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Session 4: Using the Resource Book in Your Classroom

 

Guiding Questions for this Session:

  • What is the Choosing to Participate Resource Book, and how do I get it?
  • How can the readings in the book help teach about history and its legacies that shape the choices we make today?
  • How do I get the resource book?

 

 

AnchorIn this session, we introduce you to Facing History's Choosing to Participate Resource Book. The book focuses on civic choices—the decisions people make about themselves and others in their community, nation, and world. As teachers and students explore the readings in this collection they will come to understand that choices people make, both large and small, may not seem important at the time, but little by little they shape us as individuals and as responsible global citizens. The stories in this collection focus on individuals and groups—the famous and the not-so-famous—wrestling with a question that many young people ask, “How can I make a positive difference in the world?” This resource book is a valuable addition to units on civics, government, and US history.

Our resource book contains readings on the four core stories from our live exhibit: Little Things are Big, Crisis in Little Rock, Not in Our Town, and Everyone Has A Story. But the book also has a number of other readings dealing with democracy, citizenship and participation. These readings include:

  • "Reading 1: Democracy: A Work in Progress" (p. 1). This reading provides some brief historical context around slavery in the United States and the subsequent Jim Crow era, including the reflections of Children Defense Fund founder Marian Wright Edelman, as she recounts life as a young Black girl in the 1940s and 1950s.
     
  • "Reading 8: American Idealist," (p. 58). This reading presents the story of Sargent Shriver, an American leader assigned by President Kennedy to create and run the Peace Corps. Shriver was then asked by President Johnson to run another program, the War on Poverty, which spawned many impactful initiatives, including Head Start, a program which has educated more than 23 million children since its inception. Shriver's dedication and idealism is an important story for students to learn as they consider the power of the choices they make in their own lives.
     
  • "Reading 10: Choices" (p. 76). This is the final reading in the study guide. The reading presents two poems--"I Dream a World" by Langston Hughes, and "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost--and raises fundamental questions about the importance of aligning our values and ideals with an understanding that the choices we make matter.

 

Now, please download the Choosing to Participate Resource Book and in the next activity for this session we will explore some more readings in greater depth.

 

 

Please make sure you have checked the "mark as read" box at the top of this page. Then continue to Journal and Discussion.