Lend your voice to the topic area survey
Greetings, Ben Franklin fellows, teachers, mentors, and kite-flyers! I’ll be joining you in Winston-Salem on Monday, July 17 for the final stretch of the workshop, Bridging Differences through Public Argument, where we will study seven of the world’s pressing issues and perform public argument interventions (amplified through podcasts and Weblogs) designed to enrich online discussion on those topics. In the coming days, you will find more details on the project unveiled here at the DeBlog. But for now, we need your help in narrowing down the list of topic areas we will tackle from a preliminary list of 10 to a final list of 7.
You can help by giving comments on any or all of the 10 preliminary topic areas (listed in the following threads). As you look at each topic area, think about the following questions, and if you have ideas to contribute, please add them into the comment section:
* Are you interested in this subject? Should it be included in the final list of 7 topic areas that we will explore during the final week of the workshop?
* Are there specific aspects of the topic area that you think are especially important to understand and discuss?
* What do you think is the current quality of public dialogue on the topic area?
* Can you recommend resources (books, articles, speeches, movies, songs, poems, etc.) that would be helpful for studying the topic area?
* What sort of public dialogue do you think might be helpful for the world to better understand and deal with the issues related to the topic area?
Thanks in advance for your input! On Tuesday, July 11, we will compile all the input from the comment sections and announce the final list of 7 topic areas here at the DeBlog.