Here are some assignment ideas that are focused on promoting openness and intellectual courage in the classroom.
Shorter Assignments
Community Engagement: Students visit a community event or organization that relates to the reading, in order to see how the ideas in class apply in the world. For example, in order to demonstrate the promise and limits of democratic theory, students could attend a school board meeting. Or students could participate in a police ride-along as part of a unit on criminal justice.
Social Engagement: Students can make anonymous social accounts and engage online with people who disagree with them about moral or political questions.
Syllabus Rewrite: Ask students to re-write the syllabus providing a counterpoint to each of the readings. You may be surprised by what they suggest!
Topic Booth: Book a table on campus and have students staff the politics/philosophy/economic booth. Decorate the booth with thought-provoking questions from the class and put out a bowl of candy. Encourage your students to talk about these questions with other students who visit the booth.
Longer Assignments
Mapping the Disagreement: Students must record a 15-minute conversation of them disagreeing with someone about a question related to the class. Then they must map the argument, or identify the crux of the disagreement, or write up the disagreement in premise-conclusion form.
Peer Review: Students review each other's essays so that everyone gets at least two perspectives on their argument before they submit the final version.
Teach it Forward: Students must record a 15-minute conversation where they teach someone who is not in the class about a complicated question from the class and answer their questions. They will be graded on the quality of their presentation and teaching materials.
Coursewide Assignments
Community-Based Learning: Experiential learning can give students a new perspective on the readings from class.
Reacting to the Past: Reacting games can enhance students' understanding of historical debates about justice, religion, economic equality, and democracy.
Ethics Bowl: Students who participate in Ethics Bowl learn to see complicated moral and political questions from multiple perspectives, and to be open to new ideas and arguments.