Topic outline

  • Welcome to Courageous Conversations!

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    In Courageous Conversations, our primary objective will be to see ourselves as powerful people allied with one another, and as agents of positive change in the larger community. Through media, literature, discussion, and writing, we will deepen our understanding of the dynamic intersections between ethnicity, culture, class, identity, and educational outcomes as well as work on reading and writing essential skills. Additionally, we will explore how those factors are assets that we can use to tell our own stories, and in sharing these with our classmates and others we will increase our critical understanding of our world and ourselves.

    In Courageous Conversations, we will analyze how each one of us are a fusion of personal and cultural stories and how those stories contribute the larger narrative fabric of the world around us. We will also learn to recognize and examine our own biases and prejudices as well as how our cultural biases shape our institutions (schools, judicial systems, etc.) In Courageous, we will have conversations that develop into well-written dialogue and essays about ourselves and how our own individual perspective shapes our unique worldview.

    This class is a cooperative effort! That means that we will openly (and courageously) discuss and share our opinions and questions while respecting others. There are no wrong or right questions or answers, as each person’s perspective shapes their own beliefs. However, your responsibility will be recognize your own role in the stories you have been told so that you can tell and write your own with beauty and courage!

  • Topic 1

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  • Courageous Tri 2

    In this trimester, Courageous Conversations will go beyond explorations of identity. Courageous students will delve into how our various positionalities interact with the pillars of American institutions: our educational and law enforcement systems. With the help of texts such as Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow, Ta-Nahesi Coates's Between The World And Me, as well as varied articles, video, and class discussion, students will explore the essential questions and solutions to the problems that persist within our institutions. Finally, as students deepen their understanding of justice and racism, students will courageously take up their own social justice concern to research, teach about, and act upon.

  • Topic 4