Universe of Obligation

About This Lesson

In this lesson, students build on their previous discussion about stereotypes by examining why humans form groups and what it means to belong. This examination begins the second stage of the Facing History scope and sequence, “We & They.” Students will begin by reflecting on the different types of groups they belong to. Then they will read a poem and use it as an entry point for discussing the different ways people respond to human differences and the consequences of those different responses. 

Once students have discussed their responses to the poem, they will turn their attention to their school or local community and, in a creative assignment, consider the ways in which they would like to see people respond to difference. 

After reflecting on the ways people respond to difference, students will learn a new concept, “universe of obligation”—the term sociologist Helen Fein coined to describe the circle of individuals and groups within a society “toward whom obligations are owed, to whom rules apply, and whose injuries call for amends.” 

Understanding the concept of universe of obligation provides important insights into the behavior of individuals, groups, and nations throughout history. It also helps students think more deeply about the benefits of being part of a society’s “in” group and the consequences of being part of an “out” group. 

The activities in this lesson ask students to think about the people for whom they feel responsible. The activities also help students analyze the ways that their society designates who is worthy of respect and caring and who is not.

Course Essential Question

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

Guiding Questions

• How do we learn which differences between people matter and which do not?
• How do we respond to difference?
• What factors influence the extent to which we feel an obligation to help others?
• How does the way we view others influence our feelings of responsibility toward them?

Learning Objectives

• Students will categorize the many ways in which humans respond when encountering difference and use this information to write creatively in response to the question, “What do we do with a difference?”
• Students will apply a new concept of human behavior—universe of obligation—to analyze how individuals and societies determine who is deserving of respect and whose rights are worthy of protection.
• Students will recognize that a society’s universe of obligation often changes, expanding or shrinking depending on circumstances such as peace and prosperity or war and economic depression.

Lesson Plan

Day 1 Activities

Activity 1: Journal Responses: Groups and Belonging

Ask students to respond in their journals to the following prompt and then respond to the accompanying questions. You can project and reveal the prompt and then the questions one at a time to allow students to focus on each one.

Think about a group you belong to. It might be your family, a team, a faith community, a club, a classroom, an online community, or some other type of group.

• How did you become a member of that group?
• Did you choose to be a member, or are you one automatically?
• What do you gain by belonging to that group?
• What, if anything, do you have to give up or hide about yourself to be a member?

Briefly debrief the prompt by asking students to share some of the things they gain by belonging to groups and some of the things they give up in order to belong. Honor student privacy and refrain from requiring all students to share their responses in detail.

Then pose a new question to students: 

• Why do humans so often divide themselves into groups? When is this a good thing? When is it harmful?

Give students a few minutes to respond in their journals, and then discuss the question using the Think, Pair, Share strategy.

Activity 2: Think about What We Do When We Encounter Difference

Tell students that they will now read a poem by James Berry about the many ways we respond when we encounter a difference. While Berry was born in rural Jamaica in 1924, he moved to Britain in 1948, where he lived until his death in 2017.

Pass out and read aloud What Do We Do with a Difference? Try reading it a few different ways. You might read it out loud the first time so that students get a sense of the rhythm of the poem. Then, using the “popcorn” or “wraparound” approach explained on the Read Aloud teaching strategy page, have students read the poem out loud sentence by sentence, and then a third time line by line. 

Finally, have students continue using the Think, Pair, Share strategy to discuss what they think the poem is about based on their first impressions of the text.

Activity 3: Sort and Discuss the Ways We Respond to a Difference

Next, divide the class into groups and pass out the envelopes with What Do We Do With a Variation? Question Sort sentence strips and some sticky notes or index cards. Tell students that they should sort the strips into categories of similar kinds of responses. They should create a label for each category and write it on a sticky note or index card (for example, “Fear,” “Indifference”). They might start by creating piles of responses to differences and then labeling them. Or they might create their categories first and then organize their strips into those categories. Regardless of their process, students should work together with their group members to complete this task.

After the groups have organized the lines of the poem into categories of responses, ask them to discuss the following questions:

• Which lines of the poem were easiest to categorize and which ones were the most difficult? Why do you think some responses to differences were easier or harder than others to place in a category?
• Which of your categories had the most and the fewest examples from the poem? What might you attribute to this difference?
• Can you think of any specific examples (in your school, your local community, or the world) of the different ways that Berry says humans respond to differences? Why do you think people respond in these ways?
• What are other ways that humans respond to differences that Berry does not acknowledge in his poem?
• What is the message of Berry’s poem? What does he want his reader to understand about humans and human behavior when responding to difference?

After groups have finished their discussions, ask them to share one interesting takeaway from the activity and their discussion. You might also choose to facilitate a class discussion about one or more of the questions.

Activity 4: Create an Aspirational Stanza for Berry’s Poem

Ask students to take a moment to envision how they would like their school community to respond to the differences between its members. You might ask them to close their eyes and visualize the response they would like to see (rather than what they perhaps have seen or experienced).

Then tell students that they will end the lesson by writing an additional three-line stanza that describes their vision for how they would like their school community or local community to respond to a difference today. They can follow the pattern of Berry’s poem by starting the first line of their stanza with “Do we . . . ,” finishing the question in line two, and then adding an additional question in line three. You might choose to have pairs work on this task or ask students to create their own stanzas.

Students can share their stanzas using one of the following teaching strategies: Wraparound or Gallery Walk.

Day 2 Activities

Activity 1: Introduce the Concept of “Universe of Obligation”

Introduce the concept of universe of obligation to students, and explain that it is one way to consider the benefits of belonging to groups and the consequences of being excluded. An individual’s or group’s universe of obligation represents the extent to which they feel responsible for others. We often feel a greater sense of responsibility for those who belong to the same groups that we do.

Pass out the reading Universe of Obligation and read it aloud. 

This reading includes quotations that feature the perspectives of three people: David Hume, Chuck Collins, and William Graham Sumner (connection question 4). Reread the quotations from each of these people to the class, and then discuss with students the following questions:

• In what ways do these three people agree? In what ways do they disagree?
• Which of these people seems to have the most inclusive universe of obligation? Which seems to have the most exclusive?
• Is it possible for everyone in the world to be included in a person’s or a country’s universe of obligation? If not, how should we prioritize?

Activity 2: Illustrate Individual Universes of Obligation

Finally, ask students to illustrate their own universes of obligation using the graphic organizer on the handout Universe of Obligation. The concentric circles on this handout can help students visualize and diagram what an individual, group, or country’s universe of obligation might look like. 

Give students time to follow the instructions and complete the activity on the handout. It might be helpful first to quickly brainstorm a variety of types of individuals and groups that might appear on one’s graphic organizer, including family, friends, neighbors, classmates, strangers in one’s town, and others. 

Have students meet in groups of two or three to discuss their experience of trying to illustrate their universes of obligation. In their discussions, students should address some of the following questions:

• What was the experience of diagramming your universe of obligation like? What did you think about when deciding where to place certain groups in your universe of obligation? Which decisions were difficult? Which were easy? 
• Under what conditions might your universe of obligation shift? What might cause you to move some groups to the center and others to the outside?
• What is the difference between an individual’s universe of obligation and that of a community or nation?

Activity 3: Consider a Nation’s Universe of Obligation

End the lesson by discussing the following questions as a class so students can start to think about the ideas they will explore as they begin to look at histories involving exclusion, discrimination, and violence in the lessons that follow:

• What factors influence the way a society defines its universe of obligation?
• In what ways might a nation or community signal who is part of its universe of obligation and who is not?
• What do you think might be some of the consequences for those who are not within a society’s universe of obligation?