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Remembering Injustice, Strengthening Democracy
Suzette Araniva (LAUSD)
Mini Unit on Constitutional Rights, Civic Memory, and Historical Justice
Purpose:
The United States has a marred relationship with the preservation of history, and at this present moment, censorship and assimilation through government policies have made it difficult for people to share their solidarity with oppressed peoples. Due to these circumstances, educators are at the precipice of a new era in which we can work together with our students to tell the stories that go untold, censored, and forgotten.
While in Korea, I noticed how memorializing and preserving painful histories can help shape public narratives and can force us to confront the past — lest we forget it. This was captured in a quote I saw at the May 18th National Cemetery: “History not remembered is forgotten.”
Essential Questions
How does what we choose to remember shape how we participate in democracy today?
How does public history help us understand our rights and responsibilities?
How does telling forgotten stories help protect constitutional values?
Objectives
By the end of this mini unit, students will be able to:
Content Standards
HSS 12.1 Students explain the fundamental principles and moral values of American democracy as expressed in the U.S. Constitution and other essential documents.
HSS 12.2 Students evaluate the role of civic participation in maintaining a healthy democracy.
HSS 12.3 Students analyze the rights and responsibilities of citizens in a democracy.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.1: Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.2: Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary that makes clear the relationships among the key details and ideas.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.7: Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well as in words) in order to address a question or solve a problem.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.8: Evaluate an author's premises, claims, and evidence by corroborating or challenging them with other information.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.9: Integrate information from diverse sources, both primary and secondary, into a coherent understanding of an idea or event, noting discrepancies among sources.
Suggested Time: Approximately 2 Weeks
Pacing Guide
Day 1: Artifacts (Rooted in their lived experiences)
Activities
Warm Up:
Educators pose the following prompt as students begin a short quick‑write: What do you find in museums? What purpose do they serve?
This activates prior knowledge and frames museums as civic spaces that preserve public memory.
Group Activity: Ask students to share the artifact they brought to class (assigned in advance). Explain that artifacts can tell a story, bring people together, or illustrate a lived reality. Emphasize that while the importance of an artifact can be subjective, artifacts also reveal shared truths about people, communities, and history.
Procedure:
Educator models for students, so they will share their artifact and ask students to pose questions about the artifact and share what they learned about the educator through this activity.
Next, students sit in groups of four.
One student shares their artifact while the others act as audience members.
Audience members take notes and jot down questions to ask at the end.
Rotate until all group members have shared.
Think-Ink-Share: (Reflection Paragraph)
Students write a paragraph reflecting on similarities and differences between their artifact and those shared by their group members.
Prompt: How can artifacts tell us about ourselves and others?
This helps students connect personal objects to broader themes of identity, community, and historical interpretation.
Exit Ticket
As a whole class, create a collective list of findings, similarities, and differences.
Then complete the sentence: “Artifacts can…”
Day 2: Korean History Case Study
Main Idea: Public memory is a civic responsibility. Without people recording, writing, creating, and preserving historical events through books, films, museums, memorials, and other forms of documentation, societies would lose important knowledge about their past. Collective memory helps communities learn from history, honor those affected, and strengthen democratic values.
Learning Objectives
Students will be able to:
Activities:
Warm Up: Display museum artifacts and images related to the Gwangju Uprising and the South Korean Democratization Movement.
Students will analyze the images and respond to the following prompts:
What are three things you notice?
What are two questions or wonderings you have about the images?
Write one sentence predicting what these images suggest about the role of museums and memorials in society.
After students complete their responses, facilitate a brief whole-class share-out.
Short Lecture:
The educator can provide a short powerpoint about the Democratization Movement through the Gwangju Uprising. Ultimately, connecting the artifacts to the power of collective action, collective memory, and/or democracy. Explain that historical understanding is preserved through multiple forms of storytelling and remembrance.
Small Group Multimedia Analysis
Students work in small groups to examine a variety of historical sources related to the Gwangju Uprising, including:
Groups should discuss and analyze how each source contributes to public memory.
Discussion Questions
Groups should prepare to share one key insight with the class.
Think-Pair-Share & Discussion:
Ask students to participate in a think-pair-share as they answer the question: What historical event can you think of that has led to the power of collective action, collective memory, and/or democracy?
As students finish, ask them to share with their neighbor, and then have them share as a class. Some responses might include The Civil Rights Movement or ICE Raids or a local event.
Wrap Up:
Emphasize the fact that public memory as a civic responsibility and without humans recording, writing, creating, and preserving these historical facts through books, film, and museums we would have no memory of these events.
Exit Ticket:
Prompt for students: As you leave today, finish the following sentence and be ready to share out:
The preservation of history is important because _____________
Purpose:
The United States has a marred relationship with the preservation of history, and at this present moment, censorship and assimilation through government policies have made it difficult for people to share their solidarity with oppressed peoples. Due to these circumstances, educators are at the precipice of a new era in which we can work together with our students to tell the stories that go untold, censored, and forgotten.
While in Korea, I noticed how memorializing and preserving painful histories can help shape public narratives and can force us to confront the past — lest we forget it. This was captured in a quote I saw at the May 18th National Cemetery: “History not remembered is forgotten.”
Essential Questions
How does what we choose to remember shape how we participate in democracy today?
How does public history help us understand our rights and responsibilities?
How does telling forgotten stories help protect constitutional values?
Objectives
By the end of this mini unit, students will be able to:
- Analyze Korean memorials — examine a series of Korean memorials, sculptures, and/or images to understand how nations preserve and communicate painful histories.
- Investigate forgotten histories — research injustices experienced by marginalized communities in the United States or globally, identifying how and why these histories have been silenced, erased, or overlooked.
- Create a mixed‑media exhibit — design a mini‑exhibit using mixed mediums (visuals, text, artifacts, audio, etc.) that explains the historical background of their chosen “forgotten history,” shows how the exhibit pieces connect to one another argues why this history must be told and preserved, and makes explicit connections to themselves, their community, and the broader United States.
Content Standards
HSS 12.1 Students explain the fundamental principles and moral values of American democracy as expressed in the U.S. Constitution and other essential documents.
HSS 12.2 Students evaluate the role of civic participation in maintaining a healthy democracy.
HSS 12.3 Students analyze the rights and responsibilities of citizens in a democracy.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.1: Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.2: Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary that makes clear the relationships among the key details and ideas.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.7: Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well as in words) in order to address a question or solve a problem.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.8: Evaluate an author's premises, claims, and evidence by corroborating or challenging them with other information.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.9: Integrate information from diverse sources, both primary and secondary, into a coherent understanding of an idea or event, noting discrepancies among sources.
Suggested Time: Approximately 2 Weeks
Pacing Guide
Day 1: Artifacts (Rooted in their lived experiences)
Activities
Warm Up:
Educators pose the following prompt as students begin a short quick‑write: What do you find in museums? What purpose do they serve?
This activates prior knowledge and frames museums as civic spaces that preserve public memory.
Group Activity: Ask students to share the artifact they brought to class (assigned in advance). Explain that artifacts can tell a story, bring people together, or illustrate a lived reality. Emphasize that while the importance of an artifact can be subjective, artifacts also reveal shared truths about people, communities, and history.
Procedure:
Educator models for students, so they will share their artifact and ask students to pose questions about the artifact and share what they learned about the educator through this activity.
Next, students sit in groups of four.
One student shares their artifact while the others act as audience members.
Audience members take notes and jot down questions to ask at the end.
Rotate until all group members have shared.
Think-Ink-Share: (Reflection Paragraph)
Students write a paragraph reflecting on similarities and differences between their artifact and those shared by their group members.
Prompt: How can artifacts tell us about ourselves and others?
This helps students connect personal objects to broader themes of identity, community, and historical interpretation.
Exit Ticket
As a whole class, create a collective list of findings, similarities, and differences.
Then complete the sentence: “Artifacts can…”
Day 2: Korean History Case Study
Main Idea: Public memory is a civic responsibility. Without people recording, writing, creating, and preserving historical events through books, films, museums, memorials, and other forms of documentation, societies would lose important knowledge about their past. Collective memory helps communities learn from history, honor those affected, and strengthen democratic values.
Learning Objectives
Students will be able to:
- Analyze historical artifacts and memorials as sources of public memory.
- Explain the significance of the Gwangju Uprising and the Democratization Movement in South Korea.
- Evaluate how literature, film, and public memorials preserve historical events.
- Connect examples of collective memory to democratic participation and civic responsibility.
Activities:
Warm Up: Display museum artifacts and images related to the Gwangju Uprising and the South Korean Democratization Movement.
Students will analyze the images and respond to the following prompts:
What are three things you notice?
What are two questions or wonderings you have about the images?
Write one sentence predicting what these images suggest about the role of museums and memorials in society.
After students complete their responses, facilitate a brief whole-class share-out.
Short Lecture:
The educator can provide a short powerpoint about the Democratization Movement through the Gwangju Uprising. Ultimately, connecting the artifacts to the power of collective action, collective memory, and/or democracy. Explain that historical understanding is preserved through multiple forms of storytelling and remembrance.
Small Group Multimedia Analysis
Students work in small groups to examine a variety of historical sources related to the Gwangju Uprising, including:
- An excerpt from Han Kang's Human Acts
- A short clip from the film A Taxi Driver
- A photograph of the Great World Group Statue located at the May 18th National Cemetery
Groups should discuss and analyze how each source contributes to public memory.
Discussion Questions
- What message does each source communicate about the Gwangju Uprising?
- How does each source help preserve historical memory?
- What evidence of collective action can you identify?
- How do these sources promote democratic values?
- Why is it important that stories like these continue to be shared through literature, films, monuments, and museums?
Groups should prepare to share one key insight with the class.
Think-Pair-Share & Discussion:
Ask students to participate in a think-pair-share as they answer the question: What historical event can you think of that has led to the power of collective action, collective memory, and/or democracy?
As students finish, ask them to share with their neighbor, and then have them share as a class. Some responses might include The Civil Rights Movement or ICE Raids or a local event.
Wrap Up:
Emphasize the fact that public memory as a civic responsibility and without humans recording, writing, creating, and preserving these historical facts through books, film, and museums we would have no memory of these events.
Exit Ticket:
Prompt for students: As you leave today, finish the following sentence and be ready to share out:
The preservation of history is important because _____________
Days 3-7 Project: Remembering Injustice, Strengthening Democracy
Grade: 12th Grade Principles of American Democracy
Project Product: Mixed-Media Exhibit
Essential Question: How does remembering historical injustices strengthen democracy?
Project Overview
Students will investigate a "forgotten history" in which the constitutional rights of a marginalized group were denied, ignored, or violated. Using research, historical evidence, and constitutional analysis, students will create a mixed-media museum-style exhibit that demonstrates why preserving these stories is an important civic responsibility.
Project Product: Mixed-Media Exhibit
Essential Question: How does remembering historical injustices strengthen democracy?
Project Overview
Students will investigate a "forgotten history" in which the constitutional rights of a marginalized group were denied, ignored, or violated. Using research, historical evidence, and constitutional analysis, students will create a mixed-media museum-style exhibit that demonstrates why preserving these stories is an important civic responsibility.
