about our curriculum:

The following units work as templates that can be modified for any number of contexts, from K-12 classes through to higher education and adult education. Our team at Oregon State University can help you modify the lessons to suit specific grade-levels. We can also show you how to use the material to meet Common Core and other regional standards. Contact Sharyn.Clough@oregonstate.edu for more details.

These materials have been created by a variety of educators as a public service, and they can be downloaded for free.

units:

Peace Literacy Curriculum: An Introduction

This four-part unit teaches how to make good decisions, take effective actions, and unlock the power of waging peace, through a compelling allegory drawn from Greek mythology.

• The Allegory of Metis

  • images | text boxes | supplemental reading

• The Muscles of Metis (The Muscles of Our Humanity)

  • coming soon: images | text boxes | supplemental reading

• The Anatomy of Metis - coming soon

• The Descendants of Metis - coming soon

Peace Literacy: Laying the Foundations

Our understanding of peace is only as good as our understanding of the human condition and trauma. This is a multi-part unit:

• The Landscape of Our Human Needs: An Allegory and Pictorial (Designed for students in grades 4/5 and up; accompanies A New Peace Paradigm: Our Human Needs and the Tangles of Trauma)

  • text boxes | painting

• The Garden of Strong Community: An Allegory and Pictorial (Designed for students in k-4)

  • text boxes

• Navigating the World of Electric Light: An Allegory and Pictorial - coming soon - accompanies The World of Electric Light: Understanding the Seductive Glow of Screens

• Protecting Ourselves and the World from Our Five God-like Technological Powers - coming soon

Peace Literacy Lesson Plan 1

This three-part unit includes sections on:

• Understanding and Healing Aggression

• Recognizing and Applying the Power of Respect

• Resolving Conflict/The Power of Calm

study guides:

Educators and community leaders have also been developing study guides for the books in Paul K. Chappell’s The Road to Peace series for their classes, reading groups, and workshops.

• Will War Ever End?

• The End of War (study guide coming soon)

• Peaceful Revolution

• The Art of Waging Peace

• The Cosmic Ocean

• Soldiers of Peace

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visit our peace literacy compendium

The Peace Literacy compendium page has ideas for group projects, assignments, in-class exercises, and community activities built around Peace Literacy themes. We also have a variety of teacher resources. You can download ideas or contribute your own.

learn from your peers

Some of our curriculum developers have made successful use of Peace Literacy in their own classrooms and have shared their lesson plans with us:

• College Level Lesson Plan focused on understanding aggression (it has also been used successfully in High Schools), prepared by Sharyn Clough, Oregon.

• High School Lesson Plan (for use in English, Social Studies, and Leadership classes) prepared by Trish Beckett, Wisconsin

• Middle School Lesson Plan (“Plato’s Allegory of the Cave”) prepared by Susan Radford, Washington (the plan is accompanied by a pictorial presentation).

If you have a created a lesson plan based on Peace Literacy materials and concepts, we’d love to hear from you! Contact sharyn.clough@oregonstate.edu

register for a peace literacy workshop

We are committed to supporting educators who want to teach peace literacy. We offer workshops to help people teach and model peace literacy skills.

Or you can organize a workshop for your own school or school district. Contact Jo Ann Deck, our Peace Literacy Coordinator.

meet our peace literacy
curriculum developers

Sharyn Clough, Ph.D. Peace Literacy
Curriculum Coordinator
Trish Beckett, B.Ed.
Stephanie Clapes, M.Ed.
Scott Griswold, M.Div.
Krista Hensley, M.A.
Abbie Jenks, M.SW., M.Ed.
Christopher Mahon, B.Ed., MA
Ann Mbacke, B.A.
Derek Petrey, Ph.D.
Susan Radford, B.A.
Katherine Rowell, Ph.D.
Chelsey Williams, M.A.

check out reports from the field

Teachers who’ve used our materials share their stories.