Civic Participation and Community Action Sourcebook

Prep and Practice

Ways in to Thinking about Our Connections to Community
A Menu of Options

Discussion Catalysts
• What does community mean to you?
• What communities are you part of?
• What does it mean to be an active community member?
• How are you active? How do you know what is going on in your community?
• What do you need to know about where you live?
• What community issues are of concern to you?
• What is a healthy community?
• What is a good citizen?
• What does it mean to “exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship”?

Writing Catalysts
• Write about your community – its strengths and weaknesses. When I think about my community, I think . . . What I would like to change about my community is . . .
• Write about a person you know who made a difference for the benefit of his or her community.
• Think about a time when you took action to deal with a problem. Do you think it was successful? Why or why not? What did you learn from it?

Reading Catalysts
Read about the activism of people students can relate to and then discuss:
• What was the problem?
• What made people decide to take action?
• What made it hard to take action?
• Why did they act anyway?
• How was the problem resolved?
• What factors contributed to the success of the activism?

Table of Contents