Stop Gun Violence :Introduction
Introduction to
Stop Gun Violence Minicourse
1. Introduction to Lift Every Voice
Welcome to the Lift Every Voice Minicourses. Scroll below for a quick introduction to Lift Every Voice if you didn't review the home page of this website. If you did you can skip ahead. Be sure to expand your screen by clicking on the box of four arrows in the top right hand corner.
As explained above, Lift Every Voice first introduces you to the most important Democratic Values, Skills, and Knowledge, and then helps you to apply these democratic competencies to the most important problems in our country and world.
2. Introduction to Social and Ecological Problems
Lift Every Voice helps you to use your academic and democratic competencies to analyze pressing social and ecological problems and then to advocate solutions for these problems.
Scroll through the presentation below to get an idea of the types of problems that we will be addressing in Lift Every Voice.
3. Introduction to Stop Gun Violence
So with that background and context, in this minicourse, we will be exploring and advocating ways to Stop Gun Violence in our country and around the world.
Scroll through the presentation below for an overview of the eight steps in this minicourse.
4. Eight Steps for Creating Your
Stop Gun Violence Project
The Lift Every Voice Minicourses are organized into two sets: Democratic Values, Skills, and Knowledge Minicourses and Social and Ecological Problems Minicourses.
The Social and Ecological Problems Minicourses are organized into eight steps which can help you explore and respond to the Central Questions and guide you through the process of developing your own project that responds to these questions.
This Social and Ecological Minicourse is organized around creating a Stop Gun Violence Portfolio and Project in which you can choose power points, audio and video presentations, songs, and/or various types of social media apps to put forth your ideas on how to stop the pandemic.
The goal in this minciourse is for you to create a project in which you lift your voice to advocate the most important ways to Stop Gun Violence.
The first step involves gaining an overview of gun violence and then the ways in which it has affected your life and the people around you.
In Step 2, you try to stand in the shoes of the people who have been directly affected by gun violence, including victims, survivors, and frontline workers.
In Step 3, you will analyze, synthesize, and evaluate what you have learned about gun violence.
In Step 4, you listen to stories of people affected by the gun violence and then share your own stories or stories you have heard about.
In Step 5, you read proposals and listen to speeches advocating different ways to stop gun violence.
In Step 6, you develop and present your own proposals (your Stop Gun Violence Projects) for stopping gun violence. This can be presented in multiple formats: video, audio, song, power point, or Tik Tok.
In Step 7, you engage in a discussion with other students about what are the most promising proposals, including those made by students.
Finally, you will vote for the top three proposals in Survey Monkey and then reflect on what you have learned from this minicourse.
5. Set Up Your Stop Gun Violence Portfolio Project
Advocate Ways to Stop Gun Violence
Each Lift Every Voice Minicourse is organized around a project that you can choose and shape in response to the Central Question(s). These presentations can be power points, speeches, songs, or other types of social media. The goal in these projects is for you to lift your voice to advocate ideas and proposals that can help us stop the pandemic.
First Set Up Your Personal "bulb" Digital Portfolio Account
You can develop your Stop Gun Violence Project in an online digital portfolio created by bulb. The first thing you will need to do is set up your Bulb Account. Click on the button below. This is a free account. You will be able to have different portfolios/projects in this account for the different Lift Every Voice Minicourses. You can keep this account and use it for other projects including your own resume and profile for job hunting. It is free for one year after you finish these minicourses and $33/yr after that if you want it.
Next Download the Template for Your Stop Gun Violence Project
Next click on the button below. That will take you to the template for your Stop Gun Violence Project.
Then in the top right hand corner click on "Use Template" and that will download the template to your account. You can then complete all the steps/activities in that downloaded template. When you are done, you will then be able to share links with your project with me, other young people, friends, or family members.
6. Academic and Democratic Learning Objectives
For this minicourse, we have established the following academic and democratic learning objectives:
Academic Objectives:
· Vocabulary: Learn and use academic and content vocabulary related to stopping gun violence (Step 1.4, 5.7)
· Questioning: Learn to pose and explain questions about the texts and videos. (Step 1.5)
· Deep Comprehension: Learn to comprehend, analyze, and evaluate texts and videos. (Step 1.3, 2.3, 3.2, 4.3, 5.3)
· Narrative Storytelling: Tell a story about an experience related to gun violence (Step 4.5)
· Discussion and Debate: Learn to engage in ongoing discussion and debate around gun violence (Steps 3.3, 4.4, 7.3)
· Persuasive Speech: Learn to write and deliver a persuasive speech. (Step 6.3, 6.4, 6.5)
· Multimedia Presentation: Learn to use multimedia apps to support persuasive speeches. (Step 6.3)
· Reflective Journal Writing: Learn to use a journal to reflect on what one is learning.(Step 8.7)
Democratic Objectives:
· Social Perspective Taking: Taking the points of view of victims, survivors, and frontline workers (Step 2.2)
Democratic Values: Introduction to Democratic Values (Steps 4.2)
Risk and Protective Factors: Introduction to Risk and Protective Factors (Step 5.2)
· Democratic Voice: Deliver speech/multimedia presentation advocating solutions to gun violence (Step 6.2-6.5)
· Importance of Voting: Cast votes for best proposals (Step 8.2)
Importance of Lobbying: Lobby/write letters to elected officials advocating solutions (Step 8.5)
7. Next Steps
Well congratulations on getting started with this course.
Now, go to Step 1 for an introduction to Stopping Gun Violence. The primary objective in Step 1 is to get an overview of gun violence and then to pose and reflect upon the questions you have about gun violence.