Power, Resistance & Liberation

How power has been held and contested, and the long struggles of peoples for freedom and dignity.

K–12 objective ladder

• K D08.S4.K.01 Retell a gentle story about someone being treated fairly or unfairly.
• 1 D08.S4.01.01 Tell when a character in a story is treated unfairly and describe one way someone could help or stand up for them.
• 1 D08.S4.01.02 Describe a kind act where someone helped another person or animal and why it mattered.
• 2 D08.S4.02.01 Identify a rule or a way of treating people that is fair or unfair and explain why, using a classroom or story example.
• 2 D08.S4.02.02 Describe a story of someone who helped others or spoke up when something was unfair, and what they did.
• 3 D08.S4.03.01 Describe a story, real or told, of people working together to change something unfair, and the steps they took.
• 3 D08.S4.03.02 Explain what it means to have power or a say in a group, and what can happen when some people are left out.
• 4 D08.S4.04.01 Explain how rules and leaders make decisions in a group, and identify what people can do when a decision is unfair.
• 4 D08.S4.04.02 Describe a peaceful way people have resisted unfair treatment in history and why they chose it.
• 5 D08.S4.05.01 Describe a historical example of people treated unfairly, such as workers or people denied their rights, who resisted or helped one another.
• 5 D08.S4.05.02 Explain what fairness and dignity mean using a concrete example of when they were honored or denied.
• 6 D08.S4.06.01 Explain what power is, who holds it in a community or society, and how it can be used fairly or unfairly.
• 6 D08.S4.06.02 Describe a movement for rights or freedom, such as a struggle against colonial rule or for equal treatment, and what its people did.
• 7 D08.S4.07.01 Analyze forms of resistance, such as protest, boycott, refusal, art, and storytelling, and how people choose among them.
• 7 D08.S4.07.02 Explain how colonization affected colonized peoples, including loss of land, culture, and self-rule, with care and accuracy.
• 8 D08.S4.08.01 Analyze slavery and the transatlantic slave trade as systems built on the denial of human dignity, and describe how enslaved people resisted.
• 8 D08.S4.08.02 Explain how enslaved and colonized peoples kept their humanity, culture, and hope alive under oppression, with specific examples.
• 9 D08.S4.09.01 Analyze colonialism and empire as systems of power and the anti-colonial movements that fought for liberation.
• 9 D08.S4.09.02 Explain how ideas of freedom and dignity spread and fueled struggles for liberation across different continents.
• 10 D08.S4.10.01 Analyze a case of genocide or mass violence with care, examining its causes, the responses of survivors, and how it is remembered.
• 10 D08.S4.10.02 Analyze how ordinary people have resisted oppression, sheltered others, and rebuilt after atrocity, and what remembrance and justice require.
• 11 D08.S4.11.01 Compare social movements for civil rights, labor, and liberation across different countries and analyze their strategies and effects.
• 11 D08.S4.11.02 Analyze the relationship between power, inequality, and technology in past and present struggles, and who gained and who was left out.
• 12 D08.S4.12.01 Weigh competing accounts of power and resistance in a contested historical event and form a reasoned judgment.
• 12 D08.S4.12.02 Reflect on their own role and responsibility in the ongoing, unfinished struggle for freedom and dignity for all people.

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