Introduction to the Voices Competencies

1. Introduction to the Voices Competencies

2. Overview of Voices Competencies • Voices Social and Democratic Competencies • Social and Democratic Values • Social and Democratic Skills and Practices • Social and Democratic Knowledge • Voices Academic Competencies • Oral Language Competencies • Reading Competencies • Writing Competencies • Critical Thinking Competencies

3. Overview of Voices Social and Democratic Competencies • Social and Democratic Values • Social Values • Democratic Values • Social and Democratic Skills and Practices • Social and Emotional Skills • Democratic Skills and Practices • Social and Democratic Knowledge • Democratic History and Knowledge • Democratic Rights and Laws

4. Voices Social and Democratic Competencies:Integrate Character Education, SEL, and Civics

5. Overview of Voices Academic Competencies • Oral Language Competencies • Storytelling and speech making • Reading Competencies • Vocabulary and critical comprehension • Writing Competencies • Personal narrative and persuasive writing genres • Critical Thinking Competencies • Apply and transfer

6. Voices Academic Competencies:Alignment with Common Core State Standards Educators have identified eight major shifts in ELA instruction required by the Common Core State Standards. Democratic Voices embraces these shifts by providing: • Close listening and close reading of texts. • Critical thinking questions that require text-based evidence. • Explanatory and argumentative short writing responses which include citing of sources. • Intensive instruction in oral, academic, and reading vocabulary. • Instruction in social and academic competencies which requires building bodies of knowledge related to each competency. • Realistic fiction, historical fiction, biography, autobiography and speeches. • Extensive writing in response to literature and informational texts, including the writing of personal narratives and persuasive speeches. • Challenging grade-level texts for all grade levels.

7. Social and Democratic Competencies--In More Depth-- • Social and Democratic Values • Social Values • Democratic Values • Social and Democratic Skills and Practices • Social and Emotional Skills • Democratic Skills and Practices • Social and Democratic Knowledge • Democratic History and Knowledge • Democratic Rights and Laws

8. Social and Democratic Values

9. Core Social Values:Love and Freedom In Democratic Voices, we focus on two core social values that are critical to healthy human development: love and freedom. • Love: to care for and support our selves, our families, friends, and neighbors, as well as strangers and fellow human beings • Freedom: to pursue our dreams and goals and to help others to pursue theirs Related love and freedom values include: respect, forgiveness, honesty, courage, perseverance, and hope.

10. Love That Supports FreedomAnd Freedom That Promotes Love Love and freedom are mutually reinforcing social values that can help our youth to build healthy relationships, to overcome the social problems in their lives, to achieve their goals, and to create a more compassionate and free society. Freedom Love

11. Core Democratic Values:Peace and Democracy In Democratic Voices, we similarly seek to health youth to understand and embrace two core democratic values: peace and democracy. • Peace: to live in harmony with others • Democracy: to participate in governing our societies Peace extends love and caring throughout our societies and makes possible the continued growth of freedom and democracy. Democracy provides a self-governmental structure and culture that encourages everyone’s voice to be heard.

12. Love and Freedom& Peace and Democracy Democracy Freedom Peace Love Love and freedom as social values provide the interpersonal foundation upon which peace and democracy as democratic values can take root and grow.

13. Social and Democratic Skills

14. Core Social and Emotional Skills: Perspective Taking and Problem Solving In DemocraticVoices, we place a major emphasis on learning social perspective taking and social problem solving skills. • Social Perspective Taking: the ability to express, take, and coordinate different points of view • Social Problem Solving: the ability to solve important personal and social problems The ability to stand in other people’s shoes is one of the most important ways we can demonstrate compassion and solve important social problems.

15. Core Democratic Skills and Practices:Speak Out, Discuss, Debate, Negotiate, Compromise In Democratic Voices, we help youth master the democratic skills and practices they need to protect and expand our basic democratic rights. The core democratic skills we focus on are: • Speaking Out: Speak out about social injustices and threats to our basic democratic rights • Discuss, Debate, Negotiate, Compromise: Engage in discussion, debate, negotiation, and compromise about the best ways to protect and expand our basic democratic rights.

16. Social and Democratic Knowledge

17. Core Democratic History and Knowledge:History of Democracy and the Declaration of Independence In order for our youth to embrace and support the growth of democracy, two of the most important things they need to understand are: • The history of democracy in the United States and the world; • The importance of the Declaration of Independence as the inspiration for the pursuit of universal human equality.

18. Core Democratic Rights and Laws:Freedom of Speech and Equal Protection Under the Law In order to support the growth of a more peaceful and democratic society, we need to encourage all members of our society to understand and support our basic democratic rights and related laws. Currently, two of the most important rights we need to protect and extend are: • Freedom of Speech (1st Amendment): Protect everyone’s right to express their viewpoints. • Equal Protection Under the Law (14th Amendment): Protect everyone’s right to equal protection under our laws.

19. Voices Academic Competencies--In More Depth-- • Oral Language Competencies • Storytelling and speech making • Reading Competencies • Vocabulary and critical comprehension • Writing Competencies • Personal narrative and persuasive writing genres • Critical Thinking Competencies • Apply and transfer

20. Core Oral Language (Voice) Competencies:Telling Stories and Delivering Speeches One of the most important ways to overcome social obstacles and to attain important goals is to learn how to use our voices to tell our stories, to share our experiences, and to deliver speeches that advocate ways to overcome major social problems. • Telling Stories: the ability to tell stories about important events in your life • Delivering Speeches: the ability to deliver speeches that advocate solutions to important social problems Voice is one of the most important ways to achieve personal and social transformation.

21. Core Reading Competencies:Vocabulary and Critical Comprehension An important ways to support the growth of a more peaceful and democratic society is to promote the widespread mastery of basic literacy (reading and writing) skills. With regard to reading, we emphasize: • Academic and Reading Vocabulary: To effectively advocate, discuss, and debate our core democratic rights, requires understanding and being able to use the most important words and phrases related to our democratic rights. • Critical Comprehension: To effectively engage in discussion and debate, also requires being able to critically analyze speech, documents, and social media.

22. Core Writing Competencies:Personal Narratives and Persuasive Speeches In Democratic Voices, we encourage youth to first tell their stories and to speak out about the social injustices or social problems they are concerned about. With this oral language foundation, they then learn to write: • Personal Narratives: To write personal stories about events in their lives • Persuasive Speeches: To write speeches advocating solutions to major social problems The ability to write out what one has spoken assures that one’s voice will be heard for a much longer time.

23. Core Critical Thinking Competencies:Apply and Transfer Finally, in order to support the continued growth of democracy, we need to be able to apply what we have learned from our literature and history to improving our societies. In the context of the growth of democracy, the core critical thinking skills culminate with: • Apply: the ability to apply the basic democratic values, rights, and skills and practices to solving contemporary problems • Transfer: the ability to transfer what we have learned to new problems and social challenges

24. The Core Voices Competencies Voices integrates the teaching and learning of the Voices Social, Democratic, and Academic Competencies into the Democratic Voices curriculum. Within each competency, we focus on two core learning objectives: Voices Social and Democratic Competencies • Core Social Values: Love and Freedom • Core Democratic Values: Peace and Democracy • Core Social and Emotional Skills: Perspective Taking and Social Problem Solving • Core Democratic Skills and Practices: Speak Out, Discuss, Debate, Negotiate, Compromise • Core Social and Democratic History and Knowledge: History of Democracy in U.S. and World and Declaration of Independence • Core Democratic Rights and Laws: Freedom of Speech and Equal Protection Under the Law Voices Academic Competencies • Core Oral Language Competencies (Voice): Telling Stories and Delivering Speeches • Core Reading Competencies: Vocabulary and Critical Comprehension • Core Writing Competencies: Personal Narratives and Persuasive Speeches • Core Critical Thinking Skills: Apply and Transfer