Slides from January 2017 with the Museum of Tolerance: What Young Adult Literature can teach us about the Importance of Identity, History, and Choices

1. YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE THAT TEACHES
THE IMPORTANCE OF IDENTITY, HISTORY,
AND CHOICES
January 25-26, 2017

3. Who We Are
We’re Facing History and Ourselves. An organization
created in 1976 by educators who believed that instilling
intellectual vigor and curiosity goes hand-in-hand with
teaching facts and figures.
We provide ideas, methods, and tools that support the
practical needs, and the spirits, of educators worldwide
who share the goal of creating a better, more informed
and more thoughtful society.
@FacingHistoryLA
Lanetwork.facinghistory.org

5. Facing History and Ourselves:
Scope & Sequence

6. Facing History & Boston Public Schools:Facing History’s Case Studies
•The individual and society
•The power of difference
•Difficult moments in history
•The fragility of democracy
•Choices & human behavior
•Multiple perspectives
•Moral & ethical dilemmas
•Civic participation today

7. Facing History Pedagogy

8. PollEverywhere.com
We have three core pieces of literature for
this workshop. What is your familiarity
with them?
Get out your cell phone and await instructions.

9. Contracting
What do you need to fully participate as a
learner?
How do we collectively create a safe and
reflective space for ourselves and our
students?

10. Dr. Terrence Roberts

11. Individual Identity

12. Contracting

13. Essential Questions
- What are the complex factors that contribute to
a person’s identity?
- How does our identity affect the way we view
and are viewed by others?

14. Journal Prompt
- Are you “ordinary”? What about yourself is
ordinary or not ordinary? What is “ordinary”?
Circle in a Circle
1.Share something about yourself that you
consider “ordinary”
2.Share something about yourself that you
consider “not ordinary”
3.What is ordinary?

15. Auggie

16. The Bear That Wasn’t

17. Bear Identity
• Center Circle: How does the
bear know he's a bear? How
does he understand himself?
(What is the evidence in the
reading?)
• Outer Circle: How do others
see the bear? (What is the
evidence in the reading?)

18. Complexity of Identity
• Why is it hard for the bear to reject the
pressures from outside telling him who he
should be?
• What allowed the bear to reclaim his identity?
• How do you think others who are rejecting
him make the bear feel?
• Was anyone willing to accept him for who he
was? Would that have made a difference?

19. Identity Chart: Anne Frank
• Read June 21, 1942 (p. 6-7)
• Individually, create an identity chart for Anne
Frank
• Share out

20. - What connections do you think your students
might have to Anne Frank’s identity chart?
- Why is it important for us and our students to
think about the variety and complexity of
identity?
Complexity of Identity

21. IDENTITY & SOCIETY

22. • Big Paper
• Close Viewing
• Human Barometer
• Journalling

23. Contracting

24. The importance of setting

25. A SCHOOL'S IDENTITY:
RITES & RITUALS
•
25

26. Historical Settings
26
Paired jigsaw
Anne Frank: 24 June
1942 pg. 8, 8 July 1942
pg. 13 (and if time
allows, 9 July 1942)
Red Scarf Girl: pages
13-17
Create an Identity Chart
for your “setting”

27. What is an Ideal
Society?

28. Anthony Kwame Appiah

29. TURNING NEIGHBOR
AGAINST NEIGHBOR

30. Essential Questions:
• How does one turn neighbor against
neighbor?
• What conditions turned neighbor against
neighbor?
• What choices did ordinary people make
under those conditions and why?

31. BIG PAPER SILENT CONVERSATION
Respond to quote with active reading: definition,
questions, insights, connections, (dis)agreement.

32. We all know we are unique individuals, but we tend to
see others as representatives of groups. It’s a natural
tendency, since we must see the world in patterns in
order to make sense of it; we wouldn’t be able to deal
with the daily onslaught of people and objects if we
couldn’t predict a lot about them and feel that we
know who and what they are. But this natural and
useful ability to see patterns of similarity has
unfortunate consequences. It is offensive to reduce
an individual to a category, and it is also misleading.
- Deborah Tannen, Psychologist

33. THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION:
A BRIEF HISTORY

34. 3-2-1
3 - Changes in Chinese society
2 - Examples of moral dilemmas or decisions
that you see made
1 - Example of how “we” and “they” shift

35. Jigsaw: Reading
• Chapter 1: pg 3-12
• Chapter 2: pg 19-27
• Chapter 3: pg 38-47
As you read, look for dilemmas and decisions
that are presented in your section of the text.

36. Jigsaw: Small Group Discussion
• Is Ji-Li part of “we” or part of “they” in the
reading? How do you know?
• What conditions turned neighbor against
neighbor in your section of the text?
• What choices did ordinary people make
under those conditions and why?

37. Human Timeline: Holocaust/Anne Frank
Anne Frank Exhibit
Museum of Tolerance

39. Connections

40. Obedience and Conformity
What are the pressures influencing
behaviors of obedience and
conformity in society?
How can understanding this help
us explore prevention?

41. Choosing Cruelty: The Psychology of
Perpetrators
Dr. James Waller
Cultural Construction/World View
How we define “the other”
Group Dynamics

42. Where do we find varying degrees of
obedience in our society?

43. Stanley
Milgram

45. Scripted Prods Given by the
Experimenter
1.Please continue.
2.The experiment requires that you
continue.
3.It is absolutely essential that you continue.
4.You have no other choice; you must go
on.

47. MILGRAM: 60 Minutes
Interview, March 31, 1974
"I would say on the basis of having observed a
thousand people in the experiments and having my
own intuition shaped and informed by those
experiments, that if a system of death camps were set
up in the United States of the sort we had seen in Nazi
Germany, one would be able to find sufficient
personnel for those camps in any medium-sized
American town"

48. As you watch, identify every
circumstance or pressure which could
contribute to obedience or conformity.

49. Family v state
loyalty
Document 8
P. 52
Obedience and Conformity
“Costumes”
pg. 73
“Bleeding
Scream”
pg. 76
P. 156
Document 16
Schooling for
democracy
5 May 1945(4)
pg. 224
7 May 1945 (4)
pg. 226

50. Anne Frank on conformity
3 May 1945 (1944)

51. How do words and
images convey ideas?
How do they shape a society?
How do they shape our sense
of identity & belonging?

52. Creating a Working Definition:
1. Draft your own definition
2. In pairs, come to consensus
3. In groups of four, come to consensus

53. Joseph Goebbels
“That propaganda is good which leads
to success, and that is bad which fails
to achieve the desired result. It is not
propaganda’s task to be intelligent, its
task is to lead to success.”

55. Red Scarf Girl: Image Analysis

56. The Power of Language:
Playing with Words
• How is language used in your book to
change perceptions?
• Create a poster of “interesting” language
in your book.
• Include page #

57. The Power of Language
“Weird Kids”
pg. 119
“The Plague”
pg. 120
“The Halloween
Party” pg. 121
Document 15
(p. 87 in
guide)
“Graduation” (p.
72-79)
P. 309 in HHB
17 November
1942 pg.50
19-20 November
1942 (if time) pg.
52-55

58. Author voice
What difference does it make to have
multiple voices in Wonder?
Who gets to tell or retell history?
How is our understanding shaped by
learning history through a single voice, a
person who lived during that history?

59. Holocaust Survivor

60. Memory, Legacy and Justice

61. Facing History and Ourselves:
Scope & Sequence

62. Personal Journal:
We have all wronged others and been wronged. Write
about a situation in which you were wronged.
• What was the situation?
• How did it make you feel?
• What did you want to happen so that that
wrong was “set right”? (whether or not that
actually did happen)

63. What did you want or need to “set things right”?
Acknowledgment
Honesty
Empathy & understanding
Karmic Justice
Consequences
Shame
Change behavior
Own Voice
Conversation & explanation
Empathy & validation from everyone
Exposure to what happened
Be rescued
Forgiving myself / self acceptance /
reflection
Equity & treatment
YELL!!
An Apology “I’m sorry”
You’re not crazy I’m not crazy
Forgiveness
Enduring same situation
Banishment / erasure
Students
Revenge
Money

64. Transitional Justice toolbox
• Institutional Reform
• Education
• Judicial Responses
• Restitution and Reparations
• Truth-Seeking
• Reconciliation
• Cultural Responses
What are other examples from history or literature of the
transitional justice toolbox?

65. Which tools were or would
be helpful in these cases?

67. Agency, Empathy & Universe of Obligation
Understanding the power of an individual in making choices and
shaping society. How do young people have agency in times of
transition?

68. THE "IN" GROUP
• What can we learn about Eve
Shalen's moral development
from The "In" Group (Pg. 29
HHB)
• Strategy : Save the last word
for me

69. THE SUMMER
TABLE
WONDER BY R.J. PALACIO
Pages 51-53

70. I KNOW / I DON'T KNOW
WHAT TO DO WHEN I WITNESS
BULLYING...
• At my school
• When visiting another school
• In my community
• Outside my community

71. READING:
"BULLYING AT SCHOOL"
• How did students at
Central and Orange
High School respond to
bullying?
• How were they
common/different?
• How might these
responses affect
victims, perpetrators
or bystanders?

72. Watcher of the Sky video
Ben Ferencz

73. • Big Paper
• Close Viewing
• Human Barometer
• Journalling

75. The Role of Image

76. Essential Questions
• How do we enable our students to see
their own beauty?
• What societal standards can and should
we change?

77. Empathy v. Sympathy
Reading: Wonder - Via, “Seeing August”
p. 85-87
Define “empathy” and “sympathy”

78. Brené Brown on Empathy

79. Framing Discussion
Reflect on, “Seeing August” - Are Via’s
responses to Auggie rooted in sympathy
or empathy?
How do we enter into this exhibit from a
space of empathy or sympathy?

80. Reflection Questions
1. How do you define “beauty”?
2. Where does that definition come from?
3. Who does that definition privilege?

81. Fire Writing Protocol
1 minute quiet thought
3 minutes to write
1 minute to read & circle 3 main ideas (words or
phrases)
2 minutes to write (about those – or keep writing)
30 seconds to read your writing & put a square
around 1 word or phrase
1 minute to write (on that selected word or
phrase – or just keep writing)

82. Understanding the power of the
individual in making choices and
shaping society
• AGENCY
• EMPATHY
• UNIVERSE OF
OBLIGATION

83. LITTLE THINGS ARE BIG

84. Human Barometer
Activity
The process of deciding happens long before
the moment of decision.

85. Jesus Colon
Eve Shalen
“The ‘In’ Group
How does his memory of
an uncomfortable moment
impact his future actions?

86. THE UNIVERSE OF OBLIGATION

88. Small Steps Matter: The Summer Table