Elementary (Grades 3-5)

Middle School (Grades 6-8)

• Have chart paper and makers.

• Print the following definitions on a piece of chart paper:

• Persecution is hostility (unfriendly or warlike feeling) and ill-treatment (cruelty), especially because of race, political, religious, or non-religious beliefs.

• Harassment is attacking, hostile behavior, or intimidation (frightening someone, especially to make them do what the intimidator wants them to do).

• Intolerance is unwillingness to accept views, beliefs, or behavior that differ from one’s own. It is the opposite of being unprejudiced, fair, open-minded.

• Create a blank timeline that begins with 1 CE and ends with the current year. The timeline should be divided into centuries so that there are 21 sections spaced around the room.

• Divide the class into dyads or triads depending on the number of students.

• Duplicate the multiple page handout Examples of Religious Intolerance over Time and cut it so that you have 18 separate incidents to hand out. Because the description of some incidents is relatively short while some are longer, we suggest you assign incidents as follows:

(You may wish to glue each incident onto a piece of card stock so that you can use this deck again in the future.)

• Make enough copies of Types of Hostility and Ill-Treatment to distribute one copy to each student.

CASEL Core Competencies

• Social Awareness

• Relationship Skills

• Responsible Decision-Making

Common Core ELA-Literacy Standards

• Speaking and listening

• Reading Informational Text

• Writing

NCSS Social Studies Themes

• Culture

• Groups and Organizations

• Civic Ideals and Practices

• Describe examples of current and past persecution based on religious or non-religious beliefs from around the world

• Identify how they feel when they reflect on incidents of persecution for religious or non- religious beliefs and explain why they have these feelings

• Explain why it is important for people to know how people have been discriminated against or persecuted for their religious or non-religious beliefs

• Persecution

• Harassment

• Intolerance

Note to the teacher:

In this lesson, students will get a brief description of 18 moments in time from around the world that depict persecution based on religious or non-religious beliefs. These 18 examples are by no means meant to be representative of the very long and widespread history of intolerance of religious and non-religious beliefs found in all corners of the globe, nor of its terrible cost to humanity.

This lesson is designed for Grades 5 and up. Depending on the grade and reading level of your students, you may wish to create the dyad or triad groups ahead of the lesson and assign a

vocabulary lesson to prepare them to read and comprehend the incident each group is assigned.

You may also decide to distribute the incidents, one to each group, as a homework reading assignment the evening before the lesson. Because the description of some incidents is relatively short, we suggest you assign two incidents (B&O K&F, D&I) to three groups.

When they construct the timeline, for your use, the correct order of events is: O, E, C, J, N, L, P, D, H, B, R, K, M, A, F, G, I, Q.

The goals of this lesson are: to give students a snapshot of how religious intolerance has manifested itself around the world over the centuries; to engage them in thinking about the harm people have done to others when they have failed to respect the rights enumerated in Articles, 2, 16 and 18 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights; to identify the feelings that arise in them when they consider the terrible price people have paid and continue to pay for intolerance of religious and non-religious beliefs; and to be moved to take a stand against such

intolerance when it arises in their lives.

Depending on the number of students in the class, divide the class into dyads or triads. Tell each group its number (per the chart above) and give each small group a copy of the one or two incidents assigned to the group. Tell each group they have between five and eight minutes to read their incident or incidents.

When students are finished reading, show students the timeline that has been posted on all four walls around the room. Tell students to select one member to share information while the other one or two post the group’s card or cards in the right place on the timeline.

Ask the student who is the speaker for the group to tell the rest of the class:

• the year or years the incident took place (which can be found in bold type)

• where it took place

• the name of the group or groups that were targeted and what happened to them

Tell speakers to give only a brief description of what happened to them.

While the student is speaking, the other(s) will post the incident(s) with masking tape on the correct part of the timeline.

Once all groups have put their incidents on the timeline, distribute the handout Types of Hostility and Ill-Treatment. Ask students to look over the behaviors listed and to think about what they have just learned from the timeline.

Ask: What stands out most for you when you think about the incidents on the timeline? Chart student responses. (Possible responses include: how long people have been targeted, the different religious faiths, where some of the incidents took place, etc.)

Ask: What surprised you about the incidents we have posted on the timeline? Why were you surprised? What questions does the timeline bring up for you? (Chart responses)

Ask: What does the timeline we just created tell us about how people have been treated because of their religious or non-religious beliefs? How does knowing about these few incidents make you feel? Why? (Chart responses)