Course Materials

• A Force More Powerful - Nonviolent Conflict in the 20th Century
  A teaching companion to the PBS documentary on nonviolent conflict, tracing how ordinary people toppled dictators and won rights without armies.
  2,092 words · 8 min read
• Assignment - Responding to a Guest Speaker (Animal Rights)
  A writing prompt asking Wilson High students to evaluate a guest lecture by the outreach director of the Farm Animals Reform Movement.
  93 words · 1 min read
• Benign Queries - Opening Reflections for a Peace Course
  McCarthy’s opening-day questionnaire: Who brought you into this world? Who is the one person who should be doing more to bring about the peaceable society?
  78 words · 1 min read
• Books That Explain Nonviolence
  A reading list for the planet’s leading warrior nation, whose military has invaded more than twenty countries since 1945.
  1,096 words · 4 min read
• Dear World and Other Books on Moral Leadership
  A survey of books on moral leadership, beginning with the World War II veterans who came home in varying states of regret and remorse.
  1,268 words · 5 min read
• Exit Reflection - Law, Conscience and Nonviolence
  End-of-course facts and reflections from the Law, Conscience and Nonviolence course at Georgetown.
  424 words · 1 min read
• Field Trip - Learning From Prisoners and Practitioners
  Directions and logistics for an October 2007 visit to the Father McKenna Center — a short walk from the Red Line, a long way from the classroom.
  183 words · 1 min read
• Field Trip - Learning from a Former Death Row Prisoner
  An invitation to hear Joseph Brown, a former death row prisoner, speak at American University in October 2009.
  105 words · 1 min read
• Field Trip Assignment - Learning from a Death Row Survivor
  Instructions for a Wednesday morning lecture at St. Aloysius Church — because some lessons can only be learned from people who nearly died at the state’s hands.
  205 words · 1 min read
• Final Exam - Journalism and Peace
  A matching exam for Maryland’s Journalism and Peace course: match the writers to their statements, all read aloud and discussed in class.
  108 words · 1 min read
• Final Exam - Principles and Practices of Peace
  Twenty writers, twenty statements — match them if you were paying attention all semester.
  95 words · 1 min read
• Final Exam - The Politics of Peace
  Thirteen thoughts from writers whose words were read aloud, emphasized, and discussed in a spring 2006 American University classroom.
  222 words · 1 min read
• Final Reflection Questions for Peace Studies Courses
  A handful of closing questions: Which guest speakers do you remember? Which films? What should administrators be doing to make this a better school?
  64 words · 1 min read
• Final Reflection Questions for Peace Studies Students
  Amiable queries for B-CC High School students at semester’s end — because McCarthy never called an exam an exam if he could call it something gentler.
  95 words · 1 min read
• Is War Our Biological Destiny? (Course Readings)
  Natalie Angier’s examination of whether humanity is biologically doomed to violence — assigned reading for students who assumed the answer was yes.
  4,033 words · 16 min read
• Issues of Peace - Final Course Reflection
  End-of-semester reflections from a Georgetown course: What is your assessment of the texts, the films, the chewables?
  138 words · 1 min read
• Key Quotations on Peace and Nonviolence
  A collection of essential quotations — from Jeannette Rankin to Martin Luther King Jr. — assembled for classroom use and personal conviction.
  3,147 words · 12 min read
• Midterm Exam - The Literature of Peace
  A Georgetown midterm matching Thoreau, Tolstoy, and others to their words — all drawn from the course texts.
  680 words · 2 min read
• Peace & Social Justice Exam
  A Washington Center exam in McCarthy’s standard format: match the names to the statements, all read aloud and discussed in class.
  92 words · 1 min read
• Peace Books Worth Reading
  Nine Nobel Peace Prize winners gathered at the University of Virginia in 1998 — here are the books that explain why they came.
  864 words · 3 min read
• Peace Films - A Teaching Resource List
  A curated list of films that tell the stories of people who believed conflicts can be settled bloodlessly — through moral force, truth force, resistance force.
  469 words · 1 min read
• Peace Studies Curriculum Project Proposal
  A student research proposal on peace studies curriculum, citing McCarthy’s own work as a starting point.
  438 words · 1 min read
• Peace and Social Justice Final Exam (2012)
  The spring 2012 American University final: twenty writers, twenty statements, all read aloud and discussed in class.
  92 words · 1 min read
• Principles and Practices of Peace Final Exam (2007)
  A May 2007 final exam — one point awarded if you spell your own name correctly.
  95 words · 1 min read
• Proposal for a Peace Studies Course
  A 2010 proposal for a peace studies class at Wilson High School, discussion-based, with guest speakers and no conventional exams.
  201 words · 1 min read
• Social Issues (2013 version)
  A Wilson High writing assignment — otherwise known as EGO: Excellent Growth Occasion — asking for 700 well-chosen, cliché-free words.
  221 words · 1 min read
• Student Responses - Literature of Peace Course
  A sampling of Georgetown students’ opening-day answers, including the one whose father made him read Gandhi’s autobiography in sixth grade.
  460 words · 1 min read
• Student Responses from Peace Studies Courses
  Catholic University students introduce themselves: the one with unorthodox ideas like war is wrong, the one who loves a good argument, the one who is completely confused but wants to do good.
  1,013 words · 4 min read
• Teaching Controversial Topics - A Classroom Guide
  An interview template for teachers preparing to introduce potentially offensive topics — do you set ground rules, or do you let the conversation find its own limits?
  453 words · 1 min read
• The Eight Reactions to Conflict (Classroom Exercise)
  A classroom scenario: Joan has had it, school was cancelled, the kids are aggravating her, and Henry is about to walk through the door — what happens next?
  326 words · 1 min read
• The Eight Steps to Conflict Resolution (Classroom Exercise)
  The same domestic scenario, different framing: Joan, Tom, a frustrating day, and a chance to practice resolving conflict before it escalates.
  326 words · 1 min read
• The First Things to Be Disrupted - Quotations on Nonviolence
  Jim Douglass, Dorothy Day, Gandhi, and others — the first things to be disrupted by a commitment to nonviolence will be not the system but our own lives.
  689 words · 2 min read
• The Literature of Peace - A Bibliography
  A bibliography for a peace library: every home should have one, every person should be reading from it, and this list is only the beginning.
  706 words · 2 min read
• Writing Assignment - Interviewing a Parent or Peer
  Who brought you into this world? Write about your mother and father — because you don’t know how much you know until you know how much you don’t.
  217 words · 1 min read
• Writing Assignment II - solutions to social issues
  A Wilson High writing assignment with more acronyms than a government memo: WRITING, EDICT, POWER — all in service of 700 honest words.
  212 words · 1 min read
• final querries
  End-of-semester reflections from Maryland’s Alternatives to Violence: which films mattered, what advice for graduating seniors, and what will you carry forward?
  125 words · 1 min read