In this activity, structured as a circle, students reflect on memories, quotes, and photos from the student-sponsored March for Our Lives on March 24, 2018. For an introduction to the circle process, see this description.
Ask students to seat themselves in in a circle. Place these images or other images from the March for Our Lives in the center of the circle.
Opening Ceremony
Talk your students through the following guided meditation:
Let’s think about Saturday’s March for Our Lives as we take a few deep breaths … slowly … deeply … in … and out … in … and out … in … and out …
And let’s think about the reasons people marched … marched in the “March for Our Lives” … young people … adult allies … students … their teachers … in Washington, DC … in New York City … and other parts of the U.S. and world …
If you were at one of the marches … what was it like? … what feelings did it bring up? … who were the other people marching with you? …
And if you didn’t participate in any of the marches, consider the reasons why … What did you see about these marches … hear about these marches … read about these marches? … What thoughts and feelings did it bring up for you? …
And as you’re continuing to breathe slowly … deeply … in … and out … in … and out … let’s also look at the images placed in our center piece … take your time … take them in …
Who was represented at the march? … who wasn’t? …. consider the words on the signs people carried with them … think about the reasons why so many people decided to march …
Take a few more breaths as you get read to talk about Saturday’s March for Our Lives in our circle today:
Go rounds
Send the talking piece around using some or all of the following prompts:
- Share your thoughts or feelings about the March for Our Lives that took place on Saturday, March 24, 2018.
- Share your reasons for having joined, or not having joined, the march.
- Based on the images in the center piece, what other reasons do you think motivated people to join the march? How do you feel about that?
Video: His Brother Was Shot in Chicago. He’s Marching With Students from Parkland
Play the following New York Times video clip at:
Note that the video follows a group of students on Chicago’s south side neighborhood. They talk about the gun violence that ravages their neighborhood and how it has affected their young lives.
In the second part of the video, the Chicago students host some of the students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where a school shooting left 17 people dead on February 14, 2018. The students talk together about the different ways in which gun violence has affected them and their communities, who has gotten attention for the pain inflicted, and why. The students decide to come together in the March for Our Lives.
Invite your students to turn to a partner to discuss their thoughts and feelings about the video they just watched.
Send the talking piece around using some or all of the following prompts:
- What about the video resonated or stood out for you? Why?
- Reflect on how the students in the video talk about gun violence in their Chicago neighborhood. How is this the same or different from the experience the Parkland students had with gun violence?
- What are your thoughts and feelings about the meeting between the two student groups in Chicago the week before the March for Our Lives? Is it important for these students to share their experiences with each other? Why? Why not?
- How might a meeting of this sort affect the movement the students are seeking to build?
- How do the students in the video talk about the March for Our Lives and activism around gun control? How does that connect to your own experience (or lack of experience) with the March for Our Lives and the movement around gun control?
Closing: The Long Haul
Read to students (or ask a student to read) the following quote from Time Magazine:
“These students have become the central organizers of what may turn out to be the most powerful grassroots gun-reform movement in nearly two decades. For much of the rest of the country, numbed and depressed by repeated mass shootings, the question has become, Can these kids actually do it?”
Next, read, or have a student read, the following quote by Delaney Tarr, a Parkland student, as he spoke to the crowds in Washington, DC:
“This is more than just a march, this is more than just one day, one event, then moving on. This is not a mere publicity stunt, a single day in the span of history. This is a movement, this is a movement relying on the persistence and the passion of its people...
“There are so very many things, so many steps to take …. We will take the big and we will take the small, but we will keep fighting.… We are not here for breadcrumbs ,we are here for real change. We are here to lead. …
If they continue to ignore, to only pretend to listen then we will take action where it counts. We will take action every day in every way till they simply cannot ignore us anymore. Today we march, we fight, we roar. We prepare our signs, we raise them high. We know what we want. We know how to get it and we are not waiting any longer.”
Send a talking piece around inviting students to share their thoughts and feelings about what Delaney Tarr told the marchers in Washington.