Can We Talk? Lessons and Activities
Lessons can be used together or individually. There are five organizing units, color-coded below. See our Table of Contents for suggested flow.
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Unit 1 - Laying the Foundation
Table of Contents
Suggested pacing and order for Can We Talk? lessons
Unit 1 - Laying the Foundation
Ground Rules for Listening - Can We Talk? Style
To help student acquire a deeper understanding of the ground rules: why they are necessary, why they are useful, and how to use them.
Unit 2 - Who Are We?
What Are Your Bubbles?
To help students grasp the shape and dimensions of the bubbles inside which they live, and to identify strategies for venturing outside those bubbles to experience and learn.
Unit 2 - Who Are We?
American Values: What are they?
To help students discover the breadth and variety of values that Americans hold dear. Then, to help them notice and discuss how sometimes those values can come into tension, not necessarily as a matter of good vs. evil, but more as a matter of competing goods.
Unit 3 - Are We Listening?
How to Be an Active Listener
To introduce the students to the idea and component steps of active listening and give them practice applying those skills.
Unit 3 - Are We Listening?
Three Questions: A listening exercise
This exercise fits well near the launch of a Can We Talk? unit or initiative. It's a good way for students to get to know each other better while practicing the skills of active listening. It's also a relatively low-stress way for students to begin experiencing dialogue. Also, if you plan on using the lesson plan that digs into active listening, more explicitly teaches the skills and habits involved, this exercise is good preparation for that.
Unit 3 - Are We Listening?
Asking Different Kinds of Questions
To introduce students to different kinds of questions they can ask themselves and others – whether in class, with friends and family, or in different conversation settings. And to give them practice in using different kinds of questions.
Unit 4 - What's the Problem?
The Five Whys
To give students a helpful tool to identify the root problem beneath some frustration, dysfunction or obstacle that is bothering them, whether at an individual, family, social, community or societal level. And to share this wisdom: If you're working with a faulty grasp of the real problem, you're likely going to come up with faulty solutions.
