Around the country and around the world, young people are raising their voices about issues that matter most to them, whether marching through the streets, lobbying for change with government and community leaders, or expressing their ideas through poetry, painting, or song. Young people are witnesses to injustice and advocates for system-wide changes. They are claiming their agency to participate and lead the movements for positive change.
The Know Your Rights Blueprint is a teaching guide with everything you need to support students in taking action in their own school or community through the creation of a powerful documentary film. You will find lessons, models, and tools that will make it possible for you to create a course, program, or club that encourages youth activism, while also deeply engaging students in the college and career skills of research, critical thinking, presentation, and analysis. This approach, known as Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR), is central to EVC’s methodology and intentionally places young people at the center of the process as experts in their own experience, their own communities, and the issues they face.
This project was made possible by the support of the NYC Department of Education and developed as a collaboration between NYC DOE Office of Postsecondary Readiness and the Educational Video Center (EVC) with supports from reDesign, LLC. This blueprint is an adaptation of EVC’s signature handbook, Youth Powered Video: A Hands-on Curriculum for Teaching Documentary.