Introduce the folksinger, Woody Guthrie, and his legendary song This Land Is Your Land. Talk about ways we are generous for the good of others. This can be by lifting someone's spirits or taking care of the land we all share. ...
This lesson guides learners as they inform a public audience about philanthropic acts that enhance the common good. The learners write newspaper articles that describe acts of service and volunteerism in their community.
Through persuasive writing, young people build awareness and invite action for change about an issue. Typical writing forms may include essays, editorials, feature articles, or speeches.
Learners write personal narratives to document activities, insights, research, impact, and discoveries of their firsthand experience with civic engagement, service, and volunteerism. By explaining involvement in action for the common good, learners raise awareness of a social issue, the need for...
Students will recognize the linguistic strategies that Alice Walker uses in her introduction to Anything You Love Can Be Saved that persuade readers to believe in her causes, and thus begin to think about techniques that they can use in their own activist writing, which they will do in...
Students explore and demonstrate leadership and service qualities, reflect on the qualities of a leader and create and donate a children's book.
Depictions of hunger in excerpts from Jane Eyre and Oliver Twist provide concrete images of hunger as learners determine its causes and decide whether to support a change in U.S. public policy related to the issue.
The purpose of this lesson is for students to track the books donated in a book drive. Students will use the idea of paying it forward to create a blog and track how far their donated books have traveled and read student reactions to the books.
Learners define philanthropy and explore why it is important for citizens (including middle schoolers) to take action to improve the community. In this first lesson introducing the Project Based Learning process, learners investigate the concept of food security in the U.S. and start...
Students listen to the voices of refugees in the words of a poem by W. H. Auden. They explore the poetic imagery and then write their own poem using voice, imagery, and rhyme. They may use what they have learned and created in this unit to organize a service project in which they advocate for...