There are lots of ideas we want our students to learn about being an active citizen, and strategies for achieving social change is one of them (see The Best Posts & Articles On Building Influence & Creating Change and The Best Websites For Learning About Civic Participation & Citizenship).

Kathryn Schulz has just published an excellent analysis and guide for effective ways to communicate with your congressperson in The New Yorker – What Calling Congress Achieves. I wouldn’t use the whole piece in class, but excerpts would be very engaging.

How to Make Your Congressman Listen to You is also very good, and much more accessible – it’s a series of tweets from a former Congressional staffer.