Thank you for your interested in leading a breakout session at the virtual Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice!

Before you get started on your application, please read through these guidelines:

Breakout sessions should be:

• Engaging: Build interaction, moments for individual reflection, or other creative tools into your breakout session to keep your attendees engaged and thinking.
• Include “Real-World” Aspects: Think through how you might build bridges between the lived experiences of attendees and your work. Tell a powerful story. Allow participants to practice a skill you’re teaching. Provide practical reflection questions and allow ample time for attendees to apply your message to their own work for justice. Don’t rely on a lecture to connect attendees in a personal way to your topic!
• Identify a goal for your breakout session: Of the five following areas, what is your primary goal for your session? Think through these options to help you frame your session content. (Have another goal in mind? Choose “other” on the application and let us know what that goal is!)

• Issue/Topic Education: Your primary goal is to educate on a specific justice issue or topic, to build awareness. (Ex: farmworkers rights, just labor practice, divestment, etc.)
• Advocacy/organizing training: Your session primarily provides specific skills needed for effective advocacy (on the legislative, local, institution, or campaign level) and/or organizing around a specific justice issue. (Ex: best practices for legislative advocacy visits, organizing a sustainability campaign at your school, etc.)
• Professional Development:Your session is primarily geared toward enhancing the work of professionals in the Ignatian network, particularly including high school and/or university faculty and staff. (Ex: Integrating justice issues in the classroom, exploring pedagogy and practice from a justice educator perspective, etc.)
• Spirituality and discernment:Your session is focused on personal or community spiritual practice, including, but not limited to, the Ignatian tradition, or discernment. (Ex: praying with the Examen, post-college discernment, etc.)
• Engaging Issues Through Art: Utilizing the creative process in justice work (Ex: poetry, song, visual, literature)

ADDITIONAL USEFUL INFORMATION

1. Be sure to have all of your information ready to go! Unfortunately, you can’t come back to your application once you submit, so make sure you’d considered all questions.
2. Consider your title!Many people choose their breakout sessions based on the title.
3. Choose your audience.The best breakout sessions are geared toward a specific audience in topic and delivery. The largest demographics at IFTJ will include high school students, high school faculty and staff, college students, university faculty and staff, members of Catholic parishes, and current and former Jesuit volunteers.
4. Delivery Matters! Breakouts should be participant-centered and include opportunities for engagement.
5. Please strongly consider your word count and word choice for your session descriptions. We’ll edit everything before it is published, but we want to be sure that we understand your goals, topic, and ideas!

Ignatian Network Speaker: Ignatian Network speakers will have the opportunity to speak to 5,000 students, staff, parishioners and Ignatian family members during the general sessions of the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice. Speeches will be up to 5 minutes.

Before you get started on your application, please read through these guidelines:

Animate the Theme: Prophetic Resilience: Breaking Down. Building Up. 

How does the 2020 Teach-In theme connect to your experience? Use the theme as a starting point to discern the story and message you wish you to share – don’t pick a story and try to force the theme to work with it.

Think about your message and try to summarize it in one sentence.  Use that sentence as a roadmap. All of the details you share should support your main point.

Consider the Audience:

What do you want the audience to feel? What do you want the audience to learn and know? 

How might your message inspire the audience to act?

Communicate your message through storytelling:

Be sure to tell your story.  Honor and empower others by allowing them to tell their own story. 

Rhetoric is less important than lived human experiences.

Asset-Based Message

Applying an asset-based approach to language is crucial when engaging in justice work as it honors the dignity and strengths of individuals and communities.

This means using language that will focus on positive outcomes and personal strengths, rather than problems and barriers. It does not mean negating the injustices present; it does mean reorienting the understanding of the problem as being related to systems and structures of power than maintain inequity. Language is powerful and the words we choose are important, directly impacting the story you will shape for others to hear.

ADDITIONAL USEFUL INFORMATION

1. Be sure to have all of your information ready to go! Unfortunately, you can’t come back to your application  once you submit, so make sure you’ve considered all questions.
2. Consider your title! This should connect with your main point.
3. Delivery Matters! You want to not only capture the audience’s attention, but to hold it.  A dynamic delivery engages the audience.
4. Please strongly consider your word count and word choice for your session descriptions. We’ll edit everything before it is published, but we want to be sure that we understand your ideas and message as it relates to the theme.

Roundtable Discussion Host: IFTJ roundtable discussions are intended to be an interactive space for up to 20 IFTJ community members to gather and participate in a topic-based discussion. Opportunities for 30-minute roundtables will be offered on Saturday, October 24 and Sunday, October 25 of IFTJ. Hosts are asked to provide guiding questions, to foster discussion, and to allow equal participation from all present.

Reflection Facilitator: Opportunities for 15-30 minute reflections will be offered on Saturday, October 24 and Sunday, October 25 of IFTJ. Individuals interested in facilitating a guided reflection for IFTJ community members (ex: Taize, an examen, prayerful meditation, etc.) are invited to apply.