To help elementary and secondary school teachers explore the concepts and issues presented throughout this website, we recommend the following classroom discussions and activities. If you try any of these ideas - or similar ones - please share your experiences and student projects with us. We welcome student contributions to the various sections of the site. Also, please feel free to send additional curriculum ideas to reconstructions@mit.edu so we can post them.

• Discussion Topics
  The following sections have short excerpts from texts and Questions to Consider that you might find useful.
  • Media and Religion
  • Compassion Fatigue
  • The Role of Journalism
  • Conventions of Television News
  • The Form of the Interview
  • Showing and Telling
  • Photography and Collective Memory

• Activities and Projects
  Try these activities with groups of students and encourage discussion about their experiences.
  • Deconstructing Images from the Media Analyzing Sound and News Footage
  • De-Coding Codes by Geraldine Haas, 09/16/2001
  • Analyzing Visual Codes
  • Exploring Relationships Between Images and Words
  • Interviewing
  • Editing Media
  • Creating a Timeline of Events, Analyzing How History is Framed and Exploring Implications for How We Understand Events
  • Video Project: Reporting Events
  • Video Project: Record Reactions in your Community
  • Strangers Who Help Us by Geraldine Haas, 9/18/2001
• Young Voices
• Knowing My Soul by Nikolas Cairns, 09/20/2001
• Curricular Paths
  Forthcoming

Other useful sites

• Coping with Loss from the Law Offices of Michael Pines
• Lesson Plans on media and 9/11 courtesy of Lisa Sakata, Concord-Carlisle Regional High School (MA), 10/05/2001
• The People's Geography Project by Don Mitchell, 09/16/2001
• Talking to Children about Violence and Other Sensitive and Complex Issues in the World, Educators for Social Responsibility
  
• Coping With a National Tragedy, The National Association of School
  Psychologists, 09/17/2001
  
• Resources for Educators on the Sept. 11 Tragedy and the Response, www.teachingforchange.com
• Teaching Students About Terrorism and Related Resources from AskEric
  Includes links to articles, and academic citations about teaching about terrorism.
• Online Lesson Plan from PBS
• Teach More Than Where to Put H in Afghanistan, by Richard Rothstein, New York Times, 09/19/2001
• National Council of Social Studies
• Jihad U.: The Education of a Holy Warrior, by Jeffrey Goldberg, 06/25/2000
• Global SchoolNet Foundation