Education
Following from our humanistic mission, the editors of The Point are pleased to offer free educational resources to teachers, students and self-directed learners. We have created a series of lesson plans and discussion prompts (from high school to college level) that pair contemporary essays with classic and recent texts on subjects of urgent social interest—e.g., protest, immigration, race, reparations, the environment, education, etc. Our hope is to make philosophical thinking and writing more accessible to students of all ages.
Lesson Plan #1: What Is Protest For?
On politics and protest, from the civil rights era to today
Subjects: Politics & civics
Level: High school and up
Download as a PDF
“After Ferguson” by Brandon Terry
Written by the political theorist Brandon Terry, “After Ferguson” is a long essay on Black Lives Matter’s renewal of the black radical tradition. Terry argues the Black Lives Matter movement can be understood as a rejection of the ‘Age of Obama,’ a true successor to the civil rights and Black Power movements, and a necessary intervention in a moment of moral crisis. Terry theorizes that the critical elements of an effective protest movement are: (1) strategic provocation, (2) moral and civic education, and (3) political vision. He also offers his own critique regarding what Black Lives Matter, though promising, is still lacking.
Discussion questions
1. According to the author, how does the Black Lives Matter movement carry on the civil rights movement? In what ways does it depart from the tactics employed by civil rights leaders from the 1950s and ’60s?
2. The author quotes the black intellectual Cornel West saying, “Ferguson signifies the end of the Age of Obama.” How might Black Lives Matter be seen as a response to Obama’s vision of progress?
3. What do you think of Terry’s three criteria for an effective protest movement? Why do you think he came up with them, and do you think they’re universally applicable?
4. What do you think makes a protest successful? Has there been a time in your life you’ve felt a protest movement has changed your mind?
“Against Demonstrative Politics” by Barney Frank
Former congressman Barney Frank argues against rallies, public demonstrations, and protests as effective political strategy. Frank contrasts these methods with more electoral forms of grassroots advocacy like contacting one’s congressmen and senators (a practice that would go on to gain some renewed popularity after the 2016 election), and situates the argument primarily in his experiences with the LGBT community in the 1990s. Many organizers Frank has known have styled their demonstrative politics after figures like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.; he comments also on what he considers to be the circumstantial effectiveness of their direct action led by Gandhi and King, contrasting direct action with the effective domination in gun control policy debates of the NRA.
Discussion questions
1. How would the author define “demonstrative politics”?
2. What are the author’s main arguments against protesting?
3. What arguments would you make for protests and demonstrations?
4. In the time since Frank wrote this in 2015, we’ve had in the U.S. both huge political demonstrations, such as the Women’s March and the March for Our Lives, as well as renewed popular engagement with calling one’s congressmen, popularized by apps like 5 Calls. What kind of effect do you think these methods have had? Do you think Frank’s argument applies to these issues as well?
5. Frank notes there are times he thinks demonstrative politics are necessary and effective. What is his case for demonstrative politics, and do you think there are any issues today that fit?
Melina Abdullah, “Linked Fate”
Melina Abdullah, one of the founding organizers of Black Lives Matter, looks back at the origins of the movement. She reflects upon protesting the acquittal of George Zimmerman for killing Trayvon Martin, as well as what it means to protest as a mother and within a racial tradition that conceives of blackness as family.
Discussion questions
1. Abdullah devotes the first few paragraphs of “Linked Fate” to history and race theory before moving on to her personal experience protesting in Los Angeles. Why do you think she does this, and how does it affect the essay?
2. Why do you think the author titled her piece “Linked Fate”? What does this concept mean to her and how does it serve as a motivation for her activism?
3. This essay is not straightforwardly argumentative, but nevertheless makes a case for why protest and mass demonstrations are valuable and important. How would you summarize that argument?
4. Do you think the demonstrations Melina Abdullah describes in this piece would fulfill all or any of Brandon Terry’s three criteria for what makes a protest movement successful?
5. What do you think Barney Frank would think of the demonstrations Abdullah describes in this piece?
5a. In his essay, Barney Frank writes, “If you care deeply about an issue, and are engaged in group activity on its behalf that is fun and inspiring and heightens your sense of solidarity with others, you are almost certainly not doing your cause any good.” Brandon Terry, meanwhile, writes in “After Ferguson” of the importance of black solidarity to Black Lives Matter, an experience that is depicted in Melina Abdullah’s essay. What do you think solidarity offers to Melina Abdullah’s “cause” in “Linked Fate”?
Supplemental contemporary & historical readings:
“Agenda to Build Black Futures”
[BYP100]
“The ‘American Dream’ of meritocracy has never guaranteed prosperity for Black people in America.”
“Port Huron Statement”
[Students for a Democratic Society]
“We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit.”
“Letter from Birmingham Jail”
[Martin Luther King, Jr.]
“Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must see the need of having nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men to rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.”
Common Sense
[Thomas Paine]
“Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least.”
Civil Disobedience: Solitude and Life without Principle
[Henry David Thoreau]
“It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case.”
Lesson Plan #2: What Is Immigration For?
On the politics of citizenship and the experience of migration
Subjects: Politics & civics
Level: High school and up
Download as a PDF
Francisco Cantú and John Washington, “A Nation Doesn’t Need Walls”
“A Nation Doesn’t Need Walls” is a facilitated conversation between writers Francisco Cantú, a former border patrol agent, and activist John Washington. While the two both believe that the current method for dealing with illegal immigration is in need of changing, they disagree on ideas as to how Americans ought to view border patrol agents and what purpose national borders are meant to serve. Additionally, the two discuss the importance of compassion and understanding when it comes to forming opinions about border security.
Discussion questions
1. Is Cantú justified in thinking that border agents ought to be more humanized in American culture? What would the harms and benefits be of doing so?
2. At one point in the conversation, Washington discusses his support of open borders. What do you think of this idea? What changes would we see if the U.S. had open borders?
3. Both Cantú and Washington agreed that personal experiences with immigrants have informed their opinions on the border topic. Have your opinions on border control been influenced by personal experiences?
4. Cantú mentions that the hypothetical West Virginian in favor of strong border control may have a good opinion of an individual undocumented worker, which is a “powerful place to start.” What would the next steps be to allow the West Virginian to better understand the border situation?
Michael S. Kochin, “A Country Is a Country”
Political scientist Michael S. Kochin examines the nature of American principles and how they may explain why some Americans feel the way they do about immigration. He explains America as a place where people have the freedom to opt into or out of American values, and uses this explanation to assert that because of this, some Americans are hesitant to support border enforcement despite the notion that damage could be done to American principles as a result of failing to distinguish between those with American values and those who just want to live in America.
Discussion questions
1. What is the author’s main argument? How could it relate to the topic of immigration and border control?
2. What does being an American mean to Kochin? What does it mean to you?
3. Kochin discusses the importance of both laws and “self-evident” truths. What are the differences between the two? If a law said one thing and a self-evident truth said the opposite, which one should we follow?
4. Kochin notes a difference between people who wish to be American and people who only wish to live in the United States. What are the differences between these two groups?
José Ángel N., “Negative Growth”
José Ángel N., who has lived in the U.S. undocumented for over twenty years, shares his thoughts on coming to America and discusses the changes over the years that led our country’s discussion of border control to its current state. He examines interactions he has had with other Mexican immigrants as well as with people who are in favor of him returning to Mexico. He also describes the self-propagating cycles of fear and anger he perceives between Mexican immigrants and anti-immigration Americans.
Discussion questions
1. In this essay, the author writes about the “American myth of growth” that drew him and others to the U.S. What does this myth consist in, and how does the author experience it in his life?
2. The author writes about two of his most important literary influences: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Ralph Waldo Ellison. What do they each teach him?
3. Do you agree with the claim the author makes in the last paragraph that illegal immigrants and anti-immigration people are experiencing “negative growth?” Why or why not?
4. While the author isn’t explicitly argumentative in the piece, there is clearly making a case for himself and others in his position. How would you summarize that argument?
5. What do you think Kochin would say about the idea of the culture of “negative growth” that is described in this essay?
6. In the piece, the author mentions a conversation he had with an older man who threatened to call the police on him. How would you react if you were in the author’s position?
Timothy Crimmins, “Stretching the Veil”
In exploring John Rawls’s theories on the nature of society, Timothy Crimmins examines how our idea of society informs how we think of nationality and borders. Crimmins looks at the moments in history where the strangely intertwined sentiments of anti-immigration and environmental conservation cropped up in American culture. By interpreting how the changes in American culture since Rawls’s time influenced our perception of the nation, Crimmins contemplates the significance of Rawls’s work in the contemporary world.
Discussion questions
1. What is the purpose of Rawls’s “veil of ignorance?” How has the concept been used by others since it was first developed?
2. How do you think Rawls’s ideas would be different if he made them today, when climate change and border security issues are pressing, mainstream topics?
3. What does the fact that anti-immigration nationalists and conservation movements used to work hand in hand say about the evolution and interests of those two groups?
4. How does the shifting perception of conservationist groups toward immigration reflect the places those ideas occupy in our society?
Supplemental contemporary & historical readings
“You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien; for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.”
“Learn Trades or Starve” by Frederick Douglass
“Every hour sees the black man elbowed out of employment by some newly arrived emigrant, whose hunger and whose color are thought to give him a better title to the place; and so we believe it will continue to be until the last prop is levelled beneath us.”
“The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus
“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
The Declaration of Independence
“[King George III] has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.”
“The Philosophical Roots of Today’s Immigration Debate” by Alexis Papazoglou
“But however unintentionally, [Donald Trump’s] aggressively anti-immigration policies—and the moral outrage they provoke in Democrats—reflect a real-life expression of a philosophical conflict between two different conceptions of political responsibility: communitarianism, which sees people’s identities and value as intricately linked to their political community, political justice therefore rooted in and confined to that specific community, and liberalism, which recognizes universal human rights, and sees our political responsibilities extending beyond our narrow ethnic or political group to all human beings.”
“Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders” by Joseph Carens
“Borders have guards and the guards have guns. This is an obvious fact of political life but one that is easily hidden from view — at least from the view of those of us who are citizens of affluent Western democracies. TO Haitians in small, leaky boats confronted by armed Coast Guard cutters, to Salvadorans dying from heat and lack of air after being smuggled into the Arizona desert, to Guatemalans crawling through rat-infested sewer pipes from Mexico to California — to these people the borders, guards and guns are all too apparent. What justifies the use of force against such people?”
Lesson Plan #3: What Are Reparations For?
On national debts and repairing the harms of slavery and racism
Subjects: Politics & civics
Level: High school and up
Download as a PDF
Lesson Plan #4: Race in America
On identity and inequality
Subjects: Politics & civics
Level: High school and up
Download as a PDF
Lesson Plan #5: What Is College For?
On the idea of higher education
Subjects: English, history, philosophy, etc.
Level: High school and up
Download as a PDF
Lesson Plan #6: What Is Social Media For?
On living through technology
Subjects: English, art history, politics, philosophy
Level: High school and up
Download as a PDF
The Point is a 501(c)3 nonprofit literary organization registered in the state of Illinois. If you would like to support more educational initiatives like these, please consider giving a tax-deductible donation to The Point.
If you wish to request any Point materials for your classroom, or have suggestions for future lesson plan topics, please feel free to contact us using the form below! We’d love to hear from you.