Evaluating Charitable Giving through Texts

This unit introduces students to how people are influenced to develop empathy and compassionate giving through different text types. By exploring cartoons, videos, and book excerpts, students understand how messaging is conveyed and interpreted to generate an impact. This culminates in creating short presentations or videos by the students to help persuade others to give to charitable causes.  

This unit was created in collaboration with The Life You Can Save. The Life You Can Save conducts research to identify non-profits running highly impactful programs that address the multiple dimensions of poverty. They also help connect people who want to donate money and resources with these non-profits to maximise the impact of their gifts. They aim to create a world where everyone has an opportunity to build a better life and where there’s no suffering or death due to extreme poverty.

A key part of this unit is using detailed excerpts from the book The Life You Can Save by Professor Peter Singer to help students understand the different perspectives around giving to charitable organisations.  

Peter Singer wrote the first edition of The Life You Can Save to demonstrate why we should care about and help those living in global extreme poverty, and how easy it is to improve and even save lives by giving effectively. To delve more deeply into the themes and ideas in this unit, you can access a free copy of the eBook or listen to the free audiobook narrated by Kristen Bell, Stephen Fry, Paul Simon and more on Spotify.