Danielle Allen, a political philosopher and professor at Harvard, is the winner of this year’s Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Nonfiction for her most recent book, Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality, a discussion of how the Declaration was intended as a guarantee of equality as well as liberty and its continuing importance for all Americans. The Heartland Prize is an annual award for books that reinforce and perpetuate the values of heartland America; previous nonfiction winners include Isabel Wilkerson, Rebecca Skloot, and Studs Terkel. Allen will receive her award November 7 at the Chicago Humanities Fest, along with the fiction winner, Chang-rae Lee, and Salman Rushdie, winner of the Chicago Tribune Literary Award. She’ll also be discussing Our Declaration that afternoon with Tribune columnist Mary Schmich. “What a thrill it is to receive this award,” she said during a recent phone interview. “I love this city. It’s where the book was born and where it belongs.”
The night students decided to change their lives. At the core it’s a statement by people making a decision to change their lives and give themselves agency. It pointed to the core of the document. The night students got it instantly.
How did you use this idea to teach the Declaration?
In the Common Core, which has been adopted in 40 states, there are only three required texts in the set standards. It’s a very open curriculum, but the three requirements are the Declaration, the Bill of Rights, and the Gettysburg Address. As of now those are required texts in K-12. Coupled with that, the College Board has said that starting in spring 2016, every SAT exam will test the Declaration. It hasn’t flowed through to college level yet.
Maybe politicians should start reading the Declaration again.
