Building Empathy in Middle School Students Through Literature and the Moral Imagination

Abstract

How can sharing good literature address this epidemic of students being disconnected or apathetic that has been sweeping through our schools, especially post-COVID? In my opinion, the decency to treat one another with respect has been diminishing in our public school here in Tuba City, AZ. I feel the need to address this by writing a curriculum unit based on selecting literature that will get the students thinking about the choices they make and interactions they have. The opposite of apathy is feeling empathy for one another. Considering how our ancestors have strived through the Long Walk of the late 1800’s and through the trials and tribulations of the Holocaust and other struggles by groups of people should make an impact on my students. In consideration of our people and the struggles currently being experienced, students should have a realization of the impact that literature has to offer. Students can experience the lives of dynamic characters in literature to make connections to the power of resiliency and perseverance that a people can bestow, so therefore, they have the ability to mimic that virtue. I believe that in exposing students to literature that encompasses the resiliency of the people through literature that contains the Long Walk and characters that have bounced back from traumatic events would create more empathic individuals