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Interactive Voter Guide

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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E Pluribus Unum?

Our country faces significant challenges; some of them are caused by our polarized politics. How do we honor our differences instead of using them to divide us?

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.

Table of Contents

Suggested pacing and order for Can We Talk? lessons

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.