Bringing our stories, and the stories of others around the world who have been similarly affected by political violence, terrorism and war, to a wider audience is one of the goals of this web site, 911 Stories: Our Voices, Our Choices. In the critical year leading up to the eleventh commemoration of the September 11th attacks, it will provide a key opportunity to revisit the paths that could have been taken in the days after 9/11. How could we have responded differently? What could 9/11 families, and citizens around the world, have taught us about their experiences of terrorism, political violence and war? What choices could we have made, and what choices can we make today, to create peaceful tomorrows for everyone?
As our inventory of stories grows and takes shape with regular updates throughout the year leading up to 9/11/12, we welcome the participation of educators at all levels. We hope that this web site will inspire critical thinking among your students, and that you will use our content for writing assignments, curricula, and projects around the topic of 9/11. We’ll share some of your ideas here, and hope that they will encourage new conversations among teachers as well as students at this critical time.
For those wishing to teach and explore, the Peaceful Tomorrows issue of The Change Agent is a valuable, free resource. The magazine contains lesson plans and discussion questions to give teachers classroom-ready material that will engage students and provide an important forum for critical thinking, sharing, and achieving understanding across diverse experiences.
Let us know what you’re doing — we invite you to contact us at 911voiceschoices@gmail.com.
Teaching about 9/11
Eleven years after terrorists attacked the United States on 9/11/01, how are Americans making sense of the events of that day and the aftermath? For those wishing to teach and explore, the Peaceful Tomorrows issue of The Change Agent is a valuable, free resource. The magazine contains lesson plans and discussion questions to give teachers classroom-ready material that will engage students and provide an important forum for critical thinking, sharing, and achieving understanding across diverse experiences. A national magazine published by World Education, the issue includes articles, poems, and first-person narratives that teach the history of 9/11, wrestle with important legal and ethical questions related to security and liberty, examine the ‘rule of law’ in the context of terrorism, and provide a forum for the voices of people seeking justice and reconciliation. It offers many extremely moving stories about 9/11 and its repercussions.
Written in collaboration with September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a national organization founded by family members of those killed on September 11th who have united to turn their grief into action for peace, The Change Agent features not only the voices of family members of victims, but witnesses to the attacks, relatives of veterans of the war on terror, detainees, and ordinary Americans who have had a decade to reflect on what happened on 9/11 and the events that followed.
