin' to Chicago (01:09:24): In this streaming video, a group of longtime Chicago residents born in the Mississippi Delta returns to Greenville, Mississippi, for a reunion with family and friends. Participants talk about their lives and reasons for migrating north as part of the Great Migration.

Race: The Power of an Illusion (The House We Live In)(56:58): This streaming video, which is Episode 3 in the series, covers the history of housing segregation during the New Deal and after World War II.

Film clips and readings from Eyes on the Prize:

Two Societies (57:44): Episode 8 from the PBS documentary discusses how civil rights activists brought the movement to the urban centers of the North. Pages 117-132 of our Eyes on the Prize Study Guide provide resources and connection questions to supplement the episode.

Back to the Movement (57:29): Episode 14 explores old and new challenges that black communities faced 25 years after the civil rights struggle. The program follows the black communities of Miami and Chicago and chronicles their dramatically different responses to these challenges. Pages 214-218 of our Eyes on the Prize Study Guide cover the history of Harold Washington's successful Chicago mayoral campaign and may be especially interesting for students.

Teaching Tolerance offers useful resources to accompany the film The Children's March.

Newberry Library Digital Collections for the Classroom: The Newberry Library contains a wealth of primary sources and lesson ideas on twentieth-century Chicago history that will be of interest to teachers. Two collections in particular-"Chicago and the Great Migration, 1915-1950" and "The Struggle for Civil Rights in the Urban North"-address themes raised by this lesson.

The persistence of northern school segregation and racial discrimination that fueled the 1963 school boycott might be worth exploring with students. You might want to consider using the New York Times article "A Portrait of Segregation in New York City's Schools" to help students confront this legacy. Alternatively, you could use a more in-depth examination of racial injustice today to drive students' civic action projects in the next lesson.

Day 1

1. Place the 1963 School Boycott in Historical Context

Explain to students that in class today they will be learning about the 1963 Chicago Public Schools Boycott. Before students learn more about the school boycott, let them know that while school segregation was formally outlawed in Illinois in 1874, a combination of federal, local, and state policies kept schools segregated. In Chicago, school officials adjusted boundary lines during the years after World War II to ensure that school districts remained as segregated as the city's neighborhoods. Benjamin Willis, who was the school superintendent from 1953 to 1966, resisted desegregation efforts, even in the face of massive overcrowding in the city's predominantly African American neighborhood schools. Under Willis, the school district dealt with cramped classrooms by building what were called "Willis Wagons"-portable trailers for black students' classrooms-rather than sending them to under-capacity white schools.

Next, have students watch a video clip from the documentary '63 Boycott: Today Is Freedom Day (3:06), featuring eyewitness accounts from Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students attending the boycott. Pass out the handout 10 Questions Framework: Questions for the Past. As students watch the clip, ask them to take notes that will help them answer the first question on the handout (which also roughly corresponds to Question 1 from the 10 Questions Framework): What conditions were CPS students protesting in 1963? If time allows, consider showing the video twice so that students have time to both watch carefully and collect their notes. Ask volunteers to share their answers, and let students know that they will be learning more about the boycott in the next activity.

2. Consider How the 10 Questions Apply to the 1963 Chicago School Boycott

Explain to students that they will now be learning more about the 1963 Chicago school boycott and using the 10 Questions Framework they were introduced to in the previous lesson to understand the protests in greater depth. Start the reading Why MLK Encouraged 225,000 Chicago Kids to Cut Class in 1963 together as a class, with the teacher reading aloud until the paragraph that begins "Then, in 1961 . . . " and ends with "corralled in poor schools." Once you've finished reading, solicit ideas from the class for notes to add to the 10 Questions Framework: Questions for the Past handout. Students should be looking for evidence that helps them answer Questions 2-4 on the handout.

In pairs, ask students to continue to read the article and look for answers to Questions 2-4. Tell them to stop after every four paragraphs for notetaking and to change partners.

Once pairs have finished reading the article and writing their responses to Questions 2-4, ask volunteers to share their findings.

Day 2

1. Reflect on Dr. King's Advice to a Chicago Student Activist

Tell students that they will be hearing a different viewpoint on the ultimate impact of the Chicago school boycott than what is presented in the article they just read. (You may want to spend a minute with students reviewing the article's perspective on this issue beforehand.) Tell them that they will now be listening to an audio recording, Martin Luther King Jr. on School Desegregation in Chicago (4:16), of King giving advice to a disillusioned high-school student activist in Chicago in 1966. Ask students to take notes in response to the following question, which is Question 5 on the handout: According to Dr. King, what ultimate effect did the boycott have? If you have time, play the audio clip twice so that students have plenty of time to process it.

Lead a class discussion using the Fishbowl strategy in which volunteers share their answers, and then let students offer their own perspectives on the following bigger-picture questions:

Why do you think the article you read earlier and this 1966 interview differ in their interpretations of the impact of the 1963 boycott?

What is King's message to the student about social progress and the role of nonviolent protest in achieving societal change?

2. Grapple with the Meaning of "Success"

Using the Barometer teaching strategy, ask students to respond to the following prompt: The success or failure of a movement for social change should be determined by whether or not it provides immediate, tangible results.

Once students are settled in their positions, ask volunteers to share their thoughts at various places along the continuum. Advise students that they can change their initial opinions if they are persuaded by another classmate. Encourage students to refer to the information they've learned in the unit to support their positions.

Ask students to return to their desks. As a closing activity, have them write a note to the student who asked for Dr. King's advice, providing their own advice to the student. In their responses, students can agree or disagree with Dr. King, draw on examples from their own lives, or use what they've learned in the unit to support their conclusions.

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10 Questions for the Past: The 1963 Chicago Public Schools Boycott

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What historical conditions were students responding to when they walked out of class during the 1963 Chicago school boycott? What does "success" mean in the context of social change? How should we assess the impact of changemaking efforts?

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Reading Historical Events with 10 Qs: "Eyes on the Prize"

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Reading Historical Events with 10 Qs: "Eyes on the Prize"

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Teen Changemaker Film Project  at Turner Free Library

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Teen Changemaker Film Project  at Turner Free Library

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Turner Free Library, one of cohort libraries in the Young Changemakers in 21st Century Libraries, kicked off a new media project, "Teen Changmaker Film Project," inspired by the 10 Qs Framework.

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RANODOLPH -Angela Nerius, 17, stood behind the tripod with a straight back and eyes focused. After a few seconds of silence, she placed a finger on the camera.

"Action," she whispered.

The Randolph High junior spent Thursday of school vacation week participating in the Teen Changemaker Film Project at Turner Free Library. With help from library staff, 13 teens worked together to write, film and edit a video that will be shared next week on social media and the local cable channel. Its purpose was to highlight four social issues the teens consider important to their generation: discrimination by police, rights of women, rights of immigrants and the Black Lives Matter movement.

For the teens, the purpose was "to learn more about how they can get involved locally and nationally in civic engagement," Library Director Elizabeth LaRosee said.

The project was inspired by a Harvard University Democratic Knowledge Project called "10 Questions for Young Changemakers," LaRosee said. After asking questions such as "Why does it matter to me?" and "Where do we start?," the teens generated a list of issues, formed groups and set about writing scripts for four videos to be combined at the end of filming.

Each video took a different form, from a mini-documentary to a series of questions and answers. One video, in which teens held up signs about the Black Lives Matter movement, was almost completely silent.

Some of the young filmmakers said the issues have personal significance.

Jeremy Merveille, 18, a senior at Randolph High, said he experiences discrimination by police every day.

"I'm a black male. I get discriminated against constantly," he said. "Not just by police, but even just walking into a store."

Favour Eche, 17, is Nigerian-American. She said she often hears hurtful, inaccurate stereotypes about immigrants.

She said viewers will "open their mind to a different perception of what they had before, open their mind to other people's perspectives," after watching her video.

The film project is one of several teen programs held at the library.

"I'm hoping they understand that they have more power than they think they do as teenagers," LaRosee said.

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Teens' films shed light on social issues

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RANODOLPH -Angela Nerius, 17, stood behind the tripod with a straight back and eyes focused. After a few seconds of silence, she placed a finger on the camera."Action," she whispered.The Randolph High junior spent Thursday of school vacation week participating in the Teen Changemaker Film Project at Turner Free Library.

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Civic LibGuide from Milton Public Library

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Civic LibGuide from Milton Public Library

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Libraries are established guardians of diverse perspectives of information, created to protect and preserve information access and exchange in this new policy environment, facilitating and fueling deliberative democracy. As Candace Morgan states in the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Manual (2010), "A democratic society operates best when information flows freely and is freely available, and it is the library's unique responsibility to provide open, unfettered, and confidential access to that information. With information available and accessible, individuals have the tools necessary for self-improvement and participation in the political process." Libraries have informed local citizens ever since Benjamin Franklin founded the first public lending library, The Library Company, in 1731. His novel but radical idea of sharing information resources departed from the rest of the civilized world, where libraries were the property of the ruling classes and religion.

As communities become more distributed and less based on geographic proximity, the library is helping those who might otherwise have no other access to online communities participate in an active way in our society. Overall, Through their efforts, librarians have upheld the most sacred ideals of intellectual freedom, providing resources, services, facilities and enlightenment for all people, representing diverse points of view and safeguarding them from censorship. As stated in the preamble to the American Library Association's (ALA) 33 percent of users (25.5 million people) used their public library's computer and Internet resources to learn about social or political issues or to participate in community life. Of these users, 40 percent indicated they had undertaken activities in this area for a relative, friend, colleague, or someone else in the past year. Code of Ethics, "In a political system grounded in an informed citizenry, we are members of a profession explicitly committed to intellectual freedom and the freedom of access to information. We have a special obligation to ensure the free flow of information and ideas to present and future generations."

If Americans are waking up to their civic responsibilities, how can libraries be part of it? The library has long been a catalyst for democracy, protecting intellectual freedom and open access to information. Will libraries go beyond the mere distribution of information and, instead, become active civic agents? Rutgers University pro fessor Nancy Kranich has lo ng written on the role of libraries in civic discourse. For her, having a full-fledged democracy means that citizens must participate beyond just sending money to their favorite cause and candidate. That is why libraries are at a critical point, she says. "I think that the librarian community definitely understands that we are at a critical point in our nation's history," said Kranich. What's important, she adds, is that they must pivot to "recognize that they can play a key role in instilling the values and skills that young people need." This role of civic agency is begging to be defined-and then expanded into action-by local libraries and librarians.

The sole act of publishing data alone does not result in community change. Librarian of Congress Archibald Macleish (1940, p. 388) once avowed that "librarians must become active, not passive, agents of the democratic process." As Dewey once wrote, "democracy needs to be reborn in each generation and education is its midwife" (1916, p. 22). If libraries are to fulfill their civic mission in the information age, they must find active ways to engage community members in democratic discourse and community renewal. For, as Robert Putnam has stated parsimoniously, "Citizenship is not a spectator sport." Focusing solely on informing citizens is insufficient to equip them to participate in our 21st century democracy. In short, a strong democracy needs libraries to go beyond providing access to information to delivering informal learning opportunities and spaces for citizens to engage in the civic life of their communities.

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LibGuides: Civics At The Milton Public Library: Home

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Libraries are established guardians of diverse perspectives of information, created to protect and preserve information access and exchange in this new policy environment, facilitating and fueling deliberative democracy. As Candace Morgan states in the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Manual (2010), "A democratic society operates best when information flows freely and is freely available, and it is the library's unique responsibility to provide open, unfettered, and confidential access to that information.

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Watch this short video clip about 1Questions

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Danielle Allen on the Ten Questions for Changemakers (7' 38")

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The Ten Questions for Change Makers serves as a tool for reflection before action, by which young people can contemplate possible consequences of their choices of action. This process can help young people develop into more equitable, efficacious, and self-protective civic actors themselves, whatever the type. See more at https://yppactionframe.fas.harvard.edu/

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Teaching American History- The American Founding collection focuses on the Constitutional Convention, the Federalist-Anti Federalist Debates, the Ratification of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and more.

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Democratic Knowledge Project- Cambridge School District Civic Action Curriculum (8th)

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Democratic Knowledge Project- Cambridge School District Civic Action Curriculum (8th)

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In progress

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Community Action Project from Shrewsbury High School

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Community Action Project from Shrewsbury High School

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By Melanie Petrucci, Senior Community Reporter

Shrewsbury - Students at Shrewsbury High School are working to become "changemakers" - to work actively to affect positive social change.

English teacher Kelly Lawlor came up with the idea for the Changemaker Project as a learning opportunity for her 10 th-grade honors English classes.

"Thanks to a Shrewsbury Education Foundation (SEF) grant, students have been working on this year-long service learning endeavor where the overall focus of the project is for students to create positive change within our community," she said

The genesis was when the students read a book last summer called "Unwind" as part of their summer reading. It was a dystopian novel where the protagonist wanted to create positive change and move society forward.

"We started with that intangible abstract kind of idea and how we could make change in our communities," she explained.

Lawlor invited members of the school administration and the SEF to a recent event where students met with experts within the greater Shrewsbury community to enhance the work they are doing for their own projects.

These students, throughout the year, are trying to make a change for the better in the community. They are speaking with people who are working in nonprofits or other organizations that are related to the topic that they have been working on.

These areas included poverty, education, equal rights and the environment. There were a number of experts on hand within each of these primary areas for the students to meet.

"It's fun and it's definitely engaging with the community," shared sophomore Meera, whose area of interest was education.

When asked if she thought they were making any changes, she said, "probably not that big on such a big scale but I feel like we are trying as much as we can on the local level."

Students were able to learn first-hand from experts in small group discussions on climate change and green initiatives within Shrewsbury as well as have conversations with ambassadors from groups including the Worcester Animal Rescue League, Abby's House, the Grafton Community Harvest Project, the Worcester County Food Bank and Project Bread's Walk for Hunger.

Eben Bein, field coordinator from Our Climate, said: "It was really fun to see the students transition from 'here's the nature of the problem, here is the nature of the solution to here is our role in the solution.' It was cool to see their faces light up - it's empowering."

Some of the students' projects included making student backpacks and food care kits and planning a field trip to the Grafton-based Community Harvest Project.

The Changemaker Project concludes in June when students give their final presentations.

Photos/Melanie Petrucci

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Shrewsbury High students seek to change the world through school project

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By Melanie Petrucci, Senior Community Reporter Shrewsbury - Students at Shrewsbury High School are working to become "changemakers" - to work actively to affect positive social change. English teacher Kelly Lawlor came up with the idea for the Changemaker Project as a learning opportunity for her 10 th-grade honors English classes.

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10 Questions for the Present: Parkland Student Activism

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10 Questions for the Present: Parkland Student Activism

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How have Parkland students tried to influence Americans to take action on gun violence? In what ways have they been successful?

What obstacles have the students encountered?

Students will identify strategies and tools the Parkland students have used to raise consciousness and influence Americans to take action to reduce gun violence.

Students will discuss risks faced by the Parkland students and safeguards that might protect them from those risks in their future civic-political participation.

In this lesson, students will analyze how a 2018 high-school mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, spurred a group of student survivors to become passionate activists against gun violence. They will examine the tools used by their peers on the front lines of a burgeoning social movement-including their engagement with social media and journalism, their electoral strategies, and their internal organization. Students will put themselves in their peer activists' shoes and use the 10 Questions Framework to examine in detail how the Parkland students led the way for the nationwide #NeverAgain protest. In the process, they will explore their own feelings toward their Parkland peers and the lessons they can learn from them.

In February 2018, a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, resulted in a group of student survivors raising their voices for school safety and gun control, refusing to let the incident be remembered as just another tragedy. New-media tools gave them great leverage to amplify their voices and influence with local and national lawmakers. Their bold action, consolidated on social media around the hashtag #NeverAgain, gained nationwide attention. Celebrities showed support for the movement, and ordinary individuals joined their protests. School walkouts were organized in several cities across the country, in which thousands of students took part. The Parkland students' activism demonstrates how young people, often sidelined from political institutions because they can't vote, can turn into powerful civic actors and drive social change on a large scale.

The digital realm, however, is adversarial at the same time as it is rich with resources and opportunities. "In a digital realm," as Harvard professor Danielle Allen puts it, "anyone can change in an instant from a private to a fully public person, from being a kid doing homework to a celebrity." Allen also adds, "Whereas child and teen actors have whole teams of people to help them think about their public persona, and how celebrity distorts one's personal life, young civic agents who experience this phenomenon are infrequently prepared for it." Some might fall prey to fabricated news, hostility, and personal attacks from anonymous sources. Furthermore, deep partisan fissures fuel anxiety and animosity surrounding student activism.

How can teachers help students protect themselves from those new kinds of dangers and achieve their civic-political aspirations? Question 2 in the 10 Questions Framework ("How much should I share?") helps students prepare for the pitfalls of digital platforms. It is important that students give forethought to their "public persona" and to the question of how much of their personal lives they would like to give over to the public sphere. This lesson also orients students to think about the difference between voice and influence in relation to Question 8, prompting them to reflect on the lessons they can draw from the Parkland students as they embark on their own paths of civic engagement.

1. Tackling Controversial Issues in the Classroom
This lesson uses Parkland student activism as a contemporary case study of student agency, which many students might find relevant to their own lives. But this particular example is not an easy one to discuss in the classroom. First, the movement began with a moment of horrific violence, which might be unfamiliar to some students and all too familiar for others. What's more, the Parkland case centers around school safety and gun-control policy, topics that divide the nation along partisan lines.

For these reasons, it is important to make students aware that the purpose of this lesson is for them to analyze and learn from the civic activism of students in Parkland, not to join or take sides in the debate over gun regulation. Be sure to establish ground rules or a class contract (if you haven't done so already) to help keep the lesson focused and civil.

2. Preparing to Show the VICE News Video in Class
This lesson includes the VICE News video How Parkland Students Went from Teens to Activists (09:35). This video provides an accessible and in-depth look at the actions students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School took after the mass shooting at their school in 2018 to raise consciousness and influence Americans to take action to reduce gun violence. This video is hosted for VICE on YouTube, and it may trigger an advertisement when you view it. Facing History cannot control whether an advertisement appears or the content it may include. We recommend that you preview and cue the video before class to avoid showing the ad.

1. Introduce Parkland Student Activism

Introduce the lesson by briefly explaining to students that in February of 2018, a gunman opened fire at a high school in Parkland, Florida. In response, student survivors of the shooting raised their voices for school safety and against gun violence, refusing to let the incident be remembered as just another tragedy.

Share the VICE video How Parkland Students Went from Teens to Activists (09:35). Before playing the video, pass out the handout 10 Questions Framework: Parkland Viewing Guide and tell students that they will be trying to answer as many of the questions from the framework as they can. Time permitting, show the video twice so that students have plenty of time to complete the handout.

Ask students to share their answers, first in a Think, Pair, Share and then as a class.

2. Explore Parkland Activism through the 10 Questions

Next, have students read four readings on the Parkland student movement using the Jigsaw teaching strategy. Begin by dividing the class into four "expert" groups, and pass out one of the following readings to each group:

Project or write on the board 10 Questions Framework Poster and tell students that they will be referring to these questions throughout the lesson:

1. Why does it matter to them?

2. How much do they share?

3. How do they make it about more than themselves?

4. Where did they start? How do they make it easy and engaging?

5. How do they get wisdom from crowds?

6. How do they handle the downside of crowds?

7. Are they pursuing voice or influence or both?

8. How do they get from voice to change?

9. How do they find allies?

Explain to students that each "expert" group will read together the group's assigned reading, pick one question from the framework that they believe is especially relevant to the article, and discuss how the Parkland students addressed the question, using evidence from their reading. Then divide the class into new "teaching" groups. The members of each "teaching" group should all have read a different reading in their "expert" groups. Instruct each student to summarize his or her "expert" group's reading for the new "teaching" group and share their selected question from the framework as well as highlights from their group discussion. Reconvene as a class and ask a member of each "teaching" group to share their article and discussion with the class.

3. Connect Parkland Activism to Students' Lives

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10 question framework choose to participate

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10 Questions for the Present: Parkland Student Activism

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How have Parkland students tried to influence Americans to take action on gun violence? In what ways have they been successful? What obstacles have the students encountered? Students will identify strategies and tools the Parkland students have used to raise consciousness and influence Americans to take action to reduce gun violence.

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"The Ten Questions are not just an add-on to my project. They bring in a new critical lens through which my students can read the historical figures and events from a participatory democracy outlook." - Sohyun An

Soh yun An, associate professor of education at Kennesaw State University, teaches an elementary social studies methods course. She applies the Ten Questions in a class project in which elementary preservice teachers research and an act out the lives of influential but unrecognized female activists in a role play called Unsung Women Change Agents.

Despite persistent marginalization and disenfranchisement throughout American history, women have bravely stood up against those patriarchal forces to fight for their vision of a more just world. But for every Rosa Parks or Susan B. Anthony, many, many more activists remain relatively unknown, left out of school textbooks and lost to public memory. In An's class, preservice teachers explore the forgotten stories of the women who have sparked social change in America. Using the Ten Questions, preservice teachers identified such a female change makers and wrote narratives about their life and civic efforts. One day in March, participants threw a tea party in which they role played their selected change makers based on these narratives. See the original description of the project here.

In 2017, KSU preservice teachers wrote about a wide range of women from throughout American history who pushed for a number of different of causes, like Grace Lee Boggs, Lee Miller, Helen Keller, Lillian Smith, Eliza Briggs, Elizabeth Blackwell, and Bella Savitsky Abzug. Their narratives were introduced in student-made brochures based on the Ten Questions.

What made An adopt the Ten Questions framework for her project? An has been avoiding a superhero-centered approach to history education, especially at the elementary level. She says the Ten Question framework allows her to explore civic activists without falling into hero worship. "[The] Ten Questions are not just an add-on to my project," she said, "but they bring in a critical lens through which my students can analyze the historical figures from a participatory democracy outlook. Our democracy is not built on the epics of a few superheroes but on the sacrifice and collective efforts made by a great number of ordinary citizens. The latter is as important as - sometimes more important than - the former."

See the student projects listed below.

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"The Ten Questions are not just an add-on to my project. They bring in a new critical lens through which my students can read the historical figures and events from a participatory democracy outlook." - Sohyun An Soh yun An, associate professor of education at Kennesaw State University, teaches an elementary social studies methods course.

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For Freedoms -- Brookline Public Library

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For Freedoms -- Brookline Public Library

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Photos: Brookline teens speak out for freedoms

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You may have noticed some signs outside the Public Library of Brookline's main branch. They're part of a collaboration between the library, the Brookline Teen Center and the Public Schools of Brookline, representing "the hopes of Brookline's teens for their lives, their communities, their country, and their world," according to an explanation posted with the signs.

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Individual 10Qs Posters

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Sixties activists insisted the personal is political. Change-makers in the digital age get that idea, and one-up it with another rallying cry: the political is social and cultural. Your platforms and digital strategies need to make this principle count, so that you, your peers, and your audiences engage each other, and the allies you all want, in high-quality, equitable, and effective participation in digital-age civics, activism, and politics.

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Danielle Allen's Washington Post Opinion

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Opinion | Ten questions for the Parkland kids

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As I watch high school students around the country enter the fight over gun control, I feel proud of their civic spirit but also worry on their behalf. Without doubt, young people have invaluable insight into where our society is healthy and where it is not, and we have for too long overlooked the important contributions they can make to setting our political agenda.

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Visual Queue- "Why Does It Matter to Me?"

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Visual Queue- "Why Does It Matter to Me?"

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The Bill of Rights Institute- A wide range of resources including videos from founding documents, quotations, constitutional principles, American civic principles, to materials on civil disobedience.

Center for Action Civics- A model for action civics featuring curriculum and resources for promoting student voice and agency in the classroom and beyond.

Center for Civic Education- Lesson plans and resources on a wide range of topics and issues from 9/11 and the Constitution, voting, women’s history, black history, and more.

Choices Program- Brown University’s education initiative that connects classrooms to news headlines featuring videos and lessons on a range of controversial and contemporary topics such as U.S.-China trade tensions, transgender issues, immigration, gerrymandering, election interference, the Syrian crisis, ethnic cleansing, and more.

Civics Renewal Network- Resources on citizenship, the branches of government, courts, media literacy, state/local government, and rights and responsibilities of government organized by grade level appropriateness.

Constitute Project- A database of constitutions from across the globe with search tools to navigate and identify features of constitutions such as amendments, national identity, elections, rights and duties, and principles and symbols. A global and comparative approach to exploring governing principles and founding documents.

Constitutional Rights Foundation- Lessons that promote critical thinking and interactive learning around topics and problems with a civics emphasis such as school violence, the War in Iraq, terrorism, refugees, Supreme Court cases, and more.

Constitutional Rights Foundation Educating about Immigration- An issue-focused approach to studying immigration that includes laws, history, and the voices of immigrants past and present.

The Constitutional Sources Project- a user-friendly, searchable database of documents, lesson plans, and videos focusing on the Constitution.

C-Span Classroom- Lesson plans and resources designed around C-SPAN coverage and video footage.

The Library of Congress’ Congress, Civic Participation, and Primary Source Projects- A series of projects featuring Library of Congress source material.

National Endowment for the Humanities- Over four hundred searchable lessons and materials on history and social studies.

NewseumED- Resources that explore media literacy with contemporary issues and problems related to civic themes and topics.

Oyez- Provides case history and summaries of Supreme Court cases.

United States Courts Educational Resources- Resources that focus on the Supreme Court but also state and local courts.

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Youth Participatory Action Research  (8th Grade)

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Youth Participatory Action Research  (8th Grade)

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1. Why does it matter to me?

Start with the experiences and interests you and your friends already can't get enough of, and connect that engagement to civic and political themes. Popular culture fandom, for example, is a great source to harness. Overall, you and your peers know a lot about a lot, and you've got all sorts of authentic ways to bring your friends on board. Use that expertise to build traction for your cause by finding unexpected alignments. And take the time to figure out why your passion matters to you.

→ Why does this issue matter to you? How does it affect you or others around you?

2. How much should I share?

Take heed: real names can help foster better dialogues, but they can also put people at risk and discourage taking positions or acting on controversial issues. Consider how much you should share. Which part of your persona do you want to see live online? Can you keep your offline and online selves separate? If so, how? Or do you have to expect them to merge? Which features of your offline responsibilities and roles should limit what you do online? Help your community consider how different audiences may react to their posts and how a post might impact them years down the road. Give them choices about how much to disclose, and make it possible for them to change their minds.

→ Decide how much you want to share about WHY this issue matters to you. Perhaps you want to share some personal thoughts and stories, but not everything.

3. How do I make it more than just myself?

How can you and your community take it from "I" to "we"? Help your users think of themselves as part of something bigger. Can you expand the network of engagement for yourself and your users by actively rewarding authenticity, accuracy, truth-telling, and bridge-building across social divides?

→ Research your issue and find supporting evidence that quantifies and qualifies your issue.

Can you make use of spaces where you and your friends and associates already gather to connect and pursue shared interests? (Hint: for right now at least, text and mobile are key). Perhaps you're interested in building a stand-alone platform? Think twice before you do. A custom platform is easier for opponents to hack and probably harder for your friends to use, than a common mainstream, commercial platform. But remember that existing platforms have their own cultures, which you'll need to consider and fit into.

→ Consider where you see your issue in your community.

→ What are people in your community saying about this issue?

5. How can we make is easy and engaging for others to join in?

Think early and often about your target audience. How can you engineer an array of entry-points and pathways to participation for your community? Where are the opportunities for light-touch engagement that is potentially powerful in itself and also a possible gateway into deeper involvement? Make acting easy, so your users can co-produce your civic and political engagement.

→ Brainstorm ways you get others in your community to help you with this issue?

6. How do we get wisdom from crowds?

Create openings for your friends, associates, and even strangers to dig into, verify, challenge, and contribute to the knowledge-base you provide, and stay open to evolving purposes. Don't act like you know the whole story. Because you don't. There is wisdom in crowds.

→ Conduct data surveys and analyze the results.

→ Conduct interviews or find diverse perspectives on your issue.

7. How do we handle the downside from crowds?

Do you know how you would respond? Is your platform or digital strategy being overtaken by a sub-group of users? How can you keep the nastiness out of crowds? Do you need moderators? Algorithms? Special functions? The goal is to keep your community open and democratic, and that also means protecting it from those who misuse that freedom and opportunity.

→ How would you respond to those who may disagree with you?

8. Are we pursing voice, influence, or both?

Changing what people care about already makes a difference, and just getting your views into the public conversation is meaningful. Making the invisible visible is already an important civic and political action and a form of activism. Are you also trying to drive change beyond visibility? You'll need that raised awareness to elevate civic and political engagement over time.

→ Consider what awareness you want to spread, what is needed, and the most effective form of spreading awareness in our school community.

9. How do we get from voice to change?

If so, you'll need to move beyond raising awareness to mobilize specific actions on the basis of the attention you manage to get. How can you get traction-real change in concrete practices, institutions, and policies? The research shows that this often comes from a mix of digital and face-to-face organizing. But it's also possible to achieve influence with online-only tactics. Make sure you know what your targets are, and what changes you want to see. Then you can figure out whether building numbers online and taking aim at your target's reputation, or criss-crossing the line into hybrid online-offline efforts makes more sense.

→ How do you get from spreading awareness about your issue to creating a positive change in regards to your issue? What ACTIONS can you and your community do right now to create change?

10. How can we find allies?

It makes sense to call on institutional power holders like established organizations or influential individuals who can support your interests. Gaining influence requires building alliances with people who control decisions over policies and institutions. But it can be hard to reach people in power. What's more, how can you engage with power players in a way that benefits your cause and also empowers you? The answer often involves connecting with allies who can provide mentorship and broker on your behalf, being creative in your methods, and seeking elites in a variety of places--sometimes beyond the usual suspects.

→ What can those who agree with you do to help? What is something they can do right now to create change and become a part of the community?

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Youth Participatory Action Research (civics)

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Melissa Strelke, a teacher at Frontier Regional High School at Deerfield, MA, folded the Ten Questions framework into her school-wide youth participatory action research project for the 8th graders. (The original post is "Example 5: Youth Participatory Action Research for the 8th Grade Civics")

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10 Questions for the Future: Student Action Project

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10 Questions for the Future: Student Action Project

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Students create a plan for enacting change on an issue that they are most passionate about using the 10 Questions Framework.

Civics & Citizenship

History

Social Studies

Democracy & Civic Engagement

The resources I'm getting from my colleagues through Facing History have been just invaluable.

- Claudia Bautista, Santa Monica, Calif

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10 Questions for the Future: Student Action Project

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Students create a plan for enacting change on an issue that they are most passionate about using the 10 Questions Framework.

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Unsung Women Changemaker - Grace Lee Boggs with 10Qs

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Unsung Women Changemaker - Grace Lee Boggs with 10Qs

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Bullying, Gun Violence, Racism.

These are some of the political concerns that Randolph youths feel deserve more consideration at the local and national level.

In October, Turner Free Library partnered with the national For Freedoms media campaign to shine a light on these topics. Currently, the lawn of the Turner Free Library is speckled with dozens of For Freedom lawn signs that explicitly address these concerns. For Freedoms "is a platform for greater participation in the arts and in civil society" and "advocate for inclusive civic participation."

Given that teen and tweens cannot vote, the library wanted to ensure that they are given the opportunity to share their voices with the larger community. While creating these visually stunning signs, Randolph's teens and tweens felt empowered to share their unique perspectives with their community.

Library Director Elizabeth LaRosee maintains that "each sign tells a distinct and moving story about the passion that motivates and inspires Randolph's youth."

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Bullying, Gun Violence, Racism. These are some of the political concerns that Randolph youths feel deserve more consideration at the local and national level. In October, Turner Free Library partnered with the national For Freedoms media campaign to shine a light on these topics.

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Participate.

The Digital Civics Toolkit is a collection of resources for educators to support youth to explore, recognize, and take seriously the civic potentials of digital life. The Toolkit draws on the research and work of the The Toolkit explores a range of civic opportunities and dilemmas via 5 modules focused on: Exploring Community Issues, Investigation, Dialogue, Voice, and Action. MacArthur Research Network on Youth and Participatory Politics (YPP).

We invite you to explore the modules and choose the resources that best meet the interests and needs of your students, classroom, and community. The modules were designed for high school students but can be adapted for earlier grades. Each module contains a conversation starter, several activities, and a closing reflection with very broad suggestions. Depending on the age and level of your students, you may need to integrate additional scaffolding and supports. If you would like to dig deeper into concepts, there are links to extension activities. For more information on the ideas in each module, we provide a Teacher Background Information with links to articles, blogs, videos, and further resources.

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Participate. The Digital Civics Toolkit is a collection of resources for educators to support youth to explore, recognize, and take seriously the civic potentials of digital life. The Toolkit draws on the research and work of the The Toolkit explores a range of civic opportunities and dilemmas via 5 modules focused on: Exploring Community Issues, Investigation, Dialogue, Voice, and Action.

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Visual Queue - "How Much Should I Share?"

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Visual Queue - "How Much Should I Share?"

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Kevan Ottochian teaches Government and US history at Warwick Valley High School in Warwick, NY. He incorporated the 10 Questions framework into a final student assignment, "Participation in Government: The American Project." Students began by analyzing the government's performance based on a few major federal policies. Then they interviewed other members of the community to see how they evaluated government performances on those policies; students conducted interviews with three adults (from inside and outside of WVHS) and two WVHS (11th or 12th grade) students. Synthesizing the results, students ultimately wrote letters to influence specific policymakers with concrete suggestions for change. The 10 Questions structure was used to guide effective letter writing. See more below.

1. Conduct interview of 5 individuals: 3 adults (from inside and outside of WVHS) and 2 WVHS (11th or 12th grade) students.

2. Participants can NOT be from this Government class.

3. May include yourself as 1 participant.

4. If adult or student already took survey, they can NOT be used twice.

5. Each participant will answer a series of questions. See attached documents.

1. Construct 1 tweet based on Task 1 and 2 of the project. Convey your message!

2. Will be graded using the tweet rubric.

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Kevan Ottochian teaches Government and US history at Warwick Valley High School in Warwick, NY. He incorporated the 10 Questions framework into a final student assignment, "Participation in Government: The American Project." Students began by analyzing the government's performance based on a few major federal policies.

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Political discussion and debate are core practices for achieving this purpose. In her book, " The Political Classroom: Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education," Diana Hess said,

Democratic education without controversial issues discussion would be like a forest without trees or fish without water, or symphony without sound. Why? Because controversy about the nature of the public good and how to achieve it, along with how to mediate among competing democratic values, are intrinsic to democracy. If there is no controversy, there is no democracy.

How can educators make use of the Ten Questions Framework to facilitate fruitful discussion? Danielle Leek, a former president of the National Debate Tournament, shares three of her strategies:

Enacting History

Role-playing doesn't have to be the province of ancient history. Perspective taking can occur by asking students to take on roles associated with more recent civic events.

1. Choose a recent a civic issue related to your class. For example: students in health fields (such as nursing, public health, etc.) can be asked to explore the recent debate in Massachusetts over Safe Needle Clinics.

2. Assign each student a "perspective" (I do this randomly by drawing from a hat). Perspectives may include: a health care worker at a local hospital, a journalist, a former drug user, a family member of a drug user, etc.

3. Ask the students to prepare a 10 minute "skit" that highlights all the perspectives involved. Use the Ten Questions as a post-activity assignment where students think about the answers from their own perspective, and the perspective of their assigned role.

Policy Debate

1. Assign students to one or more sides of a "resolution" related to your course (for example, "Resolved: The State of Massachusetts should prohibit new highrises in the Seaport District").

2. Students should debate the topic, then design campaigns to support a position on the topic. Use the Ten Questions as a guide for each step in the process.

Comparing History

1. Choose a civic issue relevant to your course. For example, in a music course, we discussed the 1800s debate in New England over the use of bands as part of presidential campaigns, which was very controversial at that time. Some citizens wanted the musicians banned because it took away from the "substance" of the campaign, etc.

2. Consider the Ten Questions from this context. Now, highlight a more recent example-for instance, the current relationships between musicians and politics. Now have students consider the Ten Questions again and have them think about how civic agency has changed. (I use this same assignment and example in a political communication course.)

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Political discussion and debate are core practices for achieving this purpose. In her book, " The Political Classroom: Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education," Diana Hess said, Democratic education without controversial issues discussion would be like a forest without trees or fish without water, or symphony without sound. Why?

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Young Changemakers in 21st Century Libraries

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Young Changemakers in 21st Century Libraries

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LibGuides: Young Changemakers in 21st Century Libraries: Resources for Using the 10 Questions

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Resource page for the IMLS-funded pilot project from Democratic Knowledge Project and MA Library System

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Social Identity Wheel linked with 10 Questions Framework

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Social Identity Wheel linked with 10 Questions Framework

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https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/inclusive-teaching/?s=social+identity+wheel

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"Do You Have Power": 10 Qs for Young Changemakers

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"Do You Have Power": 10 Qs for Young Changemakers

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Democratic Knowledge Project- The  Mass. Library System Meeting i

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Democratic Knowledge Project- The  Mass. Library System Meeting i