Lesson 10 — Speaking Up, Standing With: Self-Advocacy and the Unit’s Gathering

Summary

Learners practice self-advocacy — stating their own needs and boundaries directly and respectfully, using an I-statement frame and distinguishing it from passive and aggressive styles. Then they gather the unit’s six goals into one whole self, revisiting the Lesson 1 map and their portfolio artifacts in a closing reflection.

Objectives

• Advocate for your own needs and boundaries respectfully while considering others. (D01.S3.09.02)
• Gather the unit’s six goals — naming subtle and secondary emotions, seeing context and media’s shaping, telling a coherent story, seeing society and self shaping each other, setting a goal with milestones, and advocating for yourself — into one whole self. (D01.S1.09.01, D01.S1.09.02, D01.S2.09.01, D01.S2.09.02, D01.S3.09.01, D01.S3.09.02)

Connection

There is a difference between being quiet when you are hurting, shouting to win, and speaking up for yourself while still seeing the other person. The first two are easy and costly; the third is a skill. Saying “I feel worried when plans change at the last minute, because I prepare carefully — what I need is a heads-up sooner” names your need without attacking anyone. Self-advocacy is not winning; it is being heard while staying fair. And it is the last piece of this unit: together with naming your feelings, seeing what shapes them, telling your story, seeing how you and society make each other, and setting a goal, it is how you become the author of your own life.

Materials

• Advocacy scenario cards
• I-statement frame sheet
• Unit map sheet (from Lesson 1)

Preparation

• Copy the advocacy scenario cards and I-statement frame sheet; have learners’ Lesson 1 unit maps and their portfolio artifacts on hand.
• Retrieval: this whole lesson is a retrieval, synthesis, and application pass — the payoff of the unit (S-039).

Facilitator note

This lesson is written to the learner (“you”). It is the final skill lesson and the unit’s capstone. The skill — self-advocacy — is taught with a worked example and guided practice (S-011). The core frame is assertiveness: expressing one’s own needs and boundaries directly and respectfully, distinct from passive (suppressing one’s needs) and aggressive (trampling others’) styles (Alberti & Emmons, S-405). The I-statement pattern — “I feel… when… because… what I need is…” — carries it (related to Rosenberg’s nonviolent communication, S-148). The ethics lens: advocacy that honors the other person is a moral skill, not just a social one. The egalitarian lens: some people’s needs are heard more readily than others’ — because of status, gender, disability, or prejudice — so teaching every learner to advocate is itself an act of leveling; and advocacy can be collective, not only individual. The global lens: cultures differ in how directly a need is stated; the lesson offers the I-statement as one respectful form, not the only right one — a learner whose culture values indirectness should be honored, not “corrected.” Safety: role-plays are low-stakes and invented; no learner is made to disclose a real need. The closing gathering retrieves all six goals (S-039) and celebrates mastery as collective, never a ranking (S-007): a learner who has not yet got a goal simply revisits it — “not yet” is information. Close with warmth: the unit has been inward work, and it lands in care and agency, not pressure.

Procedure

1. Recall (5 min). Name the unit’s six goals from memory. (Recalling is the learning.)
2. Worked example (10 min). Watch as your facilitator models the three styles for one scenario — passive, aggressive, assertive — and lands on the I-statement: “I feel… when… because… what I need is…”. Notice how the assertive one honors both people.
3. Guided practice (15 min). In pairs, take the advocacy scenario cards. For each, first say the need passively and aggressively (to feel the difference), then craft and say the assertive I-statement. Give each other one specific piece of feedback.
4. Apply it to you (10 min). Write one I-statement for a real (or invented) need or boundary of your own. Say it aloud to your pair if you wish.
5. Gather the six (15 min). Return to your Lesson 1 unit map and your portfolio artifacts. For each of the six goals, write one sentence of what you now know or can do. Connect them: how do feelings, identity, and purpose make one whole self?
6. Close (5 min). You began this unit wondering who you are. You end it as the author — still in the making, and that is exactly right.

Differentiation

• Support: Practice a single simple request with the I-statement frame before moving to full boundaries.
• Extension: Write an advocacy plan for a need bigger than your own — a change your community needs — and name whom to address and how.

Assessment

• Summative (portfolio): The six-goal gathering on the unit map — one sentence per goal, linked into one whole self — kept in the portfolio alongside the unit’s artifacts.
• Self/peer: Learners self-check all six goals are present and give one specific “I noticed you honored both people when…” to a partner.
• Mastery, not ranking: A learner missing a goal revisits its artifact and completes it; the map is finished when it is finished.

Home connection

Show someone at home your completed unit map and teach them one goal end to end — including the I-statement. Teaching it is the surest sign it is yours.

Resources

• On assertiveness and equality in relationships: Alberti & Emmons, Your Perfect Right (S-405).
• On nonviolent communication and stating needs: Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication (S-148).
• On retrieval practice and spacing: Dunlosky et al. (2013), https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100612453266 (S-039).
• On explicit instruction and worked examples: Kirschner, Sweller & Clark (2006), https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep4102_1 (S-011).