Agency, Choice, and Action

About This Lesson

All too often, when reflecting on moments of decision-making in life and in literature, we can be quick to say what someone should have done without considering the risks and rewards involved in their choices, nor the many factors impacting their agency in the moment. 

In this lesson, students engage in a jigsaw activity to read and discuss a collection of coming-of-age personal narrative essays written by young people. The resources and activities support them to engage with complex questions about the relationship between someone’s agency and their choice of action or inaction in moments that might feel uncomfortable, or even scary. Engaging with these questions deepens students’ understanding of human behavior, while also inviting them to draw connections to their own lives and experiences.

Essential Question

How do I empower myself to take action on behalf of myself and others?

Guiding Questions

• What factors might impact an individual or group’s agency in a given situation? 
• How can analyzing an individual’s choices and decision-making process help us to understand the relationship between someone’s agency and their choice of action or inaction?

Facing History Learning Outcomes

• Engage with real and imagined stories that help them understand their own coming-of-age experiences and how others experience the world.
• Identify examples of injustice and unfairness in the literature they read and in the world today. Examine how an individual’s identity, group membership, and relationship to systems of inequity can impact their sense of who they are and their agency when faced with a moral dilemma or choice.

Activities

Activity 1: Review Exit Tickets to Improve “Coverage”

Take a few minutes at the start of class to address any “coverage” issues that emerged in the exit cards from the previous lesson.

Activity 2: Read and Discuss Young-Adult Personal Narrative Essays

• Explain to students that they will be reading and discussing personal narrative essays in which young people describe moments in their lives when they had or didn’t feel like they had agency. Divide the class into groups of four and explain the Jigsaw strategy. Give students in each group copies of one of the following personal narrative essays: The Man Box, T.S.A. and Cinnamon Buns, Safia’s Story, or José’s Story. Each student also needs a copy of the Analyzing Actions and Outcomes handout. 
• Instruct “expert” groups to read their texts and to work together to complete the graphic organizer on the first page of the handout. Then let them know that they should discuss the first three questions on the second page of the handout. 
• Have students move into new “teaching” groups of four so there is one student with each reading in the group. Groups should start by having each member briefly summarize their narrative and then discuss questions 3 and 4 together. Debrief as a class, focusing the conversation on questions 3 and 4. 
  • How much agency does your character feel like they have at this moment? 
  • What can you learn from the character’s decision-making process or the text as a whole that can help you understand the relationship between someone’s agency and their choice of action or inaction?

Activity 3: Reflect on New Understanding

Use the Text-to-Text, Text-to-Self, Text-to-World teaching strategy for a final reflection in journals or on the strategy’s handout. If time allows, have students share one idea in a Wraparound.

Activity 4: Read and Annotate “As You Were” Part 1

Let students know that for the next two lessons, they will be reading and discussing the short-fiction piece “As You Were” and reflecting on the relationship between belonging and agency and the ways in which both can impact a young person’s decision-making process. Instruct students to read and annotate the first part of “As You Were.” You may have taught specific annotation strategies that you want your students to use. Or you can instruct them to try the following: 

• Place a heart by moments in the story that resonate with you, perhaps because of who you are or your experiences in the world.
• Place a question mark in places where you feel confused, perhaps because you don’t understand a vocabulary term or the author assumes you know something you don’t know.
• Place emoji (smiling, frowning, angry, etc.) by moments that elicit an emotional response.
• Underline places where you see the narrator have a sense of belonging and a sense of agency.