Choosing to Participate

About This Lesson

In the previous lesson, students explored how the legacies of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust live on through the stories of survivors and their descendants. This lesson brings students into the “Choosing to Participate” stage of the Facing History scope and sequence by asking them to consider how our memory and understanding of history inspires and guides our choices in the world today. In particular, this lesson invites students to envision the ways that they themselves might contribute to the process of creating a more humane, just, and compassionate world.

Legal scholar Martha Minow has observed that one of the biggest barriers that individuals face in getting involved is that it is hard to know what actual steps to take: “Often times we see something that's unjust and we wonder, ‘Where do I go? What do I do?’” In an effort to help individuals identify concrete actions to take when they “choose to participate,” Minow developed a “levers of power” framework to map out the organizations, institutions, and technologies that can enable us to strengthen the impact of our voices and our actions. In this lesson, students will learn about these “levers” of power and analyze how some individuals and communities have strategically used them to make change. Students will then have the opportunity to think about which levers are most accessible to them personally and how they might use these to bring about changes they would like to see in their own communities.

Essential Questions

How can learning about the choices people made during past episodes of injustice, mass violence, or genocide help guide our choices today?

Guiding Questions

• What must individuals do and value in order to bring about a more humane, just, and compassionate world and a more democratic society?
• How can we determine the most effective way to make a difference in our neighborhood, our nation, and the world? Which strategies are best for bringing about the changes we want to see?

Learning Objectives

• Students will be able to explain the term “levers of power” and recognize how individuals strategically use organizations, institutions, and technologies to make social or political change.
• Students will use the “levers of power” framework to identify ways they can bring about positive change in their communities.

Lesson Plan

Activity 1: Reflect on What It Means to Be an Upstander 

Tell students that they have learned about a variety of choices and actions from history in this unit that we might categorize as “upstander behavior.” To begin this lesson, ask them to review some of those examples and then respond to the following prompt:

What examples of upstander behavior from this unit were most meaningful to you? Which provide models for how you might act as an upstander in your life today?

Ask students to share some of their examples, perhaps using the Wraparound strategy. As students name examples, emphasize the range of ways that an individual can act as an upstander—a range that includes both public and private acts, as well as extraordinary and mundane ones. Tell students that in this lesson, they will analyze a variety of contemporary examples of upstander behavior.

Activity 2: Introduce “Levers of Power” 

Explain to students that they are going to think about what it takes to get involved in making their school, community, and country better, more humane places. Explain that one of the biggest barriers that individuals face in getting involved is that it is hard to know what actual steps to take. As legal scholar Martha Minow puts it: “Often times we see something that's unjust and we wonder, ‘Where do I go? What do I do?’”

Now explain to students that they will look at a framework for planning what to do in order to respond to injustice and make positive changes in society.

Distribute the handout Analyzing Levers of Power. Spend a moment exploring the metaphor of the lever in the title. Ask students to define the meaning of the word lever, and then ask them to make an inference about what the phrase “levers of power” might mean. Tell students that in a literal sense, a lever is a tool that allows one to pick up or move something much heavier than could be lifted without it. In other words, a lever allows someone to use a small amount of force to have a big impact.

Briefly walk students through each category on the second side of the handout, which outlines the individuals, organizations, and technology platforms that can have this sort of amplifying effect at a societal level. By influencing or making use of these “levers,” individuals might have a larger impact on their community or society.

Ask students to come up with examples of individuals or groups that belong to each category in order to make sure that everyone understands them.

Activity 3: Analyze Strategies for Making Change 

Students will use the “levers of power” framework to analyze examples of individuals who “chose to participate.”

In teams of two, assign students one of the following readings:
Alternatively, if time permits, you can preview each reading for students and have them select the reading that appeals to them the most from a table at the front of the classroom. (See the Notes to Teacher section for suggestions about customizing the readings for this activity.)

• What Difference Can a Word Make?
• Bullying at School
• The Voices of Millions
• Acknowledging the Past to Shape the Present
• Seeking a Strategy that Works
• Believing in Others

After they choose or are assigned their reading, pairs should read and answer the questions on the first side of the handout Analyzing Levers of Power.

In each row on the second side of the handout, students should write a sentence or two explaining how the individual(s) in the readings used the lever described in the heading. If such a lever was not used, students can write “N/A” in the row. If a “lever of power” was involved that is not listed on the handout, students should describe it at the bottom of the page.

Activity 4: Share “Levers of Power” Analyses

After students have completed their handouts, have them meet briefly with a classmate who worked with a different reading. When they meet, they should introduce the story they each read, describe the strategies that the people they read about used, and explain which levers of power were most useful to those people. Time permitting, ask students to change partners one or two more times so that they can learn about additional examples of choosing to participate.

Finally, lead a whole-group discussion in which you ask students to share their observations. Guide the discussion with the following questions:

• What patterns did you notice? Did certain “levers of power” seem to come up in more readings than others?
• Which of the strategies for change that you learned about seem most effective? Most difficult? Most creative?
• Which of the “levers of power” on the handout seem most accessible to you? Which seem most difficult to influence? Which are you struggling to understand?

Activity 5: Discuss the Persistent Need for Participation

End this lesson, and this unit, with a broader reflection on our responsibilities to participate together in the process of creating a more humane society. Share with students the reading Walking with the Wind. Read aloud John Lewis’s story, and then discuss its meaning with the class: What does Lewis suggest about the work of citizens in a democracy?

Finally, ask students to write a reflection in their journals in response to the following question: What does choosing to participate mean to you? In what ways might you participate in the communities around you?