Lesson plan: Democracy Under Pressure

This lesson plan uses the NYT video “Day of Rage: How Trump Supporters Took the U.S. Capitol” together with the Aftenposten opinion piece “Sivilisasjonen har allerede kollapset” to explore political violence, democratic fragility and the idea of “civilizational collapse”.

The Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was perhaps the most widely documented act of political violence in history. The New York Times obtained, analyzed and mapped out thousands of cellphone videos, police bodycam recordings and internal police audio to provide the most complete picture to date of what happened — and why. Our Oscar-shortlisted documentary “Day of Rage” charts in chilling detail how the peaceful transition of power was disrupted by rioters who stormed a seemingly impenetrable seat of government.

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Essential question:
How do different media forms construct “crisis,” and, and what responsibilities follow from those narratives?

Big ideas:

• Democracies rely on procedures, legitimacy, and norms—not only laws
• Political violence can be framed to normalize, dramatize, or clarify reality
• “Collapse” can be a descriptive claim, a predictive claim, and a rhetorical strategy

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Learning objectives

By the end of the lesson, students will be able to:

Knowledge

• Identify key events from 6 January 2021 and explain why many analysts classify the event as an insurrection or attempted disruption of constitutional process (using stated criteria).
• Summarize the central thesis and major reasons in the Aftenposten op-ed about civilizational collapse.

Skills

• Distinguish between evidence (what we can observe/verify), interpretation (what it is said to mean), and rhetorical framing (how language shapes response).
• Analyze how documentary techniques (selection, sequencing, narration, sourcing) and opinion techniques (claims, tone, metaphor, scope) create a persuasive narrative.
• Make and defend an argument using specific evidence from both sources.

Dispositions

• Practice respectful academic disagreement in polarizing contexts.
• Maintain a critical stance toward conspiracy thinking and emotionally manipulative crisis rhetoric while still taking genuine societal risks seriously.

Watch the movie in class

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Answer these questions:

• Process and purpose: What constitutional/official process was Congress conducting on January 6, and what is the basic sequence of that process (in broad terms)?
• Documentary method: The film describes itself as a reconstruction based on extensive documentation. Name three types of material the investigation uses (e.g., kinds of video/audio/evidence), and explain how combining them strengthens the reconstruction.
• Mapping and clarity: The film emphasizes synchronization and mapping of footage. What does “synchronizing and mapping” contribute to the viewer’s understanding of events compared with watching clips in isolation?
• Timeline comprehension: Identify two turning points shown in the film’s timeline (for example, moments when the situation escalates, when barriers fail, or when institutional response shifts). For each, describe what changes and why it matters.
• Evidence vs. interpretation: Choose one moment from the film and separate it into:
  • Evidence (what we can directly see/hear)
  • Interpretation (what the film suggests that evidence means)
    Why is this distinction essential when viewing a highly edited, narrated reconstruction?
• Institutional response: What does the film’s combination of real-time visuals and official communications suggest about the challenges faced by law enforcement during the attack? Give one specific example from the film and explain what it reveals.
• Organization and intent: The film highlights patterns of movement and coordination. What evidence does the film present that suggests the day involved more than spontaneous crowd behavior? List two indicators and explain each.
• Competing framings: Some public narratives have characterized January 6 in sharply different ways (e.g., “protest” vs “attack on the democratic process”). Based on the film’s evidence and structure, what framing does it most strongly support—and which scenes function as the strongest support for that framing?
• Source reliability check: What are two strengths of a forensic/open-source approach (many videos, multiple angles, cross-checking), and what is one limitation viewers should remember even in a detailed reconstruction?
• Democratic norms and consequences: According to the public-record understanding of what was at stake that day, which democratic norms or institutional expectations were threatened (e.g., peaceful transfer of power, legitimacy of the electoral count, safety of lawmakers)? Use one concrete example from the film to illustrate your answer.

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