Artists and creators often use their mediums and art to advance civic conversations. Creating Citizens, The Commonwealth Club’s education initiative, hears from three Bay Area activists as they talk with students about their use of creative media to advance civil dialogue around social justice issues.

Elise Joshi is a 20-year-old organizer and student at UC Berkeley. She has a large social media following and is an expert in creating short-form video content that often accompanies her in-person activism about labor, climate, and health. Myles Bess produces and hosts a video series on YouTube that informs young people and promotes media literacy and civic engagement. And Marke Bieschke is an author who writes books for young people about different social and historical topics. His books touch on themes of acceptance, protest and tolerance.

Together, the panelists talk about what draws them to difficult conversations and difficult subjects. They also address why civil dialogue matters, and how youth can become civically engaged at any age.

IN YOUR CLASSROOM: RECREATE THIS FIELD TRIP

For educators who were unable to bring their students to this program, we’ve assembled some materials for you to recreate this field trip in your classroom. We encourage you to first show your students the live program (video linked below), and then jump into the discussion questions linked below. These discussion questions are the same ones that were used by attending students. We’ve also attached a list of ground rules and guidelines for productive discussions on high-stakes topics. This document, which is used at all of our in-person field trips, was developed by the Center for Research on Learning & Teaching at the University of Michigan.

• Discussion Questions
• Guidelines for Discussing Difficult or High-Stakes Topics