Voices Free Online School

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Lift Every Voice Minicourses

The Lift Every Voice Minicourses are being designed to provide further support for learning about the Lift Every Voices Books (democratic values, skills, and competencies) and Lift Every Voice Projects (social and ecological problems). Currently the only minicourses that are available are Book 1: Democratic Values and Project 1: Stop Gun Violence. You can click on these minicourses below. They are being designed in Learndash here, but will also be available in Schoology and Google Classroom in the future. Our goal is to have all of these minicourses completed by the end of 2023.

Free

1. Democratic Values: Unite and Guide Our Country

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."
—Statue of Liberty Inscription, Emma Lazarus

Explore eight core democratic values that can guide us to reunite our country beginning with love and freedom. (view now, enroll fall)

Free

2. Social and Emotional Skills: Stand in Other People's Shoes and Resolve Conflicts Nonviolently

Explore and learn to master core social-emotional skills such as social perspective skills and conflict resolution skills. The ability to stand in someone else's shoes or moccasins is one of the most important social skills to learn and practice. (view summer, enroll fall)

Free

3. Democratic Skills and Practices: Advocate, Discuss, Debate

Explore and learn to use core democratic skills and practices to advocate for ways to solve important social and ecological problems. The most important democratic skill is democratic voice—the ability to use your voice and all your talents to express your thoughts and proposals for improving our democratic society and government. (view summer, enroll fall)

Free

4. Social and Ecological Awareness: Pursue Social Justice and Ecological Balance

To improve our country and world we need to first understand the distribution of power in our societies and scientific evidence about the causes of global warming. With a realistic understanding of the social and ecological obstacles confronting us, we will be much more able to overcome and solve these problems. (view fall, enroll winter)

Free

5. Democratic Knowledge: Understand Our Democratic Rights and Protect Them

To improve our democracy, we need to understand its roots and how it has grown over the last two centuries. This includes all the rights that we have declared for ourselves and how to use the different branches of government to pursue and protect these rights. Most recently, we have experienced one of the most violent threats to our democracy, perhaps only exceeded by the Civil War. Our government is now surrounded by fences. (view fall, enroll winter)

Free

Stop the Pandemic

Explore how to use the Lift Every Voice democratic values, skills, and knowledge to help you advocate for solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic. (view now, enroll fall)

Free

Stop Global Warming

Explore how to apply Lift Every Voice democratic values, skills, and knowledge to help you advocate for ways to stop global warming. (view fall, enroll winter)

Free

Stop Police Violence

Explore how to use the Lift Every Voice democratic values, skills, and knowledge to help you advocate for ways to stop police violence. (view summer, enroll fall)

Free

Stop Gun Violence

Explore how to use the Lift Every Voice democratic values, skills, and knowledge to help you advocate for solutions for stopping gun violence. (view now, enroll fall)

Free

Oral Language Skills

The Oral Language Skills Minicourse includes: (1) Listening Skills; (2) Narrative Oral Language Skills; (3) Argumentative Oral Language Skills; (4) Explanatory Oral Language Skills; (5) Persuasive Oral Language Skills; (6) Oral Dialogue, Discussion, and Debate; and (7) Academic Oral Language Vocabulary. (view summer, enroll fall)

Free

Reading Comprehension Strategies and Skills

The Reading Comprehension Strategies and Skills Minicourse includes: (1) Motivation and Purpose; (2) Non-fiction Texts: News Articles; Real-Life Stories, Proposals, Speeches; (3) Academic Reading Vocabulary; (4) Discussion and Debate; (5) Reading Comprehension Strategies; and (6) Background Knowledge. (view fall, enroll winter)

Free

Writing Skills

The Writing Skills Minicourse includes: (1) Motivation and Purpose; (2) Narrative Writing Skills; (3) Argumentative Writing Skills; (4) Explanatory Writing Skills; (5) Persuasive Writing Skills; and (6) Academic Writing Vocabulary. (view fall, enroll winter)

Free

Critical Thinking Skills

The Critical Thinking Skills Minicourse includes: (1) Higher–Order Thinking Skills (remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, create); (2) Questioning; (3) Problem-Solving; and (4) Empowering. (view summer, enroll fall)