What happens after students have signed the Pledge?

Here are some suggestions:

• Give each student two copies of the Pledge. Ask the student to keep one copy for himself/herself and to give the other to the most trusted adult in his/her life: a parent, a teacher, a minister or rabbi, an older sibling, a grandparent, a counselor. Ask the students to remember that they have signed a contract and made a promise; the older adult can remind them of the importance of that promise. Even if they signed the pledge last year, it is good to urge students to show their continued commitment and sign it again. This reinforces their on-going commitment to eliminating gun violence.
  
  
• Designate several students in each classroom to collect the Pledges and tally the numbers, without recording the names of the students. Have several students per school tally the totals for that school.

  You can report in one of three ways:

  1. Enter totals online with our tallies form.
  2. E-Mail totals to [an error occurred while processing this directive]
  3. Fax totals to (507) 663-1207 using the fax tally sheet.
  
  
• Arrange ahead of time for older students who have signed the Pledge to visit a local elementary school to discuss the important decision they have just made and to read to the younger children either Sherri Chessen's Gorp's Gift or Marybeth Lorbiecki's Just One Flick of a Finger, whichever is age-appropriate. Chessen's book is appropriate for very young children; Lorbiecki's is appropriate for older elementary and early middle-school students. Both are highly acclaimed and very powerful. A chapter book for older elementary and middle school students, Walter Dean Myers' Newbery Honor Award, Scorpions, would provide excellent classroom discussions both before and after the Day of Concern.
  
  
• Observe the day with a special all-school assembly. Invite special guests: an emergency room physician, a person who has lost a loved one to a gunshot or become a survivor him/herself, a respected athlete who is a positive role model, an elected official who has shown special concern for young people, or another community leader. (Some schools may choose to have students sign the pledge during the assembly.)
  
  
• Post a banner with the sign of the pledge in the school's hallway. Ask students to write notes on the banner. Or, put up a bulletin board on which students' poems or essays, written ahead of time, could be posted.
  
  
• Plant a tree in the schoolyard as a reminder of the Pledge that students have made. Give students the responsibility of caring for it.
  

If you have any ideas on activities, please submit them to [an error occurred while processing this directive]

To learn about some specific activities that communities across the country planned for the 1998 Day of National Concern, click here.