Common Read

Resources

In an effort to cultivate dialogue, the CCC Common Read recommends the following resources for use in our classrooms and our community:

The following resources are organized by type. You will find a brief description next to each resource.

Articles

• Lesson 1: Debate versus Dialogue
  • This brief article from the Diversity Awareness Partnership defines differences between debate and dialogue.
• Guidelines for Discussing Difficult or High-Stakes Topics
  • These guidelines from the University of Michigan can help instructors facilitate discussion around controversial issues. The article includes tips on managing both spontaneous and planned discussions, including identifying a purpose, establishing guidelines, providing a common basis for understanding, creating a framework for discussion that maintains focus and flow, including everyone, being an active facilitator, summarizing the discussion and gathering student feedback, and handling issues that involve the instructor's identity.
• “The Coddling of the American Mind” by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
  • This article from The Atlantic discusses the use of trigger warnings in the classroom. We are developing a lesson plan to accompany this resource.
• How ‘Dialogue’ Can Create Empathy in a Divided Classroom by Rebecca Koenig
  • This resource explores the meaning of dialogue and shares thoughts on approaching "touchy topics more productively and use conflict as a learning opportunity." This resource includes a podcast episode on the same topic.
• "We Have to Talk: A Step-by-Step Checklist for Difficult Conversations" by Judy Ringer
  • This web page simply and directly walks you through the steps of having a difficult conversation using a formula similar to that found in "Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When stakes Are High." It is a quick read and will get you using the method right away.

Books

University of Alaska Anchorage offers the following handbooks to help faculty, faculty developers and university leaders more effectively engage campus communities in conversations about the most important issues of our times.

• Start Talking: A Handbook for Engaging Difficult Dialogues in Higher Education edited by Kay Landis
• Stop Talking: Indigenous Ways of Teaching and Learning and Difficult Dialogues in Higher Education

Videos

• The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives by Jonathan Haidt
  • Understanding why people arrive at the conclusions they tend to arrive at is essential to productive dialogue on moral and political issues. In this Ted talk, Jonathan Haidt maps out a five-dimensional rubric for explaining how liberals and conservatives approach moral issues differently.

Podcasts

• TED Radio Hour: Dialogue And Exchange
  • We're living in a time of intense ideological division, and it often feels impossible to bridge the gap. But can we afford not to? This hour, TED speakers explore how to communicate across the divide. These segments can be used together or separately.

Lesson Plans & Activities

• Preparing Students for Difficult Conversations
  • This lesson plan from Facing History and Ourselves focuses on events in Ferguson, MO, but can be adapted for current events. The lesson's objectives are: Students will be able to establish a safe space for holding difficult conversations; Students will be able to acknowledge one another’s complicated feelings about race; Students will be able to develop a shared understanding of the basic facts surrounding the events in Ferguson.
• Turn Students Into Fact-Finding Web Detectives
  • This webpage from Common Sense Media offers videos, articles, and activities to help students find credible information online. These resources could easily be used in a class activity.

Past Projects

Our theme for 2018-2020 was Belonging. Our selection was Sebastian Junger’s book, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging. Details about previous programming can be found below.

 Tribe Reading Guide