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5.1
Identifying Your Civic Passion
Submitted by Jessica Friedrichs & Shannon Wheatley Hartman
This activity provides an opportunity for participants to reflect on which civic issues are most important to them individually and how they might negotiate or advocate for these issues within a larger group. It uses a playful, competitive model to get groups thinking together.
Learning Goal
Participants will identify civic issues, reflect on their own priorities, and articulate their top civic passions.
Instructions
Set Up: Prepare for the Activity
Optional: Prior to your group gathering, share a common document with participants and invite them to add at least 3-5 civic issues that matter most to them. It is best not to give any examples or prompts. Aim to collect more than 16 topics. Try to consolidate or combine topics where appropriate.
Share printed copies of this blank Sweet Sixteen Civic Bracket with participants as handouts.If doing this online, invite one participant in each group to be a notetaker prior to the session and ask them to print out a copy to fill in the brackets for their group during the activity.
Organize participants into small groups (3-4 ppl).
Begin by introducing the learning goals of this activity.
Step One: Generate List of Civic Issues (5 min)
If a list of topics was collected prior to the session, share the list with the full group.
If not done prior to the gathering, ask participants to each write down at least 3-5 civic issues that matter most to them. The aim is to generate more than 16 topics in total for the full group.
Record and organize the issues on a board, flip chart or shared document. Try to consolidate or combine topics where appropriate.
Step Two: Rank Civic Issues (10 min)
Using a rank choice voting method, invite participants to vote for their top issues. If doing this in-person, give each participant a marker or sticker and allow them to distribute 5 points across their top issues. Explain that they can give 1 point to 5 different topics or 5 points to a single topic. They can distribute their 5 points however they like.
The goal is to determine the Top 16 Civic Issues that matter the most for the group.
Step Three: Seed the Bracket (5 min)
Ask each group, or if doing this online the assigned notetaker for each group, to load or seed the empty Sweet Sixteen Bracket on the handout with the top 16 issues.
Explain that they should follow the numbers shown on the empty bracket. So in the end, in true tournament fashion, they have the topic that ranks most important to the group (#1) to facing off against the topic that ranks #16, #2 vs. #15, #3 vs. #14, #4 vs. #13, and so on.
If helpful, share the Sample Civic Sweet Sixteen Bracket.
Step Four: Play the Civic Tournament (20 min)
In small groups, invite participants to play the Sweet Sixteen Civic Tournament. Ask them to discuss the various competitions or face-offs and, as a group, decide which topic will win in each face-off and continue in the tournament. Share the following prompts with participants to use as they play.
Helpful prompts for group decision-making:
If you had to devote your life (or the semester) to the issue, which one would you pick?
If you had to convince others to join you to make a change for this area, which one would you pick?
Helpful questions to ask during the discussion:
Why does this topic resonate with you?
Which values are helping to inform your choice?
Step Five: Debrief as a Full Group (10 min)
Invite each group to share their final “winning” civic issue. Discuss:
Was it hard for your group to reach this decision? Was it a tough competition? Which face-off was the hardest?
How did your group decide the winner if opinions differed?
What was the hardest aspect of this activity?
TIME
50
min
MODULE
Civic Collaboration
This activity can be completed by any discussion group.
This activity can be used to support facilitation skills. See Sample Facilitation Certificate Program Design to illustrate sample sequencing.
This activity might be considered high energy or more playful than other activities.
This activity can be used to build trust and interpersonal connection.
Tell us what you think. Rate and review this activity:
Have any helpful suggestions or modifications for this activity?
Share them in the comments below!
0 Comments
YD
December 3, 2022 at 2:39:23 AM
Activity 5.4 uses the fun method of role playing and builds on other activities to help participants develop questions and practice gathering information to collaborate effectively with communities as partners. This activity involves working together in small groups and as a large group. It also includes multiple additional resources for participants to continue learning methods and skills to build community partnerships.
YD
December 3, 2022 at 2:39:00 AM
Activity 1.8 provides a very useful survey to gather information on and help support participants' different discussion styles and needs, exploring various areas like preferences for group size, ways of participating in discussions, any fears relating to discussions, etc.
YD
December 3, 2022 at 2:34:46 AM
Activity 5.8 further explores direct democracy by proposing the idea of "legislative juries" to improve the current initiative process through collaboration and deliberation. This activity uses role playing to have participants practice deliberation as part of a mock legislative jury to craft ballot initiatives on a given issue.
YD
December 3, 2022 at 2:27:35 AM
Activity 5.7 uses a fun and tactile activity like building LEGOs to explore the effects of coming together to colloborate and discuss, while also participating together in another physical activity.
YD
December 3, 2022 at 2:22:49 AM
Activity 5.6 uses memes and futuristic zombie scenarios to develop ways to change people's minds, while exploring various aspects of the methods used to change minds, like assumptions behind ideas, sticking to the facts versus stretching the truth, appealing to emotions etc.
YD
December 3, 2022 at 2:16:44 AM
Activity 5.5 uses a fun and visual/craft activity to help participants explore the many different types of knowledge, how they are valued, and the role/importance of each type of knowledge in their own lives.
YD
December 3, 2022 at 2:11:54 AM
Activity 5.3 gives participants to use writing, drawing, and/or speaking to share and discuss the various communities they belong to and/or feel excluded from, the various aspects that define community, as well as the practices of inclusion or exclusion and power distribution in these communities.
YD
December 3, 2022 at 2:07:26 AM
Activity 5.2 introduces four categories of stakeholders and multiple prompts to help participants work together in small and large groups to create comprehensive list of stakeholders, including those who are marginalized or not as obvious, for a given issue.
YD
December 3, 2022 at 2:04:00 AM
Activity 5.1 uses gamification by having participants play the Civics Topics Sweet Sixteen Competition to identify their issues they are passionate about both as individuals and as a group.
YD
December 3, 2022 at 2:01:34 AM
Activity 4.9 uses both lighthearted and serious characters, topics, and dialogue to help participants practice viewing an issue from the perspective of multiple people/characters and explain their thought processes and rationale for the choices they think these people will make in a given situation.