10 Questions for the Future: Student Action Project

About This Lesson

This lesson is intended as a culminating activity to inspire students to apply the 10 Questions Framework to issues they are most passionate about. The final assessment for the unit provides links to other resources from Harvard’s Democratic Knowledge Project website that will help students transfer the knowledge gained from their unit of study into tangible opportunities to take action in their community. While this lesson provides a framework for introducing final projects, it does not offer explicit guidance on how to design a project. For this reason, before implementing this lesson, teachers need to be clear about what types of action-oriented projects they want to adopt for this unit (using the links we provide or their own project ideas). They will also need to consider how they will tailor the 10 Questions Framework to the interests and needs of their students. See the Notes to Teacher section for more information.

Guiding Questions

How can the 10 Questions Framework help you plan a course of action to address an issue or problem that you care about?

Learning Objectives

• Students will define an issue that matters to them and identify short- and long-term goals for enacting change on that issue.
• Students will spell out the specific strategies to achieve their goals that align with their long-term and short-term visions.

Activities

Activity 1: Define an Issue

Open the lesson by asking students to reflect on what it means to take civic action by choosing to respond to one of the following quotes in their journals. Pass out the handout Quotations from Changemakers and ask students to respond to one or more of these quotes in their journals. Students can respond to the quote in any way they choose, including explaining why it resonates with them, what they like or dislike about it, or its intended meaning.

Once students have responded privately, ask them to return to their initial responses to Questions 1 and 2 from the framework, which they began to explore in Lesson 1: “What do I care about?” and “Why does it matter to me?” Tell students to reread their previous answers and underline one to three sentences that they want to dig into more deeply after using the framework to analyze two case studies of student activism. Next, have students start a new entry that explores one of the sentences they underlined. They might write about new understandings, raise new questions, or expand on personal connections to the material. Time allowing, invite volunteers to share ideas from their reflections with the class.

Activity 2: Connect to the 10 Questions Framework

Pass out copies of the 10 Questions Framework: Questions for Me handout. Tell students that they will explore their ideas from Lesson 1 in more detail in a new response on their handouts (Questions 1 and 2).

Once students have identified an issue that matters to them, ask them to detail the goals that they want to achieve on that issue. Ask them to identify both a short-term and long-term goal (Question 3 on the handout).

Ask students to select two or three questions from the 10 Questions Framework that will most help them achieve their short- and long-term goals (Question 4 on the handout). For instance, if a student’s goal is to accomplish policy change on a specific issue, they may want to choose Question 9 (“How do you get from voice to influence?”) and Question 10 (“How do you find allies?”).

Once students have chosen their questions, give them time to think about how they will address the questions through specific actions. For instance, if they want to address Question 10, they may want to co-sponsor a forum with local community organizations. Students should write their ideas in the column marked “Answer.”

Debrief students’ responses to the questions on the handout using the Concentric Circles strategy so that students have the opportunity to share ideas with a number of different classmates. Then give them time to add any new ideas to their handouts.

To close the lesson, ask students to reflect on the following quote from civil rights activist Franklin McCain: “Inevitably, people will ask me, ‘What can I do?’ What kind of question is that? Look around you. Once you identify what you want to do, don’t ask for the masses to help you because they won’t come.”

• How do you interpret McCain’s quote? How have the youth you’ve studied in this unit embodied McCain’s philosophy?
• What have you learned from this unit that will help you heed McCain’s advice?