Two-day workshop including the books: Wonder, Red Scarf Girl, and Diary of Anne Frank.

1. YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE THAT TEACHES
THE IMPORTANCE OF IDENTITY, HISTORY,
AND CHOICES
March 28-29, 2016

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

9. 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.

10. 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?

11. Individual Identity

12. 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?

13. 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?

14. The Bear That Wasn’t

15. 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?)

16. 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?

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

18. - 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

19. IDENTITY & SOCIETY

20. The importance of setting

21. A SCHOOL'S IDENTITY:
RITES & RITUALS
•
21

22. Historical Settings
22
Paired jigsaw
Anne Frank: 24 June
1942, 8 July 1942 (and if
time allows, 9 July 1942)
Red Scarf Girl: pages
13-17
Create an Identity Chart
for your “setting”

23. What is an Ideal Society?

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

25. 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

26. Anthony Kwame Appiah

27. TURNING NEIGHBOR
AGAINST NEIGHBOR

28. 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?

29. THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION:
A BRIEF HISTORY

30. 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

31. 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.

32. 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?

34. lanetwork.facinghistory.org
▪ “Powering Up” Facing History lessons
▪ Museum of Tolerance temporary exhibit – What is Beauty?
▪ Teacher bloggers – middle school and high school
• Seminar/Workshop materials

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

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

37. 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.”

39. Red Scarf Girl: Image Analysis

40. 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 #

41. The Power of Language
“Weird Kids”
“The Plague”
“The Halloween
Party”
Document 15
(p. 87 in
guide)
“Graduation” (p.
72-79)
P. 309 in HHB
17 November
1942
19-20 November
1942 (if time)

42. The Role of Image

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

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

45. Brené Brown on Empathy

46. 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?

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

48. 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)

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

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

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

53. Stanley
Milgram

55. 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.

57. 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"

58. Family v state
loyalty
Document 8
P. 52
Obedience and Conformity
“Costumes”
“Bleeding
Scream”
P. 156
Document 16
Schooling for
democracy
5 May 1945
7 May 1945

59. Anne Frank on conformity
3 May 1945

60. Memory, Legacy and Justice

61. 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)

62. 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?

63. Facing History and Ourselves:
Scope & Sequence

64. Author voice
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?
What difference does it make to have
multiple voices in Wonder?

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

66. LITTLE THINGS ARE BIG

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

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

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

70. THE UNIVERSE OF OBLIGATION

72. Small Steps Matter: The Summer Table