Democracy is, by definition, participatory. This participation might look like sharing conversations with other citizens, advocating for groups or causes which you believe in, debating - respectfully - in public or private forums - and of course informed voting. Many of the skills we have learned this year can help you in this endeavor, as you transition to voting age in the next year:
How to evaluate and seek out credible information on a given topic (Unit 1)
How to put sources in conversations with each other (Unit 2)
How to weigh and reconcile multiple opinions (Unit 1 and 2)
How to seek out information and build your own expertise (Unit 3)
How to articulate your beliefs in credible and meaningful ways (Unit 1)
In this final unit, you will be asked to put all those skills to use to consider and practice the skills required of responsible citizenship. You will have a chance to express your opinion about topics that matter to you, to listen respectfully to those of others, and to read, to research, to question, to challenge your ideas, to re-think or re-commit, and evolve.
Over the course of this unit you will be exposed to multiple text types, on a variety of issues. We will read cannonical texts, we will explore historical and modern examples of The goal in viewing these texts will not be to persuade you to their perspectives, bur rather to use them as mentor texts for understanding the form of art as protest/critique, to analyze the choices these authors made, and to evaluate their effectiveness in achieving their goals.
*** A quick note: please progress through the unit in order (from top to bottom). Each lesson and learning sequence is designed to build upon each other, so skipping ahead may make things harder. For details regarding what work is specifically assigned for a particular day, supporting documents, and specific instructions - including where to turn in your work - please see Google Classroom.***