In this activity, students will use the book, The Flight: Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior, to identify and assess the various impacts that personal narratives can have on restorative and retributive justice efforts.
Lesson Plans
Persepolis and Women’s Rights
In this lesson, students reflect on the topic of women’s rights in the Middle East, compare a news article to the Iranian graphic novel Persepolis and recognize biases/constructions in media.
24 and the Ticking Time Bomb
In this lesson, students interpret the TV show 24 and its use and justifications of torture. The lesson was designed for an introduction to human rights class. The lesson is possible at any stage of the semester and can be included in any class dealing with media and human rights or torture or introductory human rights classes. Students will interpret one or two episodes of the show, investigate arguments used for torture within their show and recognize that torture can never be justified.
Debate: The Strengths and Weaknesses of the Nuremberg Trials
In this activity, students will draw from several relevant readings to debate the strengths and weaknesses of the Nuremberg Trials in terms of legal precedents set and also justice served.
Worst of the Worst: Human Rights Abuses by States—Violence, and Intervention
The lesson addresses violence by states and intervention by the International community. Would be ideal for a class with students who have not done much work in human rights—such as an intro to human rights course, or an intro to a module on human rights. This assignment was originally for an intro to human rights class (approximately 30 students), and was given towards the start of the semester to familiarize students with human rights abuses and important events relating to state violence, and international intervention attempts to stop the violence, in the 20th century.
UDHR ‘Generations of Rights’ Classification
This lesson was designed for an Introduction to human rights course, however it may be used to introduce a human rights component to a course. The goal is to introduce students to human rights through the concept of the three ‘generations of rights’ using the 30 articles of the UDHR for classification purposes. Students do not need any background on human rights. Actually, this lesson is most effective for introducing students to human rights, especially before they have much exposure to the specifics of the UDHR or the concept of the three generations of rights.
Comparative Perspectives on State Violations of Human Rights: Physical Integrity Violations.
Students identify factors related to state repression of physical integrity violations. Students think broadly, and creatively, about possible cause and effect factors on state repression.