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Essays on 9/11

9/11 essay topics for college students.

Choosing the right essay topic is crucial in showcasing your creativity and personal interests. This page is designed to help you explore various types of essays and topics related to the events of 9/11, ensuring your work is both engaging and academically rewarding.

When selecting a 9/11 essay topic, consider focusing on different perspectives such as the historical context, the political aftermath, the personal stories of survivors, or the impact on international relations. You might explore the changes in U.S. foreign policy post-9/11, the development of security measures, or the social and cultural ramifications of the attacks. Analyzing the long-term effects on global terrorism and examining how the event reshaped global alliances are also compelling avenues. By choosing a specific angle that resonates with you, your essay will not only be informative but also reflect your unique viewpoint on this pivotal moment in history.

Good Titles for 9/11 Essays

• The Day That Changed the World: An Analysis of 9/11
• From Ground Zero to Recovery: The Aftermath of 9/11
• Unseen Heroes: The First Responders of 9/11
• The Global Impact of 9/11: A New Era in International Relations
• Resilience and Rebirth: The Story of Ground Zero
• 9/11 and the Evolution of National Security
• Personal Stories of Survival and Loss: Remembering 9/11
• The Psychological Scars of 9/11: Healing and Recovery
• Media, Memory, and 9/11: How the Attacks Shaped Public Perception
• The Legacy of 9/11: Changes in U.S. Foreign Policy

By exploring a variety of topics related to 9/11, you can broaden your knowledge and hone your critical thinking skills.

9/11 Essay Topics to Write about

Argumentative essay topics for 9/11 essay.

• The impact of 9/11 on national security
• The role of conspiracy theories in shaping public opinion
• The ethical implications of the war on terror
• The effect of 9/11 on immigration policies
• Changes in airline security post-9/11
• How 9/11 influenced U.S. foreign policy
• The economic repercussions of 9/11 on global markets
• The psychological impact of 9/11 on American society
• The evolution of counter-terrorism strategies post-9/11
• The influence of 9/11 on international relations and global politics
• Introduction Paragraph Example: Analyze the effects of the 9/11 attacks on national security and consider the lasting implications for our nation. This essay will explore the complexities of balancing security measures with civil liberties, ultimately arguing for a more transparent and accountable approach to protecting our country.
• Conclusion Paragraph Example: In conclusion, the events of 9/11 have fundamentally altered our understanding of national security. By examining the ethical dilemmas and practical challenges that arise in the aftermath of such attacks, we can work towards a more secure and just society.

Descriptive Essay Topics for 9/11 Essay

• The emotional impact of 9/11 on American society
• The physical devastation of the World Trade Center towers
• The heroism of first responders on that fateful day
• The immediate aftermath of the attacks in New York City
• The global reaction to the 9/11 attacks
• The rebuilding of Ground Zero
• The stories of survivors and their experiences
• The changes in New York City's skyline post-9/11
• The role of memorials and commemorations in preserving the memory of 9/11
• The atmosphere and tension in the U.S. in the days following 9/11
• Introduction Paragraph Example: Explore the emotional aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on American society, delving into the personal stories of those affected by this tragedy. By examining the human experience of loss, resilience, and hope, this essay will paint a vivid picture of the lasting impact of 9/11.
• Conclusion Paragraph Example: Through the lens of personal narratives and historical accounts, we can better understand the profound impact of 9/11 on individuals and communities. By honoring the memories of those lost and celebrating the resilience of survivors, we can ensure that the legacy of 9/11 endures.

Expository Essay Topics for 9/11 Essay

• How 9/11 changed international relations
• The history and significance of the 9/11 Memorial
• The role of media coverage during and after 9/11
• The economic impact of the 9/11 attacks
• The psychological effects of 9/11 on survivors
• The legislative changes following 9/11, such as the Patriot Act
• The influence of 9/11 on airport security measures worldwide
• The response of emergency services during the 9/11 attacks
• The impact of 9/11 on U.S. military strategy and operations
• The role of intelligence agencies before and after 9/11
• Introduction Paragraph Example: Examine how 9/11 changed international relations, focusing on the shift in global alliances and the rise of new security protocols. This essay will provide a comprehensive overview of the political, economic, and social changes initiated by the attacks, highlighting their lasting influence on global dynamics.
• Conclusion Paragraph Example: In summary, 9/11 has left an indelible mark on international relations, prompting a reevaluation of global security strategies and diplomatic approaches. By understanding these changes, we can appreciate the interconnectedness of our world and the importance of cooperation in addressing global threats.

Narrative Essay Topics for 9/11 Essay

• A personal account of witnessing the 9/11 attacks
• The story of a survivor’s journey to recovery
• The experience of a first responder on 9/11
• Recollections of the immediate days following 9/11
• How 9/11 influenced a career choice in public service or the military
• The impact of 9/11 on a specific community
• A family’s experience of losing a loved one in the attacks
• The perspective of a child growing up in the post-9/11 era
• The journey of a volunteer who helped in the aftermath of the attacks
• The story of a foreigner’s view of 9/11 and its global implications
• Introduction Paragraph Example: Share a personal account of witnessing the 9/11 attacks, capturing the raw emotions and immediate reactions to the tragedy. This essay will weave together personal memories with historical context, offering a poignant and intimate perspective on one of the most defining moments in recent history.
• Conclusion Paragraph Example: By narrating personal experiences of 9/11, we can preserve the emotional and historical significance of that day. These stories serve as powerful reminders of the resilience of the human spirit and the enduring importance of unity in the face of adversity.

As you explore these essay topics, remember to engage your readers with compelling arguments, vivid descriptions, and thought-provoking insights. Use your unique perspective and voice to make your essay stand out and leave a lasting impression on your audience.

9/11 Thesis Statement Ideas

Here are some thesis statement ideas for essays about the events of 9/11:

• The 9/11 attacks fundamentally altered U.S. foreign policy, leading to the War on Terror and significant shifts in international relations.
• The impact of 9/11 on civil liberties in the United States demonstrates the tension between national security and individual freedoms.
• The psychological effects of the 9/11 attacks on survivors and first responders highlight the need for comprehensive mental health support systems.
• Examining the changes in airport security post-9/11 reveals how the attacks reshaped global travel regulations and practices.
• The media's portrayal of 9/11 influenced public perception and policy decisions, showcasing the power of media in times of crisis.
• The socio-economic repercussions of 9/11 on New York City underscore the resilience and recovery efforts of affected communities.
• The role of intelligence failures leading up to 9/11 highlights the necessity for improved interagency communication and data sharing.
• The global rise of Islamophobia post-9/11 reflects the broader implications of terrorism on societal attitudes and policies.
• The influence of 9/11 on American cultural and artistic expressions underscores the event's profound impact on national identity and memory.
• The legislative aftermath of 9/11, including the Patriot Act, illustrates the balance between enhancing security and protecting constitutional rights.

The Impact and Legacy of The 9/11 Attacks

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The Effects of 9/11 Attack on America

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The Impact of The 9/11 Tragedy on The Marketplace in The Reluctant Fundamentalist

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Conspiracy Theory: No Truth About 9/11

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September 11, 2001: Lower Manhattan (New York), Arlington County (Virginia), Stonycreek Township (Pennsylvania)

Deaths: 2,977 + 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists. Injured: 6,000–25,000+

On September 11, 2001, the United States experienced one of the most devastating terrorist attacks in its history. Nineteen al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial airplanes, crashing two into the World Trade Center towers in New York City, one into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and the fourth into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers intervened. The attacks resulted in nearly 3,000 deaths, significant destruction, and long-lasting psychological and economic impacts. In response, the U.S. launched the War on Terror, leading to military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and implemented sweeping changes in national security policies and practices.

The 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by the extremist group al-Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, in response to perceived injustices faced by Muslims, including U.S. military presence in the Middle East. The terrorists exploited vulnerabilities in aviation security to target symbolic landmarks in the U.S., resulting in nearly 3,000 deaths. Factors such as ideological radicalization, recruitment efforts, and meticulous planning, along with geopolitical conflicts and intelligence failures, set the stage for this tragic event.

The 9/11 attacks had profound effects, resulting in the loss of thousands of lives and significant destruction, including the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Socio-political impacts included heightened fear, stricter security measures, and increased surveillance. The attacks also influenced U.S. foreign policy, leading to military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Economically, the destruction affected global markets and caused job losses. Psychologically, the attacks left lasting trauma and grief among survivors, victims' families, and affected communities.

• The Twin Towers collapsed shortly after being hit: the South Tower (WTC 2) fell 56 minutes after impact, and the North Tower (WTC 1) fell 102 minutes after. These failures demonstrated the attacks' devastating impact.
• The 9/11 attacks resulted in 2,977 deaths from over 90 countries, including office workers, first responders, tourists, airline passengers, and business attendees.
• The attacks caused an estimated $123 billion loss in economic output within weeks, significantly disrupting tourism, aviation, and finance, affecting employment and global markets.

The topic of 9/11 is crucial as it profoundly impacted global politics, security, and society. Understanding the events and their consequences through various 9/11 essay topics helps us analyze the shifts in foreign policy, the rise of anti-terrorism measures, and the long-term psychological and economic effects. This analysis is essential for preventing future attacks and fostering a more secure and informed world.

1. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. (2004). The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. W. W. Norton & Company. 2. Summers, A., & Swan, R. (2011). The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden. Ballantine Books. 3. Jenkins, B. M. (2006). The 9/11 Wars. Hill and Wang. 4. Smith, M. L. (2011). Why War? The Cultural Logic of Iraq, the Gulf War, and Suez. University of Chicago Press. 5. Bowden, M. (2006). Guests of the Ayatollah: The Iran Hostage Crisis: The First Battle in America's War with Militant Islam. Grove Press. 6. Wright, L. (2006). The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. Vintage. 7. Bamford, J. (2008). The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America. Anchor Books. 8. Thompson, W., & Thompson, S. (2011). The Disappearance of the Social in American Social Psychology. Cambridge University Press. 9. Boyle, M. (2007). Media Mythmakers: How Journalists, Activists, and Advertisers Mislead Us. Potomac Books. 10. Zelikow, P., & Shenon, P. (2021). The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions. Interlink Publishing Group.

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Teaching Ideas

10 Ways to Teach About 9/11 With The New York Times

Ideas for helping students think about how the Sept. 11 attacks have changed our nation and world.

By Nicole Daniels and Michael Gonchar

Sept. 11, 2001 , is one of those rare days that, if you ask most adults what they remember, they can tell you exactly where they were, whom they were with and what they were thinking. It is a day seared in memory. But for students who were born in a post- 9/11 world and have grown up in the aftermath, it is complex history that needs to be remembered, taught and analyzed like any other historical event.

Twenty years ago, four commercial planes were hijacked by operatives from the radical Islamist group Al Qaeda. One plane was flown into the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., and two others were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. A fourth hijacked plane crashed in Shanksville, Pa. Almost 3,000 people died that day, including more than 400 emergency workers.

In the wake of those attacks, the United States initiated a global “war on terror” to destroy Al Qaeda — a campaign that expanded into decades-long wars in Afghanistan, Iraq (even though Iraq was not responsible for Sept. 11 ) and elsewhere. In the wake of Sept. 11, the United States changed in other fundamental ways as well, from increased police surveillance to a rise in Islamophobia .

Below, we provide a range of activities that use resources from The New York Times, including archival front pages and photographs, first-person accounts, and analysis pieces published for the 20th anniversary . But we also suggest ideas borrowed from other education organizations like the Choices Program , RetroReport , the 9/11 Memorial and Museum and the Newseum .

On Sept. 30, we are hosting a free event, featuring Times journalists, for students that will look at how Sept. 11 has shaped a generation of young people who grew up in its aftermath. Teachers and students can register here , and students can submit their own videos with questions, many of which we hope to feature during the live event.

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Seven questions about September 11

This advice from my friend Lamar Alexander for teaching about 9/11 was published twice by Fordham, first in 2003 and again (lightly revised) in 2011 . It remains as apt and compelling today as it was then. In truth, it’s even more compelling now, for as the actual events of 9/11 fade into history, there to join the innumerable other key events in our history that few young Americans are learning much about, his seven points take on greater and greater salience.

As many readers know (and all should), Lamar is the only person in U.S. history to serve as a state governor, U.S. secretary of education, and United States Senator, not to mention other key posts from White House staffer to university president. His accomplishments in the education space are far too numerous to itemize. His love for America and his passion to see its history well taught to its children are legendary.  I have treasured his friendship and colleagueship for half a century.

—Chester E. Finn, Jr.

During a previous Senate campaign shortly after September 11, 2001, I listened carefully, as politicians do, for the words that seemed to resonate most with my audiences. To my surprise, I found there was just one sentence I could not finish before every audience interrupted me by breaking into applause: “It is time to put the teaching of American history and civics back in its rightful place in our schools so our children grow up learning what it means to be an American.”

The terrorists who attacked us on September 11 weren’t just lashing out at buildings and people—they were attacking who we are as Americans. Most Americans recognize this, and that’s why there has been a national hunger for leadership and discussion about our values. Parents know that our children are not being taught our common culture and shared values. National tests show that three-quarters of the nation’s fourth, eighth, and twelfth graders are not proficient in civics knowledge, and one-third do not even have basic knowledge, making them civic illiterates.

That’s why I made American history and civics the subject of my maiden speech and first piece of legislation in the United States Senate. By a vote of 90-0, the Senate passed my bill to create summer residential academies for outstanding teachers and students of American history and civics. Their purpose is to inspire better teaching and more learning of the key events, key persons, key ideas, and key documents that shaped the institutions and democratic heritage of the United States.

So if I were teaching about September 11, these are some of the issues I would ask my students to consider:

• Is September 11 the worst thing to happen to the United States? The answer, of course, is no, but I’m surprised by the number of people who say yes. It saddens me to realize that those who make such statements were never properly taught the history of our country. Many doubted America would win the Revolutionary War. The British sacked Washington and burned the White House to the ground in the War of 1812. In the Civil War, we lost more Americans than in any other conflict, as brother fought against brother. The list goes on. Children should know why we made those sacrifices and fought for the values that make us exceptional.
• What makes America exceptional? I began the first session of a course I taught at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government by making a list of one hundred ways America is different than other countries—not always better, but unique. America’s exceptionalism has been a source of fascination since de Tocqueville’s trip across America in 1830, where he met Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie on the Mississippi River. His book, Democracy in America , is still the best description of America’s unique ideals in action. Another outstanding text is American Exceptionalism by Seymour Martin Lipset.
• Why is it you can’t become Japanese or French, but you must become American? If I were to emigrate to Japan, I could not become Japanese; I would always be an American living in Japan. But if a Japanese citizen came here, he could become an American, and we would welcome him with open arms. Why? Because our identity is based not on ethnicity but on a creed of ideas and values in which most Americans believe. Historian Richard Hofstadter wrote, “It is our fate as a nation not to have ideologies, but to be one.” To become American citizens, immigrants must take a test demonstrating their knowledge of American history and civics.
• What are the principles that unite us as Americans? In Thanksgiving remarks after the September 11 attacks, President Bush praised our nation’s response to terror. “I call it the American character,” he said. Former Vice President Al Gore, in a speech after the attacks, said, “We should fight for the values that bind us together as a country.” In my Harvard course we put together a list of some of those values: liberty, e pluribus unum , equal opportunity, individualism, rule of law, free exercise of religion, separation of church and state, laissez faire , and a belief in progress.
• If we agree on these principles, why is there so much division in our politics? Just because we agree on these values doesn’t mean that we agree on their application. Most of our politics is about the hard work of applying these principles to our everyday lives. When we do, they often conflict. For example, when discussing President Bush’s proposal to let the federal government fund faith-based charities, we know that “In God We Trust,” but we also know that we don’t trust government with God. When considering whether the federal government should pay for scholarships that middle- and low-income families might use at any accredited school—public, private, or religious—some object that the principle of equal opportunity can conflict with the separation of church and state.
• What does it mean to you to be an American? After September 11, I proposed an idea I call “Pledge Plus Three.” Why not start each school day with the Pledge of Allegiance—as many schools still do—followed by a teacher or student sharing for three minutes “what it means to be an American”? Some of the newest American students will probably be some of the best speakers. I found in teaching my Harvard class that the student who best understood American identity was from the Ukraine.
• Ask students to stand, raise their right hand, and recite the Oath of Allegiance, just as immigrants do when they become American citizens. I did this at a speech I gave recently on my American history and civics bill. It’s quite a weighty thing to “absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty” and to agree to “bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law.”

Our history is the struggle to live up to the ideals that have united us and defined us from the very beginning, the principles of the American Character. If that is what students are taught about September 11, they will not only become better informed. They will strengthen our country for generations to come.

Lamar Alexander is a retired Republican United States Senator from Tennessee. He served as U.S. Secretary of Education from 1991 to 1993; as president of the University of Tennessee; and as Governor of Tennessee.

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Seven Reflections Worth Reading About 9/11

Tomorrow is the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Not surprisingly, the last several weeks have seen the publication of a torrent of articles assessing the meaning and lessons of 9/11. It’s a topic that has been debated for twenty years and will continue to be debated for decades to come. The lessons that get drawn will inevitably change over time, just as we see 9/11 differently today than we did a decade ago. We inevitably see the past through the lens of the present.

With so much being written in so short a period of time, we can’t say that we have read everything that has been written, or claim to be able to say which essays will have the greatest or most lasting influence. What we offer below are simply seven articles that tackle critical questions and might give you reason to pause and think. You won’t see any articles written by our CFR colleagues. That’s because our rule for these posts is to avoid home-cooking. We no doubt have missed some terrific writing that would have made generating a list of seven articles even harder. To everyone who feels overlooked, we apologize.

United States

Bryan Bender and Daniel Lippman , " They Created Our Post-9/11 World: Here’s What They Think They Got Wrong ,”  Politico Magazine . Did I get it right? It’s a question we can all usefully ask of ourselves, even if we may not like the answer. Bender and Lippman interviewed a range of former senior Bush administration officials, U.S. senators, ambassadors, generals, and admirals about the decisions they made or helped shape in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Many of them look back with regret at what they see as U.S. “overreach” but hold out hope that the country can right itself. “Nations are like people,” retired Admiral James Stavridis notes, “They get some things right, they get some things wrong. The measure of any nation is whether it learns both from the mistakes and the successes.”

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Garrett Graff ,   " After 9/11, the U.S. Got Almost Everything Wrong ,"  The Atlantic . By one important measure the U.S. war on terrorism succeeded: neither al-Qaeda nor any other foreign terrorist organization has successfully launched an attack remotely approaching what happened on 9/11. Beyond that, Osama bin Laden and many of his close advisers have been captured or killed.   Garrett Graff argues that despite these successes, the U.S. response to 9/11 did more harm than good. “By almost any other measure, the War on Terror has weakened the nation,” he writes, “leaving Americans more afraid, less free, more morally compromised, and more alone in the world."

Hannah Hartig and Carroll Doherty , “ Two Decades Later, the Enduring Legacy of 9/11 ,” Pew Research Center. What do Americans think about 9/11 twenty years on? Hartig and Doherty sort through data the Pew Research Center has compiled on public attitudes toward the deadliest day in U.S. history. They conclude that surveys show “how a badly shaken nation came together, briefly, in a spirit of sadness and patriotism; how the public initially rallied behind the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, though support waned over time; and how Americans viewed the threat of terrorism at home and the steps the government took to combat it.”

Nelly Lahoud , “ Bin Laden’s Catastrophic Success ,”  Foreign Affairs . Did bin Laden succeed? Nelly Lahoud thinks not. While the 9/11 attacks inflicted a grievous wound on the United States, they did not produce the outcome he sought. Bin Laden thought the attacks would compel a fearful United States to withdraw its military forces from Muslim-majority countries, leaving al-Qaeda free to recreate an exclusive community of Muslims. What he got instead was a United States that stood up rather than backed down in response to his plot, intervening even more deeply in the Middle East. “Bin Laden did change the world,” she concludes, “just not in the ways that he wanted.”

Carlos Lozada , “ 9/11 Was a Test. The Books of the Last Two Decades Show How America Failed. ”  Washington Post . If you read our post on  Seven More Books to Read About 9/11 , you know that a vast literature now exists on 9/11, examining that day and its consequences from an array of angles. Carlos Lozada, the  Washington Post ’s terrific book critic, decided to read more than his fair share of them. The effort convinced him that “Bin Laden did not win the war of ideas. But neither did we. To an unnerving degree, the United States moved toward the enemy’s fantasies of what it might become—a nation divided in its sense of itself, exposed in its moral and political compromises, conflicted over wars it did not want but would not end….. al-Qaeda could not dim the promise of America. Only we could do that to ourselves.”  

George Packer , “ 9/11 Was a Warning of What Was to Come ,”  The Atlantic.  It may be difficult from the vantage point of 2021 to remember what the world looked like in early September 2001. The United States had won the Cold War. It was the world’s dominant power by far, perhaps the most powerful ever known. The laws of history had seemingly been suspended. The future promised continued success, wealth, and safety for decades to come. Looking back at those heady times, Packer concludes that 9/11 pricked the illusion that somehow Americans stood outside of time. “September 11 wasn’t a sui generis event coming out of a clear blue sky,” he writes. “It was the first warning that the 21st century would not bring boundless peace and prosperity.”

Stephen M. Walt . “ How 9/11 Will Be Remembered a Century Later ,”  Foreign Policy.  We noted above that our collective lessons of 9/11 are likely to change over time as the progress of events gives us new vantage points from which to see the past. Harvard Kennedy School of Government Professor Stephen Walt wondered what people might make of 9/11 on its centennial. He sees three possible scenarios: people might see it as a turning point, an isolated tragedy, or as irrelevant. Which of those scenarios carries the day, he writes, is not pre-ordained but rather depends on “what the United States and others do from this day forward.”

On Monday we will share additional resources on 9/11 that friends and readers politely (for the most part) noted that we missed.

Here are the other entries in this series:

• More Resources Worth Exploring About 9/11

Seven Documentaries Worth Watching About 9/11

• Seven Movies Worth Watching About 9/11
• 9/11 Online Exhibits and Resources Worth Viewing
• Seven Resources Debunking 9/11 Conspiracy Theories
• Seven Podcasts Worth Listening to About 9/11
• Seven More Books Worth Reading About 9/11 and Its Aftermath

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Never Forget: 5 Writing Prompts to Commemorate the 9/11 Events

Demme Learning · September 1, 2022 · 3 Comments

Although students today don’t have their own memories of the 9/11 events, it’s important that they learn about that day and its long-term effects. One of the best ways to remember and recognize the immense impact of September 11, 2001, is to write about it. Here are five writing prompts that you can use to get your students to reflect on this American tragedy.

1. Ripple Effect

You may be too young to remember the 9/11 events, but you’re certainly not immune to their ripple effect. Write about how the September 11th attacks continue to affect all Americans—even those who have no memory of that day.

The September 11th tragedy brought forth many heroes. Write about a hero or a heroic event that you have read about or observed in a documentary. If you need some inspiration, check out some of these hero stories:

7 Incredible Stories of Heroism on 9/11 Police Officer Moira Smith Rick Rescorla Saved 2,687 Lives on September 11

The Firemen of 9/11 ; History Documentary (38:45) The Town of Gander: Unlikely Hero of 9/11 ; Tom Brokaw (5:57) 9/11: The Man in the Red Bandanna ; ESPN (13:40)

3. A Different World

Much has changed in the years since 9/11. The events of that day impacted not only the United States, but the world as a whole. Do you think the world is more or less vulnerable today than in 2001? How have our freedoms been impacted? Write a paragraph explaining your thoughts.

4. Through Their Eyes

Interview a parent, grandparent, or other adult who remembers the tragedy of September 11, 2001. Ask about where they were or what they were doing when they found out about the attacks. How did they react? What are their feelings about 9/11 today? Assemble their responses into an essay or poem.

5. Gratitude Is an Attitude

September 11th is a hard day to think about. As we honor those who lost their lives on this day in 2001, make a list of at least 10 things in your life that you are thankful for and provide a brief explanation why.

The 9/11 events are an emotional topic to cover, and having students complete thoughtful writing can be a great way to learn about them. By exploring a variety of writing formats, students can better understand the importance of this historical day.

Reader Interactions

September 2, 2022 at 11:23 pm

Thank you for this! We must never forget!

September 10, 2022 at 10:29 pm

We will always remember 9/11 as a powerful day to others

September 11, 2023 at 3:27 pm

Remembering all lives lost that day. We will NEVER forget.

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Two Decades Later, the Enduring Legacy of 9/11

Table of contents, a devastating emotional toll, a lasting historical legacy, 9/11 transformed u.s. public opinion, but many of its impacts were short-lived, u.s. military response: afghanistan and iraq, the ‘new normal’: the threat of terrorism after 9/11, addressing the threat of terrorism at home and abroad, views of muslims, islam grew more partisan in years after 9/11.

Americans watched in horror as the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, left nearly 3,000 people dead in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Nearly 20 years later, they watched in sorrow as the nation’s military mission in Afghanistan – which began less than a month after 9/11 – came to a bloody and chaotic conclusion.

The enduring power of the Sept. 11 attacks is clear: An overwhelming share of Americans who are old enough to recall the day remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. Yet an ever-growing number of Americans have no personal memory of that day, either because they were too young or not yet born.

A review of U.S. public opinion in the two decades since 9/11 reveals how a badly shaken nation came together, briefly, in a spirit of sadness and patriotism; how the public initially rallied behind the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, though support waned over time; and how Americans viewed the threat of terrorism at home and the steps the government took to combat it.

As the country comes to grips with the tumultuous exit of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan, the departure has raised long-term questions about U.S. foreign policy and America’s place in the world. Yet the public’s initial judgments on that mission are clear: A majority endorses the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, even as it criticizes the Biden administration’s handling of the situation. And after a war that cost thousands of lives – including more than 2,000 American service members – and trillions of dollars in military spending, a new Pew Research Center survey finds that 69% of U.S. adults say the United States has mostly failed to achieve its goals in Afghanistan.

This examination of how the United States changed in the two decades following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is based on an analysis of past public opinion survey data from Pew Research Center, news reports and other sources.

Current data is from a Pew Research Center survey of 10,348 U.S. adults conducted Aug. 23-29, 2021. Most of the interviewing was conducted before the Aug. 26 suicide bombing at Kabul airport, and all of it was conducted before the completion of the evacuation. Everyone who took part is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the  ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used  for the report, along with responses, and  its methodology .

Shock, sadness, fear, anger: The 9/11 attacks inflicted a devastating emotional toll on Americans. But as horrible as the events of that day were, a 63% majority of Americans said they couldn’t stop watching news coverage of the attacks.

Our first survey following the attacks went into the field just days after 9/11, from Sept. 13-17, 2001. A sizable majority of adults (71%) said they felt depressed, nearly half (49%) had difficulty concentrating and a third said they had trouble sleeping.

It was an era in which television was still the public’s dominant news source – 90% said they got most of their news about the attacks from television, compared with just 5% who got news online – and the televised images of death and destruction had a powerful impact. Around nine-in-ten Americans (92%) agreed with the statement, “I feel sad when watching TV coverage of the terrorist attacks.” A sizable majority (77%) also found it frightening to watch – but most did so anyway.

Americans were enraged by the attacks, too. Three weeks after 9/11 , even as the psychological stress began to ease somewhat, 87% said they felt angry about the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Fear was widespread, not just in the days immediately after the attacks, but throughout the fall of 2001. Most Americans said they were very (28%) or somewhat (45%) worried about another attack . When asked a year later to describe how their lives changed in a major way, about half of adults said they felt more afraid, more careful, more distrustful or more vulnerable as a result of the attacks.

Even after the immediate shock of 9/11 had subsided, concerns over terrorism remained at higher levels in major cities – especially New York and Washington – than in small towns and rural areas. The personal impact of the attacks also was felt more keenly in the cities directly targeted: Nearly a year after 9/11, about six-in-ten adults in the New York (61%) and Washington (63%) areas said the attacks had changed their lives at least a little, compared with 49% nationwide. This sentiment was shared by residents of other large cities. A quarter of people who lived in large cities nationwide said their lives had changed in a major way – twice the rate found in small towns and rural areas.

The impacts of the Sept. 11 attacks were deeply felt and slow to dissipate. By the following August, half of U.S. adults said the country “had changed in a major way” – a number that actually increased , to 61%, 10 years after the event .

A year after the attacks, in an open-ended question, most Americans – 80% – cited 9/11 as the most important event that had occurred in the country during the previous year. Strikingly, a larger share also volunteered it as the most important thing that happened to them personally in the prior year (38%) than mentioned other typical life events, such as births or deaths. Again, the personal impact was much greater in New York and Washington, where 51% and 44%, respectively, pointed to the attacks as the most significant personal event over the prior year.

Just as memories of 9/11 are firmly embedded in the minds of most Americans old enough to recall the attacks, their historical importance far surpasses other events in people’s lifetimes. In a survey conducted by Pew Research Center in association with A+E Networks’ HISTORY in 2016 – 15 years after 9/11 – 76% of adults named the Sept. 11 attacks as one of the 10 historical events of their lifetime that had the greatest impact on the country. The election of Barack Obama as the first Black president was a distant second, at 40%.

The importance of 9/11 transcended age, gender, geographic and even political differences. The 2016 study noted that while partisans agreed on little else that election cycle, more than seven-in-ten Republicans and Democrats named the attacks as one of their top 10 historic events.

It is difficult to think of an event that so profoundly transformed U.S. public opinion across so many dimensions as the 9/11 attacks. While Americans had a shared sense of anguish after Sept. 11, the months that followed also were marked by rare spirit of public unity.

Patriotic sentiment surged in the aftermath of 9/11. After the U.S. and its allies launched airstrikes against Taliban and al-Qaida forces in early October 2001, 79% of adults said they had displayed an American flag. A year later, a 62% majority said they had often felt patriotic as a result of the 9/11 attacks.

Moreover, the public largely set aside political differences and rallied in support of the nation’s major institutions, as well as its political leadership. In October 2001, 60% of adults expressed trust in the federal government – a level not reached in the previous three decades, nor approached in the two decades since then.

George W. Bush, who had become president nine months earlier after a fiercely contested election, saw his job approval rise 35 percentage points in the space of three weeks. In late September 2001, 86% of adults – including nearly all Republicans (96%) and a sizable majority of Democrats (78%) – approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president.

Americans also turned to religion and faith in large numbers. In the days and weeks after 9/11, most Americans said they were praying more often. In November 2001, 78% said religion’s influence in American life was increasing, more than double the share who said that eight months earlier and – like public trust in the federal government – the highest level in four decades .

Public esteem rose even for some institutions that usually are not that popular with Americans. For example, in November 2001, news organizations received record-high ratings for professionalism. Around seven-in-ten adults (69%) said they “stand up for America,” while 60% said they protected democracy.

Yet in many ways, the “9/11 effect” on public opinion was short-lived. Public trust in government, as well as confidence in other institutions, declined throughout the 2000s. By 2005, following another major national tragedy – the government’s mishandling of the relief effort for victims of Hurricane Katrina – just 31% said they trusted the federal government, half the share who said so in the months after 9/11. Trust has remained relatively low for the past two decades: In April of this year, only 24% said they trusted the government just about always or most of the time.

Bush’s approval ratings, meanwhile, never again reached the lofty heights they did shortly after 9/11. By the end of his presidency, in December 2008, just 24% approved of his job performance.

With the U.S. now formally out of Afghanistan – and with the Taliban firmly in control of the country – most Americans (69%) say the U.S. failed in achieving its goals in Afghanistan.

But 20 years ago, in the days and weeks following 9/11, Americans overwhelmingly supported military action against those responsible for the attacks. In mid-September 2001, 77% favored U.S. military action, including the deployment of ground forces, “to retaliate against whoever is responsible for the terrorist attacks, even if that means U.S. armed forces might suffer thousands of casualties.”

Many Americans were impatient for the Bush administration to give the go-ahead for military action. In a late September 2001 survey, nearly half the public (49%) said their larger concern was that the Bush administration would not strike quickly enough against the terrorists; just 34% said they worried the administration would move too quickly.

Even in the early stages of the U.S. military response, few adults expected a military operation to produce quick results: 69% said it would take months or years to dismantle terrorist networks, including 38% who said it would take years and 31% who said it would take several months. Just 18% said it would take days or weeks.

The public’s support for military intervention was evident in other ways as well. Throughout the fall of 2001, more Americans said the best way to prevent future terrorism was to take military action abroad rather than build up defenses at home. In early October 2001, 45% prioritized military action to destroy terrorist networks around the world, while 36% said the priority should be to build terrorism defenses at home.

Initially, the public was confident that the U.S. military effort to destroy terrorist networks would succeed. A sizable majority (76%) was confident in the success of this mission, with 39% saying they were very confident.

Support for the war in Afghanistan continued at a high level for several years to come. In a survey conducted in early 2002, a few months after the start of the war, 83% of Americans said they approved of the U.S.-led military campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan. In 2006, several years after the United States began combat operations in Afghanistan, 69% of adults said the U.S. made the right decision in using military force in Afghanistan. Only two-in-ten said it was the wrong decision.

But as the conflict dragged on, first through Bush’s presidency and then through Obama’s administration, support wavered and a growing share of Americans favored the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. In June 2009, during Obama’s first year in office, 38% of Americans said U.S. troops should be removed from Afghanistan as soon as possible. The share favoring a speedy troop withdrawal increased over the next few years. A turning point came in May 2011, when U.S. Navy SEALs launched a risky operation against Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan and killed the al-Qaida leader.

The public reacted to bin Laden’s death with more of a sense of relief than jubilation . A month later, for the first time , a majority of Americans (56%) said that U.S. forces should be brought home as soon as possible, while 39% favored U.S. forces in the country until the situation had stabilized.

Over the next decade, U.S. forces in Afghanistan were gradually drawn down, in fits and starts, over the administrations of three presidents – Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Meanwhile, public support for the decision to use force in Afghanistan, which had been widespread at the start of the conflict, declined . Today, after the tumultuous exit of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, a slim majority of adults (54%) say the decision to withdraw troops from the country was the right decision; 42% say it was the wrong decision. 

There was a similar trajectory in public attitudes toward a much more expansive conflict that was part of what Bush termed the “war on terror”: the U.S. war in Iraq. Throughout the contentious, yearlong debate before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Americans widely supported the use of military force to end Saddam Hussein’s rule in Iraq.

Importantly, most Americans thought – erroneously, as it turned out – there was a direct connection between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks. In October 2002, 66% said that Saddam helped the terrorists involved in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

In April 2003, during the first month of the Iraq War, 71% said the U.S. made the right decision to go to war in Iraq. On the 15th anniversary of the war in 2018, just 43% said it was the right decision. As with the case with U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, more Americans said that the U.S. had failed (53%) than succeeded (39%) in achieving its goals in Iraq.

There have been no terrorist attacks on the scale of 9/11 in two decades, but from the public’s perspective, the threat has never fully gone away. Defending the country from future terrorist attacks has been at or near the top of Pew Research Center’s annual survey on policy priorities since 2002.

In January 2002, just months after the 2001 attacks, 83% of Americans said “defending the country from future terrorist attacks” was a top priority for the president and Congress, the highest for any issue. Since then, sizable majorities have continued to cite that as a top policy priority.

Majorities of both Republicans and Democrats have consistently ranked terrorism as a top priority over the past two decades, with some exceptions. Republicans and Republican-leaning independents have remained more likely than Democrats and Democratic leaners to say defending the country from future attacks should be a top priority. In recent years, the partisan gap has grown larger as Democrats began to rank the issue lower relative to other domestic concerns. The public’s concerns about another attack also remained fairly steady in the years after 9/11, through near-misses and the federal government’s numerous “Orange Alerts” – the second-most serious threat level on its color-coded terrorism warning system.

A 2010 analysis of the public’s terrorism concerns found that the share of Americans who said they were very concerned about another attack had ranged from about 15% to roughly 25% since 2002. The only time when concerns were elevated was in February 2003, shortly before the start of the U.S. war in Iraq.

In recent years, the share of Americans who point to terrorism as a major national problem has declined sharply as issues such as the economy, the COVID-19 pandemic and racism have emerged as more pressing problems in the public’s eyes.

In 2016, about half of the public (53%) said terrorism was a very big national problem in the country. This declined to about four-in-ten from 2017 to 2019. Last year, only a quarter of Americans said that terrorism was a very big problem.

This year, prior to the U.S. withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan and the subsequent Taliban takeover of the country, a somewhat larger share of adults said domestic terrorism was a very big national problem (35%) than said the same about international terrorism . But much larger shares cited concerns such as the affordability of health care (56%) and the federal budget deficit (49%) as major problems than said that about either domestic or international terrorism.

Still, recent events in Afghanistan raise the possibility that opinion could be changing, at least in the short term. In a late August survey, 89% of Americans said the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was a threat to the security of the U.S., including 46% who said it was a major threat.

Just as Americans largely endorsed the use of U.S. military force as a response to the 9/11 attacks, they were initially open to a variety of other far-reaching measures to combat terrorism at home and abroad. In the days following the attack, for example, majorities favored a requirement that all citizens carry national ID cards, allowing the CIA to contract with criminals in pursuing suspected terrorists and permitting the CIA to conduct assassinations overseas when pursuing suspected terrorists.

However, most people drew the line against allowing the government to monitor their own emails and phone calls (77% opposed this). And while 29% supported the establishment of internment camps for legal immigrants from unfriendly countries during times of tension or crisis – along the lines of those in which thousands of Japanese American citizens were confined during World War II – 57% opposed such a measure.

It was clear that from the public’s perspective, the balance between protecting civil liberties and protecting the country from terrorism had shifted. In September 2001 and January 2002, 55% majorities said that, in order to curb terrorism in the U.S., it was necessary for the average citizen to give up some civil liberties. In 1997, just 29% said this would be necessary while 62% said it would not.

For most of the next two decades, more Americans said their bigger concern was that the government had not gone far enough in protecting the country from terrorism than said it went too far in restricting civil liberties.

The public also did not rule out the use of torture to extract information from terrorist suspects. In a 2015 survey of 40 nations, the U.S. was one of only 12 where a majority of the public said the use of torture against terrorists could be justified to gain information about a possible attack.

Concerned about a possible backlash against Muslims in the U.S. in the days after 9/11, then-President George W. Bush gave a speech to the Islamic Center in Washington, D.C., in which he declared: “Islam is peace.” For a brief period, a large segment of Americans agreed. In November 2001, 59% of U.S. adults had a favorable view of Muslim Americans, up from 45% in March 2001, with comparable majorities of Democrats and Republicans expressing a favorable opinion.

This spirit of unity and comity was not to last. In a September 2001 survey, 28% of adults said they had grown more suspicious of people of Middle Eastern descent; that grew to 36% less than a year later.

Republicans, in particular, increasingly came to associate Muslims and Islam with violence. In 2002, just a quarter of Americans – including 32% of Republicans and 23% of Democrats – said Islam was more likely than other religions to encourage violence among its believers. About twice as many (51%) said it was not.

But within the next few years, most Republicans and GOP leaners said Islam was more likely than other religions to encourage violence. Today, 72% of Republicans express this view, according to an August 2021 survey.

Democrats consistently have been far less likely than Republicans to associate Islam with violence. In the Center’s latest survey, 32% of Democrats say this. Still, Democrats are somewhat more likely to say this today than they have been in recent years: In 2019, 28% of Democrats said Islam was more likely than other religions to encourage violence among its believers than other religions.

The partisan gap in views of Muslims and Islam in the U.S. is evident in other meaningful ways. For example, a 2017 survey found that half of U.S. adults said that “Islam is not part of mainstream American society” – a view held by nearly seven-in-ten Republicans (68%) but only 37% of Democrats. In a separate survey conducted in 2017, 56% of Republicans said there was a great deal or fair amount of extremism among U.S. Muslims, with fewer than half as many Democrats (22%) saying the same.

The rise of anti-Muslim sentiment in the aftermath of 9/11 has had a profound effect on the growing number of Muslims living in the United States. Surveys of U.S. Muslims from 2007-2017 found increasing shares saying they have personally experienced discrimination and received public expression of support.

It has now been two decades since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and the crash of Flight 93 – where only the courage of passengers and crew possibly prevented an even deadlier terror attack.

For most who are old enough to remember, it is a day that is impossible to forget. In many ways, 9/11 reshaped how Americans think of war and peace, their own personal safety and their fellow citizens. And today, the violence and chaos in a country half a world away brings with it the opening of an uncertain new chapter in the post-9/11 era.

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Shock, insecurity and endless war: How 9/11 changed America and the world

Terror attacks damaged our psyches, and the response undermined U.S. moral authority, Berkeley scholars say

By Edward Lempinen

September 9, 2021

Choking on fumes and covered in dust, a woman and a man make their way to safety after the collapse of the World Trade Center towers in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001. (Wikipedia photo by Don Halasy)

For tens of millions of Americans alive on Sept. 11, 2001, the images are indelible: Flames exploding from a tower of the World Trade Center against a brilliant blue sky. A tsunami of smoke and debris roiling through the canyons of Lower Manhattan. Office workers — those who managed to escape — covered in grey dust.

In the shock that followed those terror attacks, it was common to imagine that the world had changed forever. Just how, exactly, no one could know. Twenty years later, after so many other turns of history, the ragged withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan is a reminder of how the nation has struggled to answer the attacks.

Janet Napolitano (UC Berkeley photo)

“One of the most lasting impacts has been the damage to the American psyche,” said Janet Napolitano, former secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and former president of the University of California. “Even after Pearl Harbor, there was a presumption that we were somehow immune from attack, that our airliners would not be weaponized and flown into iconic buildings. That sort of presumption was effectively destroyed by 9/11 — and it hasn’t come back.”

Even as Americans grappled with trauma and anger at home, the attacks cleared the way for a foreign policy based on the belief that the United States can “transform foreign societies in its own self-image,” said UC Berkeley historian Daniel Sargent. This was “hubris,” Sargent said, with the “consequence of exploding the credibility of America as a superpower.”

Daniel Sargent (Photo courtesy of UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy)

To be sure, the American reaction to Sept. 11 achieved a critical aim: After a massive mobilization of resources, intelligence and military power, the U.S. has prevented any other large-scale attack on domestic targets. Osama bin Laden, the 9/11 mastermind, was found and killed. The war in Iraq, though ill-conceived and fatally mismanaged, removed Saddam Hussein, a vicious tyrant, from power. A generation of women and girls in Afghanistan found that with the Taliban banished, there was space for education, for work and for pursuing dreams.

In a series of interviews, Berkeley scholars said the shock and the national response set off a cascade of repercussions — misguided and expensive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a rise in anti-Muslim hate, and an obsessive focus on security and safety that has sometimes undermined freedom and human rights.

Asked to reflect on the 20th anniversary of the attacks, they pointed to four broad, specific examples of how 9/11 continues to shape America and the world, plus a fifth that may — or may not — come to pass.

The terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon outside of Washington, D.C., deeply shocked and angered America — and led political leaders to overreact in response, Berkeley scholars say. (Flickr photo by Robert J. Fisch)

1. Policymakers implemented aggressive plans to combat global terrorism — and to prevent “contamination” of the homeland.

Marika Landau-Wells (Photo by Aidan Milliff)

In a period of major conflict, two primal fears can become pronounced, said Marika Landau-Wells, a UC Berkeley political scientist who studies how political leaders and the public perceive threats. One is fear of death. The other is fear of contamination. These fears colored the U.S. response to communism in the 1950s and to COVID-19 and illegal immigration today.

In the psychological environment that rose from the shock of 9/11, the Bush administration had support to make a dramatic response.

“They didn’t want more people to die on their watch,” said Landau-Wells. “But there was also a sense that…this ideology of international terrorism had some contaminant properties to it. It’s a little bit like communism in that respect.”

With unprecedented speed, the Bush administration transformed the national security system. Airline security was tightened and intensified. The Department of Homeland Security was created a little more than a year after the attacks, and today is the third-largest federal agency.

At the same time, U.S. foreign policy was “remilitarized,” said Berkeley political scientist George Breslauer, a scholar in U.S. foreign affairs. “After 9/11, with the neoconservatives in power, you get this notion: ‘We are the most powerful country in the world, and it’s about time to show our adversaries what that means.’”

U.S. military personnel carry the remains of fellow service members killed in the Aug. 26 Kabul airport attack, just days before the U.S. completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by 1st Lt. Mark Andries)

2. Political leaders bet that terrorism could be defeated by conventional military action. This was a grave miscalculation.

Hatem Bazian

Several Berkeley scholars shared a common view: The U.S. could have responded to 9/11 as if it were a crime — using law enforcement, diplomacy and intelligence along with limited military resources to hunt down Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida leaders and others linked to the attacks.

“If you want to pursue the terrorists, there are different approaches and strategies to undertake this in a legal, legitimate way rather than unleash an invasion that is going to be disastrous,” said Hatem Bazian, founder of the UC Berkeley Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project.

George Breslauer (UC Berkeley photo)

Added Breslauer: “Trying to fight wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, while simultaneously conducting a global police action against terror — it only brought us misery and pain.”

The death toll: Some 15,000 U.S. soldiers and military contractors died, along with some 15,000 allied military personnel. Among Afghans and Iraqis, deaths mounted into the hundreds of thousands.

The financial cost: By one estimate, the U.S. has spent more than $8 trillion — much of it borrowed — in wars launched after 9/11.

In Vietnam, the U.S. learned through failure that “conventional military deterrence…doesn’t work against insurgencies in guerilla war contexts,” Breslauer said. By repeating that approach against Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. “affirmed that it had unlearned the lessons of Vietnam — and that was triggered by 9/11.”

3. The attacks provoked a wave of anti-Muslim bias, harassment and violence. This demonization has become a persistent feature of our politics.

Incidents of torture by U.S. military and intelligence officials at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq deeply damaged the U.S. effort to promote democracy in the region, Berkeley scholars said. (Photo from U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command via Wikipedia)

In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks, society focused indiscriminate rage on Muslims, several scholars said.

“To tar a whole group of people with that brush is a big move, but I think 9/11 gave permission to think that way,” said Landau-Wells. “There was a tolerance for a kind of thinking that probably would have been frowned upon on Sept. 9th or 10th.”

Hate crimes against Muslims , or those mistaken for Muslims, soared. Law enforcement agencies detained thousands of men who were Middle Eastern and South Asian. Agents infiltrated Arab American communities. In Iraq and in the Guantanamo Bay detention center, the images of U.S. military personnel abusing and torturing Muslim men suggested that Muslims had been officially dehumanized.

While some Americans recoiled, others did not. In a climate of suspicion and fear, Berkeley scholars said, hostility for Muslims became a political wedge issue.

Critics attacked a rising 2008 presidential candidate by his full name: Barack Hussein Obama. After Obama’s victory, future presidential candidate Donald Trump led a sustained conspiracy movement claiming that the victor wasn’t American, and was therefore not a legitimate president.

Lawrence Rosenthal

Later, as the Republican nominee, Trump would promote the lie that thousands of Muslims on 9/11 cheered the fall of the twin towers at the World Trade Center. And as president, he largely suspended tourism, business and academic visits from Muslim countries.

“Islamic terrorism, quote unquote, replaced communism as the great foreign enemy,” observed Lawrence Rosenthal, chair of the UC Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies . “And those who were not hostile to the domestic Muslim population — they could be characterized as enemies on the home front.”

4. Through strategic failures and compromised values, the United States suffered deep, long-term damage to its political and moral authority.

The stated goals in both Afghanistan and Iraq seemed straightforward: topple authoritarian governments seen as hostile and replace them with functional democratic states, and thereby make the region less hospitable to terrorists. But Iraq wasn’t even linked to terrorism. And the use of detention without trial, kidnapping and torture undermined U.S. claims to democratic virtue.

“The use of what was euphemistically called ‘ enhanced interrogations ,’ which most people would call torture, was really contrary to our values — and it was not effective,” said Napolitano, now director of the Center for Security in Politics at Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy. “Those kinds of decisions not only change our self-perception, but change the perception of the United States in the world.”

The invasion of Iraq “completely torpedoed and collapsed U.S. standing” in the Muslim countries and much of the world, said Bazian. “U.S. power has diminished tremendously in the most important powers — the power of persuasion.

“Once the Abu Ghraib pictures came out, the Abu Ghraib torture, the United States’ claim that it represents the civilized world, the rule of law — at that point, the emperor had no clothes.”

5. Can the U.S. accept the humbling lessons of 9/11? Time will tell.

The world has transformed in the two decades since the terror attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. The United States is no longer the world’s sole superpower; China is a rival, and Russia remains a global force. India and other nations once considered poor and powerless are building strength.

In the last days before U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan, a throng of Afghans hoping to escape waited for evacuation behind a cordon of U.S. Marines at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Staff Sgt. Victor Mancilla)

The U.S. remains the world’s most powerful country, Breslauer said, but it cannot impose its will on the world. It must define its vital interests realistically, and then work with other powers to address global issues through diplomacy and cooperation.

“We have to search for a way to get the United States, Europe, Russia and China to collaborate on issues that all of them define as major threats,” he proposed. “Those issues can be global terror, or the avoidance of accidental nuclear launches. It can be pandemic control, or climate change. There are any number of issues on which those four entities — plus Japan and a few others — have a common stake in avoiding the worst outcomes.”

Bazian finds cause for optimism in the European fishing crews that have rescued refugees fleeing war and persecution, and in the church groups working to resettle refugees in the United States. But he sees that the U.S. military web still circles the globe, and he wonders whether the lesson has been learned.

In this new world, he and others suggested, hubris is no longer viable. Diplomacy, subtlety, cooperation — these are essential if the U.S. is to recover from the self-inflicted damage of 9/11.

“I think over time we can recover,” Napolitano said. “But we can only do it by action, by exhibiting to the world our values and how we practice them… You know, the world is a complex place, and we need to approach its complexity with a degree of humility.”

September 11: Terror Attack and Huge Casualties Essay

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Tuesday September 11, was a dark moment in New York after a terror attack on the World Trade Centre which left more than 3000 neighbors, friends, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, children and parents dead. The cleverly orchestrated attacks inflicted huge casualties on the American citizens. U. S. Officials later identified the attacker as a Pakistani-born, Khalid Sheik Mohammed who was the mastermind behind the attacks.

The terrorist attacks occurred at 8:45am with the first of the two hijacked American Airlines striking the World Trade Centre. At 9:03am, the second airliner crashed into the twin towers, leaving the building crumbling and in a blaze. Many people were left trapped in the building for long hours while others died.

The third plane crashed at 9:43 am at the Pentagon which is the US military base and the largest office building in the world. The south tower, after the attack, broke and fell apart and five minutes later, the remaining part of the Pentagon came down. According to police sources, the fourth jet crashed into Western Pennsylvania killing more than 100 people.

The police and the emergency staff quickly rushed into the scene to rescue the survivors. In the World Trade Center, the workplace to more than 40,000 workers, people had reported to work as other days and those that were on the 106 th floor died instantly while the rest in other floors could not escape from fire. As the police and the emergency staff trying to help those at the World Trade Center, the South tower, collapsed and tumbled down killing hundreds of the police and emergency personnel.

After the attacks a state of emergency ensued and all the flights grounded and all US borders closed. There were fears everywhere that similar attacks could occur and as a result precautionary evacuations took place especially on national buildings.

The then president, George Bush, who was also the commander-in-chief of the Defense forces, was flown to a safe and secure base in Nebraska and he and his deputy president were kept in different locations.

He later addressed the attacks that though they had shaken the growth of big buildings in America they had not weakened the hardworking and zealous citizens of America. He further added that there was no difference between those who perpetrated the attack and those who gave them shelter and he urged them to co-operate in the fight against terrorism.

American Airlines told CNN that they had lost their two planes both in their way to Los Angeles, American Flight 11 from Boston carrying 81 passengers and 11 crew and American Flight 11, a Boeing 757 from Washington Dulles Airport to Los Angeles carrying 58 passengers and six crew and from the witnesses, it is the American Bin 757 that hit Pentagon.

Those behind the attacks were Islamic terrorists from Saudi Arabia managed by Osama Bin Laden, who had planned it for years. The hijackers of the Airliners were suicide bombers belonging to Al Qaeda.

The tragic attack on America has remained a historical representation and has reminded many to expect anything and to know that some occurrences are inevitable.

Its target was to destroy the World Trade Centre and to discipline the Americans as well as to impede the economy and damage United States’ reputation from the rest of the world.

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• Chicago (A-D)
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IvyPanda. (2018, June 7). September 11: Terror Attack and Huge Casualties. https://ivypanda.com/essays/september-11-2001/

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IvyPanda . 2018. "September 11: Terror Attack and Huge Casualties." June 7, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/september-11-2001/.

1. IvyPanda . "September 11: Terror Attack and Huge Casualties." June 7, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/september-11-2001/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "September 11: Terror Attack and Huge Casualties." June 7, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/september-11-2001/.

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For those who remember Sept. 11, 2001, details of the day – the confusion, chaos and collective grief – are as clear now as they were 20 years ago when the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history occurred.

But many college students today have no memories of 19 al-Qaida operatives hijacking four commercial airplanes and killing nearly 3,000 people in a terrorist attack on the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C, and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Teaching this next generation about the passion and the intensity that defined that pivotal moment is difficult, says Condoleezza Rice , who was the U.S. National Security Advisor at the time of the attacks.

For the new generation of students, 9/11 is now a part of history. “It would be like people trying to convey the intensity of World War II to me,” said Rice, who went on to serve as the 66th secretary of state of the United States under President George W. Bush before returning to her professorship at Stanford in 2009.

Rice, now the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution, was in the White House on that Tuesday morning of Sept 11. When she discusses the attacks with her students, her experiences on that day inevitably come up.

She is candid in her recounting. “That helps to vivify it because it’s a personal story,” Rice said.

When President George W. Bush returned to Washington, D.C., on Sept. 11, 2001, he met with Condoleezza Rice, who was then U.S. National Security Advisor, as well as from left: Vice President Dick Cheney, Chief of Staff Andy Card and Special Agent Carl Truscott of the U.S. Secret Service in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center of the White House. (Image credit: Eric Draper, Courtesy George W. Bush Presidential Library / Getty Images)

Condoleezza Rice, who served as President George W. Bush’s national security advisor before becoming the 66th Secretary of State of the United States, is pictured here taking notes from a phone call through a window in the Outer Oval Office on September 18, 2001. (Image credit: Smith Collection / Gado / Getty Images)

Rice shares how, when the first plane hit the North Tower at the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m., she and others were uncertain about the cause of the crash. She remembers wondering whether it could have been an accident. But when the second hijacked plane hit the remaining South Tower 17 minutes later, Rice knew it had to be a terrorist attack on the United States.

Then there was the short period when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld could not be reached because the Pentagon was also hit that morning, Rice said. She, along with other senior government leaders, were ushered into the White House bunker. She tells students that around noon that day, oxygen levels started to drop because too many people were crammed into the fortified space. “So the Secret Service was going around saying, ‘You have to leave, you are not essential; you have to leave, you are not essential.’ You would never plan for such a thing as that,” she said.

Inevitably, a student will ask her if she was afraid. Rice was so taken aback the first time she faced that question that she actually paused to think about it – and then concluded that she wasn’t. “I didn’t have time to be scared,” Rice recalled. “You can fear for your loved ones, but you are not allowed to feel personal fear. You don’t think about that in the moment.”

“I try to help [students] understand how we are still living the effects of 9/11.” —Condoleezza Rice Director, Hoover Institution; Former U.S. National Security Advisor and 66th Secretary of State

Rice also emphasized the importance of talking to students about how 9/11 transformed the world and that what seems routine today – such as additional airport screenings and the formation of new government institutions – didn’t even exist before the attacks.

“I try to help them understand how we are still living the effects of 9/11,” said Rice. “It isn’t an event that happened one day and then was over, but everything from the way that you go through an airport to something called ‘homeland security,’ which you didn’t have before 9/11.”

Teaching 9/11 since 9/11

The attacks also introduced into the wider vernacular new places – like Afghanistan – and people – like Osama bin Laden – that students 20 years ago knew very little or nothing about.

Stanford scholars Amy Zegart and Martha Crenshaw experienced this firsthand on the day of the attacks when they found themselves in the surreal situation of teaching about 9/11 on 9/11. Both were so shocked by the unfolding events that they were unable to do anything except the one thing they were supposed to do that day, which was teach.

Martha Crenshaw, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, has written extensively on the issue of political terrorism; her first article, "The Concept of Revolutionary Terrorism," was published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution in 1972. (Image credit: L.A. Cicero)

Zegart led a crisis simulation for POLI SCI 114S: International Security in a Changing World. (Image credit: Rod Searcey)

When they showed up to their respective classrooms – at the time, Crenshaw was at Wesleyan University teaching a course on decision making and foreign policy; Zegart at UCLA – they found them packed. There were more students in the lecture hall for Crenshaw’s course than were enrolled.

Students – horrified and trying to make sense of what was happening – sought clarity and comfort from their teachers, who just happened to be experts on the issues that would come to define the next two decades of U.S. domestic and foreign policy.

“A key part of understanding history is empathy, and thinking about what it was like to live through something rather than only looking at an event through the distance of time. 9/11 looks inevitable in hindsight, but it was unimaginable on September 10.” —Amy Zegart Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute and Hoover Institution

“When something that shocking happens, our natural inclination is to make sense of what’s going on together, right now,” said Zegart, who is a leading scholar on national security and the Central Intelligence Agency and is now a senior scholar at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Morris Arnold and Nona Jean Cox Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Students wanted to know more about the terms and names they were hearing for the first time that day, like jihadism and the Taliban. Over the months that followed came more complex challenges to explain: the global war on terror, torture, rendition, Guantanamo Bay, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

This is the world that today’s students have inherited. Even the current generation’s media, as Zegart’s research has shown, has become increasingly saturated with a proliferation of “spytainment” : movies and TV shows depicting, often inaccurately, the clandestine world of intelligence and counterterrorism operations.

Like Rice, Crenshaw has also found herself having to explain that none of this was normal before 9/11.

“I have to go back and say, ‘All this wasn’t always here before 9/11.’ I have to trace the trajectory of policy changes,” said Crenshaw, a senior fellow at FSI and the Center for International Security and Cooperation.

Shifts in emotion

In the first decade after the attacks, Zegart said her students were incredibly emotional about 9/11 and its aftermath, including the expansion of U.S. conflict abroad. A few years after the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq broke out, Zegart remembers one of her students, a recently returned veteran, telling her that he was taking her intelligence class because he wanted to learn more about why he had gone to Iraq, and what his friend who had deployed with him had died fighting for.

In 2018, Stanford scholars Amy Zegart and Condoleezza Rice co-taught the course POLECON 584: Managing Global Political Risk. (Image credit: Rod Searcey)

“It was a really raw, personal experience for students studying foreign policy in the first decade after 9/11 because they were living with war and uncertainty,” said Zegart. She had to push them be more analytical and objective in their class discussions of what a post 9/11 world entailed.

As the years progressed, though, 9/11 increasingly became less personal for the next generation of students. Perceptions began to shift. So much so that Zegart now finds herself in the opposite predicament: How to insert those feelings back in .

“Because they didn’t live through it, they look at it distantly and dispassionately,” Zegart said. “The challenge is, how do you help students better understand the context in which decisions were made and the raw emotion that unavoidably affects how we perceive threats and how we deal with policy responses.”

Teaching the emotions of the day

To evoke a visceral response to 9/11, Zegart shows a 4-minute montage of news clips. Students get a sense of how the day unfolded, from the breaking reports of the first tower being struck to a reporter’s on-air reaction as the second plane crashes live into the remaining tower. There are also scenes of people fleeing lower Manhattan amid dust, smoke and debris.

“You just cannot convey that day in a normal lecture or a book,” Zegart said. The video is effective; her students are often left with a sense of the sadness, horror and anguish that defined 9/11.

Zegart then asks her students to imagine they are policymakers at the White House and have to decide what to do next. “We often teach U.S. foreign policymaking as a sterile, Spock-like process where people weigh the pros and cons of options and make dispassionate decisions,” Zegart said. “But human emotion and searing national experiences are important and hard to convey. A key part of understanding history is empathy, and thinking about what it was like to live through something rather than only looking at an event through the distance of time. 9/11 looks inevitable in hindsight, but it was unimaginable on September 10.”

Through the exercise, students get a sense of the urgency that policymakers, like Rice, have to grapple with while making decisions amid a national emergency.

“In retrospect, everything looks quite orderly,” said Rice, who co-taught a class on global risk with Zegart at the Graduate School Business. “It looks like ‘of course that decision led to that decision.’ Political scientists are always talking about the options that were put before the president. That’s not how crisis decision making unfolds. You are dealing with really incomplete information, you are dealing with the need to act now, and you are often reacting from instinct because you don’t have time to think through things.”

Viewing the attacks from all sides

When political scientist Lisa Blaydes teaches 9/11 to her students, she tries to give an international perspective of the issues, particularly on how grievances can arise – both legitimately or falsely constructed – in countries abroad and how that can lead to extremism and political violence. For example, in her course Political Science 149: Middle Eastern Politics , several classes are dedicated to examining anti-American attitudes in the Islamic world and the conditions under which individuals become radicalized.

“I try to make sure that students understand both the individual motivations associated with the radicalization of political thought as well as the global context that empowers radicalized individuals to undertake violent action,” said Blaydes, a professor of political science in the School of Humanities and Sciences and a senior fellow at FSI. She asks students to read Lawrence Wright’s book The Looming Tower , which picks up on themes Blaydes covers in the course, particularly those dealing with how authoritarian regimes in the Arab world provided a backdrop for the rise of al-Qaida.

Lisa Blaydes, a professor of political science and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, focuses on comparative politics and politics of the Middle East. (Image credit: Courtesy Lisa Blaydes)

In recent years, Blaydes has found her students showing an increased interest in learning more about radical groups like ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) and how they have terrorized communities across the Middle East. “While Sept. 11 made terrorism a salient threat for Americans living in U.S. cities, both terrorism and state-sponsored violence are unfortunately a trauma shared by people around the world,” she said.

Similarly, Crenshaw said, it is important to explain to students the conditions that lead to such extremist views. But, she added, explaining motives should not be mistaken as justifying them. “We are not trying to excuse it; we are trying to understand why something happened,” she said.

With her students, Crenshaw has also looked at how terrorism has been used across history. In the aftermath of 9/11, terrorism almost exclusively became associated with a particular ideology and religion. But there are other examples throughout history of how it has been used as a form of political violence, she said.

“As an instructor, one of my goals was always to show students that 9/11 was something extraordinary, but there are other instances of terrorism and it can be associated with any ideology,” Crenshaw said.

Given its elasticity, terrorism is a confusing and contentious term with no standard definition, Crenshaw said . Thus, as both the term and the acts associated with terrorism have evolved over the past two decades, so has her teaching of it. “The phenomenon that you are trying to teach is changing over time as well, so it’s really a very dynamic subject requiring constant adjustment to take into account the vast outpouring of writing on terrorism but changing terrorism and counterterrorism as well,” she said.

In addition to situating 9/11 against a global and historical backdrop, teaching the attacks also requires a critical look at the domestic challenges that led up to it, including the shortcomings in U.S. intelligence. Zegart assigns students an article she wrote about the failures within the U.S. intelligence communities to adapt to the threat of terrorism, as well as a critique against her piece. “There’s no one perfect view, and if students can realize that their professor is part of an argument and people can disagree, that’s really important,” she said.

Zegart and Crenshaw have also assigned students the 9/11 Commission Report , the official report of the events that led up to the attacks and detailed account of the circumstances surrounding it.

‘Still hard’

Even though 20 years have passed since 9/11, it does not mean that teaching about the attacks has gotten easier.

“I still have a hard time,” Zegart said. “For years, my screensaver was a picture of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center. It was important to me not to forget. I’ve spent my career researching why our intelligence agencies failed to stop 9/11 and how they can better meet threats in the future. I think about that day every day.”

Media Contacts

Melissa De Witte, Stanford News Service:  [email protected]

September 11, 2001 – The Day of the Attacks 

• In addition to focusing mostly on the attack by commemorating and memorializing those who perished and risked their lives to save others, it’s important to also include the broader history, context, and perspectives from the day. This includes how different people varying by age, race, religion, and national origin, all made sense of the 9/11 attacks and what they meant throughout the world.

Essential Questions:

• How did different people make sense of (understand, respond to, conceptualize) the attacks? 
• How did other countries respond to the attacks?
• How did different media outlets/mediums cover the events? 
• Why do you think different people have such vivid/descriptive yet differing memories of the attacks? 
• How does the US choose to memorialize the attacks? 
• What are the inherent biases that each of these types of sources (i.e. oral histories, news articles, etc.) have? What can you learn only from this type of source? Which do you find most compelling/convincing and why? 
• Five, hour-long clips from NPR on the day of the 9/11 attacks. Each includes interviews with specialists, civilians, government officials, and commentary from radio hosts. 
• EQs: 1, 3, 4, and 6
• A lesson plan from the Newseum, which includes a 13-minute video retelling six first-person accounts of journalists covering the 9/11 attacks. The lesson plan also includes a worksheet with comprehension questions about the video, a reference sheet with a timeline of the events of the day, and a list of key terms to understand the event. 
• An archive of 426 news clips from 9/11, mostly from national US media outlets, with some from the BBC as well. Clips are from throughout the day of the attacks. 
• EQs: 2, 3, and 6
• A collection of 49 newspaper front pages from around the world on September 12, 2001. News ranges from state and local papers to international and foreign language press. 
• This database includes over 150,000 artifacts on the 9/11 attacks, including emails, personal stories, and digital images. Collections are curated into the following themes – anniversary collections, art, audio, digital media projects, first responders, the Library of Congress collections, online user contributions, organizations, personal accounts, photography, Collections from the Smithsonian, and videos. 
• EQs: 1, 4, 5, and 6
• https://www.loc.gov/item/afc911000169/ : a 4-minute interview with Nathan West from Madison, WI. The interview shows how non-New Yorkers grapple with the events and why they think they happened. 
• https://www.loc.gov/item/afc911000026/ : 25 minutes interview with Nanette Papiernik, who reflects on driving 4-5-year-olds to school, and gives an adult perspective of how children understood the 9/11 attacks. 
• https://www.loc.gov/item/afc911000102/ : Interview with Nilson Rosado, who worked near the World Trade Center, and remembers the day of the attack, and his attempts to help his fellow New Yorkers. This interview is in Spanish and is 8 minutes long. 
• A one-hour-long radio show episode of NPR’s “This American Life,” is broken up into six parts. Stories include survivor accounts, New Yorker reactions, and protests on what it means to be American. 
• 10 oral histories of people connected to the 9/11 attacks, ranging from first responders to survivors, to family members. Each oral history also includes a transcript of the text. 
• A documentary about the events of 9/11, made in 2006. The film focuses on what the US knew prior to the events, what happened the day of the attack, and the role that Pakistan played leading up to and after the events. (Note: This link is to the Library of Congress pages about this documentary, not a link to the actual movie.)
• EQs: 4 and 6
• https://www.maninredbandana.com/
• A documentary made in 2017 about one man, Welles Remy Crowther, who worked in the Towers, and died helping many people escape the attack. The film looks at his impact on the lives of the people he saved. (Note: This link is to the film’s webpage. The movie is available through iTunes and Amazon for rent or buy.)
• https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0312318/  
• A documentary, released in 2002, started as a documentary to tell the story of a probationary firefighter in New York but captures the story of first responders on the day of the 9/11 attacks. 
• This link is for the IMDB page with film information, not a link to the movie itself. 
• https://www.americanwaterways.com/media/videos/boatlift-tom-hanks-narrates-untold-tale-911-resilience
• An 11-minute short documentary from 2011 that recounts the maritime evacuation of lower Manhattan on 9/11. The U.S. Coast Guard put out a call for all boats available to come to assist in the evacuation, and hundreds of civilians answered the call. 
• An NYC firefighter, John Sr. reflects on coping with the loss of his two sons, a firefighter and detective, who both lost their lives rescuing people in the World Trade Centers.
• On the morning of September 11th, Michael Trinidad called his ex-wife, Monique Ferrer, from the World Trade Center to say goodbye. Monique tells the story of Michael’s legacy and their family.
• When Richie Pecorella met Karen Juday, she captured his heart and changed his life. Here, Richie remembers Karen, his love and inspiration, who was killed on September 11 th .
• A 5 minutes clip from 2016 of the presidential advisor who told President Bush of the attacks on 9/11. 
• EQs: 1 and 6
• A 4-minute clip from 2011 of the students who President Bush was reading to on 9/11, reflecting on their experience on that day. 
• https://www.nps.gov/flni/index.htm
• The National Parks Service Website for the United 93 memorial site. The website includes resources, ways to interact in a distanced learning environment, and webcams and virtual tours of the site. 
• EQs: 5 and 6 
• The remarks that George Tenet (Director of Central Intelligence) gave to the CIA workforce on 9/12/2001. 
• https://www.loc.gov/collections/interviews-following-the-attack-on-pearl-harbor/  

Types of Sources:

• Physical Memorial Site
• News Article
• Presidential media clip
• Personal Stories/Oral Histories

• Teaching Resources
• Upcoming Events
• On-demand Events

6 Resources for Teaching About 9/11

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Like many American adults, I can tell you in specific detail where I was on the morning of September 11, 2001 and how the day unfolded as I learned of the terror attacks at the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon. I was about one week into my sophomore year of high school, and in my English class in a classroom with a view of the Boston skyline. Because of the confusion of the day, and the fact that the planes that attacked the Twin Towers took off from Boston’s Logan Airport just 3 miles away, we were dismissed early. I found my younger brother and we walked home, confused and on edge. 

As I learned more about what had happened, life as I knew it began to change and the U.S. engaged in a new war, leaving me with a lot of questions about what was happening and why. I hadn’t been taught about the global or historical contexts for the attacks. And still, now, with the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approaching and the tenuous withdrawal crisis in Afghanistan unfolding in disturbing detail, I find myself continuing to search for information and answers on how we got here. 

In today’s classroom, there are myriad challenges to addressing and teaching about the attacks of September 11, their place in history, and their continuing impact on our world. Some of those challenges lie with the adults, the educators — and your own knowledge, memories, experiences, and perspectives on what happened and why. Then there’s the challenge of when and how to address it with your class and whether it’s a part of the curriculum you teach or not. Do you talk about it in the moment — near the anniversary? Or later as part of a history or humanities unit? And, of course, at this point, no student in a middle school or high school classroom would even have been alive when the attacks took place. For students today, the attacks themselves are truly—and maybe simply—a terrible event of history. 

But the painful legacy of these events and how they’ve shaped the world are evident every day. And  young people want to understand more about September 11 —not only the events of the day itself, but all that came before and has come after to form the world they live in. Below is a list of resources that can offer you multiple ways to contextualize and teach about what the 20th anniversary of September 11 means. From lessons on memory, legacy, and memorials that may be appropriate to commemorate the anniversary itself, to resources about news literacy, world history, and policy and conflict that could be used at any point in the year, we hope this list can help you answer some of the questions your students (or even you) might have about 9/11 and its legacy.

Resources: 

• Analyzing and Creating Memorials  — The 20th anniversary of 9/11 offers a chance to explore themes of memory, legacy, and memorial. Consider using this lesson to investigate the different ways memorials are created, why we build them, and how they can shape future generations’ understandings of history.  
• Lesson Plans from the 9/11 Memorial and Museum  — The 9/11 Memorial and Museum, which was built at the site of the World Trade Center attacks in New York, has an array of educational materials available. These lesson plans, in particular, cover a diverse range of topics related to the events of the day and its immediate aftermath.  
• Choices Program | Responding to Terrorism: Challenges for Democracy  — This in-depth unit, created for high-schoolers, was originally published in 2011 ahead of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, but was updated this summer to account for 10 more years of policy, conflict, extremism, and cultural impact catalyzed by the attacks.   
• Afghanistan, the Taliban, Osama bin Laden: The Background to 9/11  and  What History Can Teach Us About Contemporary Afghanistan  — Paired together, these two scholarly writings can serve as foundational primers for high-school students seeking to understand the global context in which the attacks occurred and how they relate to today’s headlines.  
• Stereotypes, Media, and Islamophobia  — The 9/11 attacks caused a marked rise in Islamophobia in the United States that persists today. Use this Teaching Idea to help students reflect on how stereotypes—specifically stereotypes about Muslims—can be reinforced through the media we consume and the negative impacts that these stereotypes can have on people’s lives.   
• NewseumEd: Covering Catastrophe: Comparing 9/11 Coverage  — The events of 9/11  forever changed  the way we watch and consume news coverage. This lesson from the Newseum asks students to analyze front page reports about the events, discuss different angles journalists chose to focus on, and investigate if any of the reported details are inaccurate or have since been disproven. 

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Long Gone Day

The changing legacy of an attack that america has promised never to forget..

Everyone remembers 9/11 differently. Here in New York, it often depends on where you were when the planes struck the Twin Towers, the vantage point being the determining factor between a concussive fireball overhead and a wisp of smoke climbing into blue skies. These are memories that are evoked each time this anniversary comes around, as if to relive that terrible day is the surest means of remembering it properly.

But as we approach the 20th anniversary of 9/11, it has never been more apparent that a growing number of people do not remember it at all. Of the 13 American service members who were killed in an attack during the U.S.’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in August, a full five were only 20 years old themselves. Seven of the service members were toddlers or infants in 2001, and the oldest was 11 . Meanwhile, a retaliatory U.S. drone strike reportedly killed seven Afghan children, including two 2-year-olds who had no inkling of 9/11, let alone the war that has been waged in its name.

This is all to say that, even as the violence continues, 9/11 has passed out of remembrance and into history — the history of museums and textbooks and tales your parents tell. The hope of this collection of essays and criticism is that our perception of that day, along with its awful consequences, will only become clearer with distance.

[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cksyzg0ms001k3h6iv77xd2zm@published"] em{font:32px/30px Egyptienne,Georgia,serif;font-style:normal} Planning for the Worst  After the attacks, we had a chance to build the downtown that New York deserves. Two decades later, timidity and fear have us hemmed in at every turn.

[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cksz194ek000r3h6in14jrymu@published"] em{font:32px/30px Egyptienne,Georgia,serif;font-style:normal} The 9/11 Museum and Its Discontents A new documentary goes inside the battles that have riven the institution.

[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cksyzxrps00113h6i8a8knxp9@published"] em{font:32px/30px Egyptienne,Georgia,serif;font-style:normal} America’s Greatest Existential Threat Wasn’t Terrorism Frank Rich on the continuing fallout after 9/11.

[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/ckt0jbazw001d3h6i5aflhtvt@published"] em{font:32px/30px Egyptienne,Georgia,serif;font-style:normal} Reparations for Iraq America’s engagements in Iraq can best be described as a multidecade colonization.

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[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/ckthtcnb300183g6eqcbb8u2w@published"] em{font:32px/30px Egyptienne,Georgia,serif;font-style:normal} Where the Meaning of Flight 93 Can Never End  The national memorial was built to allow multiple interpretations.

. From the Archives:

[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cktesy1e300133g6iiq4wcvsz@published"] em{font:32px/30px egyptienne,georgia,serif;font-style:normal} the encyclopedia of 9/11  on the 10th anniversary, we found ourselves asking: with all we now know, how to begin to address the enormity of the event.

• paywall exclude
• 9/11: 20 years later
• september 11
• new york city

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Hard lessons from 9/11

Christina Pazzanese

Harvard Staff Writer

Professors detail how it reshaped homeland security, foreign policy, study and treatment of PTSD, and crisis planning and management

Beyond their vast and terrible human toll, the 9/11 terrorist attacks changed and continue to influence life in America in myriad ways. Harvard professors detail how the tragedy reshaped U.S. homeland security and foreign policy, changed the study and treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), led to a nationwide overhaul of crisis planning and management, and prompted substantial new regulatory changes in rules for building and fire safety.

Homeland Security and Foreign Policy

Is America safer from attack by Islamic terrorists than it was 20 years ago or was the war on terror a failure?

Many people are asking those questions now, after the recent messy withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan and the return to power there of the Taliban. The decision to leave the country ended a costly 20-year war — increasingly unpopular in the U.S. — that was launched in retaliation for the 9/11 attacks by al-Qaida, which had found safe harbor in the south Asian nation.

“The Taliban flag will be waving in Afghanistan on Sept. 11. That is your split screen. There’s just no question about it,” said Juliette Kayyem ’91, J.D. ’95, Belfer senior lecturer in international security at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS).

“But I think it’s much more complicated and unfair to our efforts” to conclude that because the Taliban was not defeated, the U.S. wasted $2.2 trillion and thousands of lives in Afghanistan. “It’s not nothing, and it’s not luck that there was no similar size 9/11 attack in the U.S. for 20 years,” she said.

Without a military presence in Afghanistan, there will be a “detrimental impact” on future U.S. counterterrorism efforts, but “we’re not back to Sept. 10,” said Kayyem.

The counterterrorism capacity and capabilities of the U.S. and our Western allies have improved over the past two decades, especially in surveillance, droning, and information sharing, and U.S. homeland security is far more robust, said Kayyem, a former assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security in the Obama administration.

But concerns remain. The withdrawal will be viewed in parts of the Arab world as a Taliban victory over the U.S. and undoubtedly help terrorist recruitment. It will also provide political fodder for critics of U.S. hegemony and interventionism. In addition, some Afghan refugees who have difficulty transitioning in their new countries could prove susceptible to radicalization, Kayyem said.

Though the Taliban controls more territory today than it did on 9/11, the early U.S. counterterrorism efforts were “broadly successful” in weakening al-Qaida and the Taliban and preventing terrorist attacks, said Fredrik Logevall , Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs at HKS and a professor of history on Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

However, the Bush administration’s pivot to Iraq in 2003 set the mission adrift, and the failed effort to establish a democratic Afghan government after Osama bin Laden’s death [in 2011] deeply undermined that early success, said Logevall.

“The historian in me wants to say that it’s too soon to know if the war on terror was a failure,” he said. “But given the expenditures involved, [which were] massive, given the costs — in all respects of the term ‘cost’— of the interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, both with respect to conditions in those countries, but also in the region, I think the picture is a pretty grim one.”

Other costs are lost time and opportunity.

“Waging that counterterrorism has diverted attention from the complex challenges posed, for example, by a rising China, by Russia, by a nuclear North Korea,” said Logevall.

A U.S. foreign policy retrenchment could be on the horizon, given the strong public support for the decision to end the war, he said, along with the fierce criticism of the Biden administration’s execution of the withdrawal.

“It’s clear that Joe Biden has, for a long time, been skeptical about using American military power to turn this or that country into a democracy, and he’s a skeptic about nation-building. So, I think we probably won’t see a lot of effort in that direction,” he said.

But the blowback could also provoke Biden to become more assertive in projecting American military power, said Logevall.

“There’s a nontrivial chance that the administration will want to show, ‘Hey, we’re still in the game, and we’re still the force to be reckoned with.’”

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Unlike many disasters, 9/11 was a uniquely communal event: It occurred on live television, targeted symbols of American business and government everyone recognized, and claimed victims engaged in everyday activities, like going to work or taking an airline flight.

“I think 9/11 was a collective trauma for the nation,” said Richard F. Mollica , professor of psychiatry and founding director of the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma (HPRT), which conducts training and scientific research and provides mental health services to people in conflict areas and who have experienced natural disasters. “We all realized, as a nation, our vulnerability to these terroristic life events.

Before 9/11, public understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was limited, and trauma was still an emerging field of study.

“In those early days, people only thought of trauma around war veterans” said Karestan Koenen , a professor of psychiatric epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who studies PTSD. “I think the 9/11 terrorist attacks really brought home that trauma could happen to anyone, that it can happen and not be your fault.”

The attacks sparked “a revolution” in the field’s thinking about self-care for trauma victims as well as for those who treat them. “In 2001, no one was talking about burnout; no one was talking about self-care; no one was talking about resiliency,” said Mollica.

Sept. 11 showed that some treatments for trauma victims did more harm than good. One treatment that was untested but thought to be therapeutic was “critical incident stress debriefing,” in which people were asked to talk about their experiences, often in minute detail.

“They were activating in people high emotional arousal, and all the research that was done following that showed it actually generated post-traumatic stress disorder and depression and made people sick,” said Mollica. The Harvard Program on Refugee Trauma first developed the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire , a well-known mental health assessment tool, back in the 1980s. “And so, one of the big outcomes of 9/11 was that debriefing was thrown out as part of the psychological first aid.”

“It really brought home the importance of studying [which] treatments are effective and why research on treatment is really important,” said Koenen.

In fact, New Yorkers were far more resilient than many experts had predicted. Traumatologists were surprised to see that what appeared to be elevated rates of PTSD dropped dramatically not long after 9/11, suggesting that they “mistook ordinary stress reactions (e.g., insomnia, anger, intrusive images) as the psychiatric illness of PTSD,” said Richard McNally , a psychology professor who studies anxiety and panic-related disorders.

That misreading underscored the need for the field to focus more on early intervention and prevention in order to be able to answer such key questions as whether we can predict who is most likely to get PTSD, identify those individuals early on, and prevent its onset.

After 9/11, many more were drawn to the field, and the scientific community began to pay closer attention to the disorder. As part of the genomic revolution, the study of the genetics of PTSD and the role that genetic factors play in shaping the response to trauma grew dramatically, said Koenen, who works in this area.

“Before 9/11, a lot of people still dismissed PTSD as a real thing. And 9/11 made it into something more legitimate to study,” said Koenen, who said she had been discouraged from working on trauma as a postdoc in 2001. Sept. 11 spurred more biologically-based research, and there was a huge growth in imaging, brain-related research, and biomarkers, in part because of significant new government investment in 9/11-related scientific research.

Koenen said the work done in the aftermath of 9/11 demonstrated to the public the links between disasters and mental health, paving the way to quicker response to mental health concerns during the pandemic, with increased research and public health outreach, broader public awareness, and acceptance of treatment options as a critical need.

“It’s clear that mental health was top of mind very early, and I’m not sure without 9/11 whether that would have been true,” she said.

Preparation for Crisis Response

  On 9/11 Joseph Pfeifer was a 20-year veteran of the New York City Fire Department, a battalion chief in charge of four firehouses in lower Manhattan, including one across from the World Trade Center. He was out on a call just blocks away when he saw the first plane hit the north tower. As the first chief on the scene, he radioed for a second, then a third alarm, and ordered the first wave of firefighters to begin evacuating the building.

“I knew I was responding to the largest and the most dangerous fire of my life,” he said.

First responders had years of training and experience. Pfeifer , now a senior fellow with the Program on Crisis Leadership at HKS , said that in hindsight there were critical gaps in their preparation as well as in the communication and collaboration between agencies. Police and fire units set up operations blocks apart, adding to the technical difficulties of radio communications. There was limited video and data and uneven information sharing, all of which complicated decision-making.

“I would have loved to have seen 10 seconds of [news] video of the south tower collapsing. I had no idea that building fell down. And yet, I ordered our firefighters to evacuate the north tower,” said Pfeifer, who details in a new memoir how his brother, also a firefighter, perished while rescuing people trapped inside the north tower. “I would have done it more urgently if I knew the whole building [had] collapsed.”

After-action analyses confirmed that closer coordination between responding agencies, between federal, state, and local governments, and more comprehensive preparation and training were needed.

Arnold Howitt , founding faculty co-director of the Program on Crisis Leadership, said Sept. 11 (and later, Hurricane Katrina) demonstrated that extreme emergencies could unfold much more quickly and at far greater scale than previously understood.

The federal government began investing heavily in research and training around crisis planning and management in order to do a better job preparing for and responding to more routine emergencies, like major snowstorms, and novel crises, like a terrorist attack. In 2004, FEMA introduced the National Incident Management System , a framework to assist governments, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector to deal with emergencies.

Looked at broadly, public safety and public health agencies are better prepared, have more thorough training, and greater ability to quickly adapt to changing circumstances and improvise where necessary than they did in 2001, said Howitt.

Communication with the public, now seen as critical to any effective emergency response, has advanced. And the principles and value of collaboration up and down all levels of government, between political leaders and their agency professionals, and across disciplines are far better appreciated nationally than 20 years ago, he said.

“Very, very rarely do these large events fit into the skill sets and the responsibilities of a single agency,” Howitt said. “Building those kinds of cooperative relationships has definitely improved significantly in the years since, but it’s also still unevenly implemented.”

Federal agencies, however, are limited in what they can do on their own. States and local municipalities retain significant authority and control over what actions can be taken and by whom. Even private businesses sometimes have a say, for example, when hospitals or medical professionals are involved.

That makes it harder for the federal government to act quickly in a unified and cohesive way and leads to highly varied crisis responses around the country, limitations that became evident throughout the COVID response, said Howitt.

Structural Engineering and Fire Safety

More like this.

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New York minute

The sudden destruction of the twin towers, whose design had been hailed as innovative in the late 1960s, raised serious questions about the soundness of the World Trade Center’s construction and fire safety.

“Structural engineers like myself were shocked,” that such iconic structures had been attacked and then had to watch as they burned and collapsed, said Hanif Kara , professor in practice of architectural technology at Harvard Graduate School of Design .

“There’s a consensus among structural engineers that the inherent strength and robustness of each tower’s structure prevented an immediate collapse,” said Kara. Since then, much work has been done to understand what caused the collapse, and among the complex findings, “there is little doubt that fire-protection was a major failing.”

Though 9/11 did very little to dampen enthusiasm for super-tall skyscrapers — at least 40 buildings around the world now surpass the 1,368-foot height of the doomed World Trade Center — it did prompt important changes to the way they are built.

In 2005, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) issued 30 recommendations for revisions to building fire codes, standards, and practices. More active approaches to fire-safety during construction are now common. Building frames must now include fire protection and engineers can use computational analysis to model what could happen structurally in a fire rather than relying on defensive fire protections.

How people exit high-rise buildings in an emergency has also changed since 9/11.

“As a consequence of the twin towers’ occupants being trapped within the stairways, which were only [44 or 56 inches] wide, today’s stairs in the replacement WTC towers are 50 percent wider. Additional stairs, purely for urgently exiting, are now considered essential. And, most importantly, [elevators] that operate on backup power are also now a core component of evacuation strategy,” said Kara.

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Lesson Plan

Sept. 3, 2024, 11:45 a.m.

Lesson plan: 9/11 — Ways to reflect on the day’s legacy

The original lesson appeared Sept. 11, 2021, and was updated Sept. 3, 2024.

Introduction

September 11th will remain a day that shaped the course of the nation’s — and the world’s — history. Students in high school and middle school who were not yet born on September 11, 2001, have still grown up in a cultural and political environment that owes much to the actions of the United States in response to 9/11.

The purpose of this lesson is to invite participants to generate and share their own questions about both the day of 9/11 and the larger context of the response that followed, including the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan that is just now ending after two decades.

You can see more stories from the NewsHour examining how this recent history has shaped the nation and the world. These NewsHour pieces will become optional components of the lesson.

Click here for a series of slides that can supplement this lesson (note: you will be prompted to make a copy).For a Google version of this lesson click here .

Social Studies, English Language Arts

Grade levels

• Understand the history and impact of the 9/11 attacks
• Construct critical questions around the anniversary of 9/11 and its present-day context
• Evaluate & reflect on personal understanding of 9/11 through critical questions

Estimated time

One 60-minute class period (or 2-3 class periods more if using optional resources & extensions)

Supplemental links

Supplemental slides

A note on teaching hard history:

Most educators can recall exactly where they were and what they were doing when 9/11 unfolded. Today’s generation of students does not share this collective memory, with today’s high school seniors being born a few years after 2001.

Teaching 9/11 on its anniversary has its merits, as does teaching 9/11 within the curricular context of American and global history. We encourage educators to explore the wealth of resources provided in this lesson plan, to examine their own unanswered questions and biases, and to reflect on pedagogical practice before bringing in traumatic and provocative images of 9/11. Check out “Trauma-Informed Teaching Strategies” and consider how you might design lessons that engage with hard history with a trauma-informed lens. Read Learning for Justice's article “Debunking Stereotypes About Muslims and Islam” and incorporate media literacy education as you confront misinformation. In addition, consider doing the following:

• Preview your expectations or reminding your class about norms
• Name clearly the topics; create time for participants to reflect and process
• Teach with a trauma-informed lens
• Consider the emotional response of your participants and yourself

Warm up activities (5-10 mins):

Note for instructors: Whether you’re teaching about 9/11 on the anniversary of the attacks or as a part of your broader curriculum, starting with the questions participants have can set up an anchor and circular flow (returning to those questions to close out or build upon them in the end). Remind participants to be and stay curious and to practice the skill of writing and developing strong questions.

• Generate: Participants write as many questions as they can about the September 11 attacks — without stopping to revise, edit, evaluate or answer their questions.
• Reflect: Then, participants circle or mark their three most important questions — and briefly reflect on why they selected these three.
• Turn & Talk: Participants turn and share their three questions, noting what may overlap or be different, and have partners share out questions to gauge what participants are curious about. This is also an opportunity to note any misinformation or incorrect assumptions participants may have to clarify & revisit. Read “Debunking Stereotypes About Muslims and Islam” by Learning for Justice to learn more.

Main activities (30-45 mins)

Directions: Choose one or more activity best suited to your class based on the many factors your role as a teacher requires you to know.

• Watch the 9/11 Memorial Museum’s short film (3 minutes): This video outlines the events on the morning of 9/11. As participants listen, instruct them to watch for any answers to the questions they just constructed. CONTENT WARNING : This video contains images of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon after they are hit.
• Optional: Take a detour into a robust timeline of the 9/11 attacks using this interactive guide at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum and pair it with this “Historical Timeline of Afghanistan” from PBS NewsHour . Focus on context-building, asking participants to investigate questions, connections and narratives they see represented.
• Clarify and reflect (5-10 mins): Turning to talk with their partners again (or return to their notebook to write), what did participants notice about the short clip or (timelines) that answered some of their questions?
• Together with their partner, what new questions can they create? Note: If a participant replies with “I don’t have any questions,” encourage them to practice the skill of questioning and examining what they think, why they think it and what they wonder. Encourage curiosity.
• Share this infographic with participants. After reviewing, ask participants: What surprises them? Does anything connect to the questions they crafted?

via slideshow -- see link at top of lesson

via slideshow — see link at top of lesson

• Ask participants: What stories do these numbers tell? What stories don’t these numbers tell? (Can invite participants to update their list of questions here, pushing into open-ended questions vs. closed questions.)
• Watch The 9/11 Memorial & Museum has a trailer (3 minutes) for one of their programs featuring some personal connections individuals have to 9/11.
• What did you notice, what surprised you, or what do you now wonder after hearing from some individuals who have a personal connection to that day?
• Now that you’ve reviewed or learned some of the historical context of 9/11, what do you know or wonder about the legacy of 9/11? What impact has the 9/11 terrorist attacks had on the United States? Other countries? Ordinary and everyday people in the United States?
• Turn & talk: Have participants share some of their ideas, questions and reflections with their partner.
• Whole group: Invite participants to share any ideas, encourage questions and discuss together.

Part 3 (Choose one or more of the following activities)

Each night this week, PBS NewsHour features stories that examine some of the ways 9/11 transformed the nation and world. Choose one or more of the following available stories to discuss.

A. Watch “American Muslims remember how 9/11 changed America as they knew it” (from 2021 - 10 minutes)

B. Watch “How 9/11 weighs heavily on the generation born after the 9/11 attacks” (3 minutes)

C. Watch “Middletown lost the most residents on 9/11 after NYC. Here’s how the community is healing” (10 minutes)

D. Watch “The direct line between national unity after 9/11 and partisan polarization in 2021” (10 minutes)

Discussion questions : In small groups or as a whole class, discuss the following questions:

Closing (10-15 mins)

Circle back to warm up questions for clarifying and answering the unanswered questions. (Could be collected as an exit ticket or final turn and talk.)

• Look back over the questions you created at the start of class.
• What’s one question that has been answered today?
• What’s a new question you have or are thinking about? What’s left unanswered for you? What are you wondering about?
• What’s the impact of 9/11 on your generation? What do you predict will be the legacy of 9/11 for future generations?

Extension activities

Extension 1, Poetry Focus: Days before 9/11, poet Lucille Clifton welcomed a granddaughter into the world and remembers eating lunch on the day itself as she “watched on television the devastation of the Twin Towers.” In her poem “September’s Song: A Poem in Seven Days,” she examines “love and continuing and fear and hope.”

Share this excerpt of Tuesday and Sunday from the longer poem with students , reading aloud together or ask participants to annotate a copy of the poem (or digitally with a partner using this Google Doc). [Note: September 11, 2001, was a Tuesday]

Write in response:

• Ask participants to write their own day poem connecting to the themes of hope and fear, of love and continuing, mimicking some of Clifton’s style.
• Do not require participants to write specifically about 9/11. Instead leave the invitation open for them to write about what they choose.
• Or invite participants to identify vivid imagery, metaphors or symbols in the poem.
• Compare Clifton’s poem with excerpts from “ With Their Eyes: September 11th — The View From A High School at Ground Zero. ” What word choice evokes an emotional response in the reader? How does the physical structure of the poems impact the way it is read aloud? As writers, what writing moves might participants employ in their own writing?

Extension 2 : In 2021, more than 123,000 Afghan refugees, many fearing for their lives, were evacuated from Afghanistan and were resettled all over the world, including the United States. Thousands of Afghans did not make it out of the country before the U.S. military's departure on Aug. 30. Explore who, what, when, where and how of the refugees arriving in the U.S., and what local community organizations are still working to provide assistance. Read this NewsHour article for more information.

• Inquire: What do trustworthy and credible charities and organizations look like?
• Explore: What is being done locally in your area or state?
• Understand: What don’t you know? What questions do you have?
• Apply: How could your class, school, or community support and welcome refugees?
• What are the latest updates as to the Afghan refugees welfare and status in the U.S. and around the world?

U.S. Air Force loadmasters and pilots assigned to the 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron, load passengers aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III in support of the Afghanistan evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 24, 2021. Picture taken August 24, 2021. U.S. Air Force/Master Sgt. Donald R. Allen/Handout via REUTERS

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.2: Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.7: Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well as in words) in order to address a question or solve a problem.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.9: Compare and contrast treatments of the same topic in several primary and secondary sources.

Kate Stevens, M.S. in Curriculum & Instruction, is an instructional coach and educator with more than a decade of experience in online, hybrid, and blended learning. In 2015, Kate was honored with Colorado Department of Education’s Online & Blended Teacher of the Year. Connect with Kate on Twitter @KateTeaching.

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The legacy of 9/11: reflections on a global tragedy.

(Illustration by Michael S. Helfenbein)

Twenty years after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the tragic consequences of that day continue to resonate across the world. On this somber anniversary, members of the Yale faculty reflect on the painful and complicated legacy of 9/11 and how the trauma of the event, which for a time created unity in the United States, has in the decades since led to a more divided nation and dangerous world.

Trauma, solidarity, and division

By Jeffrey Alexander Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of Sociology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Societies shift between experiences of division and moments of solidarity. It is collective trauma that often triggers such shifts.

When Osama Bin Laden organized acts of horrific mass murder against civilians on September 11, 2001, he declared that “the values of this Western civilization under the leadership of America have been destroyed” because “those awesome symbolic towers that speak of liberty, human rights, and humanity have… gone up in smoke.” What happened, instead, was that Americans recast the fearful destruction as an ennobling narrative that revealed not weakness, but the strength of the nation’s democratic core.

Before 9/11, American had been experiencing a moment of severe political and cultural division. In its immediate aftermath, the national community was united by feeling, marked by the loving kindness displayed among persons who once had been friends, and by the civility and solicitude among those who once had been strangers …

Read more from Jeffrey Alexander

No clean break

By Joanne Meyerowitz Arthur Unobskey Professor of History and professor of American studies, Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, historians pointed to precedents: the surprise bombing of Pearl Harbor, say, and terrorist attacks — domestic and foreign — that had targeted civilians. They soon moved on to warnings against unnecessary and prolonged wars, with frequent reference to Vietnam, and to placing the security state within the long history of domestic surveillance, racial profiling, and violations of civil liberties. The common thread was that Sept. 11 did not represent a clean break with the past. It was not “one of those moments,” as The New York Times had claimed, “in which history splits” in two …

Read more from Joanne Meyerowitz

An embrace of profiling

By Zareena Grewal Associate professor American studies; ethnicity, race, and migration; and religious studies, Faculty of Arts and Sciences

In 2001, the New York City Police Department established a secret surveillance program that mapped and monitored American Muslims’ lives throughout New York City, and in neighboring states, including Connecticut. In 2011, journalists leaked internal NYPD documents which led to an outcry from public officials, activists, and American Muslim leaders who protested that such racial and religious profiling was not only an example of ineffective policing and wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars, but it collectively criminalized American Muslims. The leaked documents revealed that Yale’s Muslim Students Association was among the campus chapters targeted …

Read more from Zareena Grewal

A new outlet

By Paul Bracken Professor emeritus of management and political science, Yale School of Management

Following the Cold War, the U.S. foreign policy establishment was spoiling for another fight to overthrow tyranny. Yet there was no domestic support for such a war. Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait led to the first Gulf War. But the failure to end his regime left a good part of the establishment with a sense of unfulfilled destiny. These were the trends underway before 9/11. But there was no outlet to give them voice.

By linking a war on terror with a projection of our idea of democracy onto the Middle East, the attack on 9/11 provided that outlet …

Read more from Paul Bracken

A war game, gone terribly wrong

By Kishwar Rizvi Professor in the history of art, Faculty of Arts and Sciences

September 11, 2001, is a Tuesday. At 8:46 a.m. and 9:03 a.m., two hijacked planes fly into the towers of the World Trade Center. Six hours later, I give my first class of the year, in Street Hall. It is unclear how the afternoon will unfold, but as the class gathers, we find comfort in each other’s presence.

The unconditional empathy and bravery shown by my students that day 20 years ago is something I carry with me. It is a necessary requirement for studying and teaching about Islam today. Art and architecture, framed through social and political discourse, serve as important conduits for understanding the history and culture of the West and South Asia — the epicenter of the “War on Terror” launched soon after 9/11. I find clarity in the work of Shahzia Sikander and Lida Abdul, women artists from the region …

Read more from Kishwar Rizvi

For millions of refugees, the crisis continues

By Marcia C. Inhorn William K. Lanman, Jr. Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs; chair, Council on Middle East Studies

September 11 was a devastating event for the United States, causing the senseless deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans and the injury of more than 6,000 others. September 11 was also a tragedy for the Middle East, as the U.S. responded by initiating two wars, one in Afghanistan in 2001 and one in Iraq in 2003. These long-term and costly wars in the Middle Eastern region have killed thousands of innocent civilians and displaced millions of people.

Of the 26 million refugees and 80 million forcibly displaced people in the world today, the majority are from the Middle East, especially Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Indeed, we are now in the midst of an Afghan refugee crisis, the magnitude of which is yet to unfold …

Read more from Marcia C. Inhorn

The loss of history

By Eckart Frahm Professor of Near Eastern languages & civilizations, Faculty of Arts and Sciences

The events of 9/11 have led to actions on the part of the U.S. that have thoroughly transformed the Middle East. Unfortunately, despite an enormous investment of lives and money, the region remains deeply troubled. The world’s attention has been focused, for good reasons, on the political and humanitarian catastrophes that have befallen it. But for someone like me who is studying the civilizations of the ancient Near East, a particularly devastating aspect of the crisis has been its disastrous effect on the region’s cultural heritage …

Read more from Eckart Frahm

Tragedy for the world

By Samuel Moyn Henry R. Luce Professor of Jurisprudence and professor of history, Yale Law School

September 11 was a tragedy for America, but it prompted an American response that has been a tragedy for the world. After two decades of war, every place American force has touched has been made worse, with the risk of terrorism often exacerbated, and at the price of millions of lives and trillions of dollars.

More than this, even though Joe Biden has followed his two predecessors in withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, the authorities the American president has arrogated over two decades to send force abroad have not been reined in. Nor does the war on terror — as distinct from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that started it — seem likely to end in the foreseeable future …

Read more from Samuel Moyn

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The learning network | teaching 9/11 | ideas and projects from teachers.

Teaching 9/11 | Ideas and Projects From Teachers

Sept. 8, 2011 | Updated

Since this post first went up, more teachers have written – and, the case of a former colleague, called – in to share more ideas. They have been added below. We will add more again soon. Please feel free to share more ideas and thoughts.

As teachers are making plans for the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, many are concerned about how to make it meaningful because, they note, today’s K-12 and college students very likely have only dim memories, if that, of the events of that day.

But today’s students did not experience other crucibles in our nation’s and world’s history: slavery, the Holocaust, the Vietnam War. Teachers have always found ways to use engage students in events and difficult issues like these — with the historical record, with representations in literature, film and the arts and with writing and creative projects — to foster their growth into informed, thinking global citizens.

And if you are still feeling reluctant, consider the comment from a student named Rachel on a guest post about why 9/11 should be taught:

I am a student, and to be honest I really thought history was boring because all of the dates you had to remember for tests. But now by reading this Learning Network article I started to think about how you really need to deeply understand the history of something. And by understanding it you will realize that it is essential to human life. I think 9/11 should be taught in schools across the world, and we shouldn’t neglect it, we should understand and remember the event.

In July, we put a call out to teachers , asking them to share teaching approaches that help students forge personal and intellectual connections to 9/11.

Here are the suggestions they shared. (Please note that they have been lightly copy edited and links have been added. Some organizations posted curriculum collections and resources, too, and we’ll include those in a resource collection on Friday.) They are grouped into four categories: Interdisciplinary Ideas, Ideas Using Writing, Literature, Theater and Fine Arts, Ideas Using History and Humanities and Ideas for Younger Students.

Thank you to all the teachers who shared their ideas, and to those who got the word out — especially the National Writing Project, who were extremely helpful in asking their members to contribute ideas.

We hope you will use The Learning Network as a community to keep the sharing going. Please post more suggestions and experiences . We will update this collection as more ideas come in. And thank you for making us part of your plans to teach about 9/11.

Interdisciplinary Ideas

As students enter my classroom each year, I have a list of names of those who died up on the screen. It’s in four columns in alpha order, and the font is tiny. I start by pointing out that only A-D is shown, and that makes an early impact about the sheer number of lives lost.

Then, to introduce the literary elements of mood and tone, I show three very different newspaper front pages from 9/12, including The New York Times . I have them vote on which they would select, and we have a lively discussion about why–the headlines, the image(s) used, which seem more credible, how some seem less credible but better communicate the rage that readers may feel, etc.

To further illustrate the theme of mood/tone in the literature of 9/11, we read Dan Barry’s article “For One 9/11 Family, Five Waves of Grief.” Last year, I had them answer a few written questions after reading, then we shared responses as a group. Some questions were about Barry’s writing style and techniques; others are more personal. (For example, the Petrocellis received calls about parts of their son being found, and I explain that many families received similar calls about wallets and other personal items being recovered. Students write about whether they feel such a find would be a blessing after losing a loved one, or whether they’d rather have closure without the call.)

We’re in Oregon, so my students don’t know people personally affected by 9/11, but there are always some tears as the discussion connects them to their own losses. We don’t have a curriculum for 9/11–this is something I do because I feel it’s important. Each year, I get thanks from kids who say that no one else mentioned 9/11 all day.

I blogged last year about how my lesson has changed as students increasingly don’t remember the day. You may read about it here . — Five Septembers

While I have not finalized my plans for a 9/11 curriculum, I have decided to use sections of “A Nation Challenged” and “Portraits of Grief” in my curriculum. In the immediate years following 9/11 as I attempted to cope with loss, “Portraits of Grief” provided some comfort. These glimpses into the lives of souls lost provided some peace and hope. They also put a face on an immeasurable tragedy. The students who will enter my classes in September will know about the tragedy of 9/11 at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Shanksville but they may not know the faces, the souls, lost in that tragedy. It is my hope to share “Portraits of Grief” with them and to acquaint them with those faces and use their portraits as a springboard for writing. — Joan Marie Bellotti, High Tech High School, North Bergen, N.J.

I had my high school students create 9/11 anniversary videos, by allowing them the creativity, to tell a story that was personal to them in some way. You may see their videos here . — Don Goble

Last year I began to incorporate a service project along with my writing prompt I’ve used to discuss 9/11 with my high school English classes. Many of these kids do not remember the events or the aftermath of the attack. The discussions and service project coordinates with a year-long “tolerance” theme. I have a downloadable lesson for teachers (free) and also will incorporate parts of Scholastic’s lesson . — Tracee Orman

I am the principal of Seton Catholic Central High School in Binghamton, NY. We plan on remembering and teaching about 9/11. On Sept. 9, the school’s opening Mass for the school year will be in memory of the victims of 9/11. We have invited Binghamton firefighters, who assisted in recovery efforts, to speak about their impressions and experiences at Ground Zero. We have also invited veterans of the Iraq and Afganistan wars, who have connections with the school, to discuss their roles in these conflicts. Our theology classes will focus on an interfaith discussion of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Our students have grown up with the consequences of 9/11. To have an understanding of the profound issues facing the nation and the globe today they must be familiar with the events of 9/11. The 10th anniversary of 9/11 is a critical teaching moment. — Richard Bucci

An extremely powerful and educational way to learn about 9-11 is through an organization like September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows . They are family members of 9/11 victims who have figure out how to turn their grief into steps towards peace, justice, and reconciliation. This organization recently collaborated with an educational magazine, The Change Agent ( free online ) to produce materials for the classroom. Through storytelling, reflective essays, poems, and background facts, students can use The Change Agent to learn about the history of 9/11, wrestle with important legal and moral questions related to security and liberty, and examine the “rule of law” in the context of terrorism. — Cynthia Peters

A student of mine put together a 9/11 tribute video on YouTube that other students, teachers & parents might be interested in viewing as we remember the tragic events of ten years ago: “United We Will Stand: a Tribute to the Fallen of September 11th, 2001.″ — Brett Malas

As a seventh grade science teacher I wanted to look at this tragedy from a different point of view. I created a power point first explaining the meaning of the day and what exactly happened, but then I continue with a more scientific explanation. With pictures and diagrams I plan to discuss what caused the towers to collapse and the structural significance. We will look at the history of the towers, how they were built and how eventually they were brought down, therefore allowing for an emotional and educational impact. I plan to share my power point with my entire department. — Susan Russo

This is the second year of a blogging community among four schools, and soon to be two international schools. We collaborated and decided to do something as a community to commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11. We are compiling a message of hope, peace and remembrance written by our students. From their written words we are adding their voice and a visual element to connect all of the schools together for a final product.

Most of our students were so young when this happened, we want to impress upon them the changes in society, on many levels, that have been triggered by the events of 9/11. Showing relevance to their daily lives and passions will help them understand the impact caused by the tragic events.

We collaborated using Twitter, Google Docs, and Skype. I will share a link after the final project is done. We plan to share this with the schools as well as the world. — Shaelynn Farnsworth, Erin Olson, Shawn Hyer, Bev Berns, Todd Vogts

Ideas Using Writing, Literature, Theater and Fine Arts

I use my own blog post from the day (or pre-blog, I guess) as we were in our fourth day of school at one of the two high schools located directly south of the South Tower. I also had my students write immediately after the first plane hit . I had them type their pieces up and have those texts uploaded on my site as well.

Between the two, you have some pretty immediate writing you can utilize in your classroom. I am happy to provide you and any other teachers who could use them with URLs to the blogs, photos, and student reactions. — Heather Ordover

I’m a mom and work in a homeschool group of kids ranging in age from 7-15. We did a research writing unit and kids could choose between two topics, one of which was 9/11. The students who chose this had to complete factual research and then write a first person narrative story including the facts. The stories were extremely creative. One child put together a power point presentation with wonderful images that explored the feelings of her character in relation to different things that happened on that day. One person wrote a story about being twins that were born on 9/11 and traveled back in time to observe the experience. These twins had some super powers and were able to change the pattern of history. One student put together an ABC book with a variety of facts and emotions related to the event. Each student presented his/her information to the class. We then debriefed about the emotional content. It’s been one of the best homeschool group experiences we’ve had. — Jennifer Rouyer

I will be planning a lesson that coordinates with the anniversary of 9/11. My intended focus will be on designing a monument. I teach sculpture and Art 3D.

I hope to teach students about some of our country’s great national monuments through a slide show and question/answer session. Students will learn where the monuments are located, their purpose/meaning, and be asked to share if they have visited the monuments or have any other prior knowledge about them. Next a discussion will be had based on the prompt question, “What do you think the artist was thinking when they designed the monument?” I hope to have some peer discussion and then greater group discussion as well. After discussing design and purpose of the national monuments, we will start planning to build a 3D sculpture of a monument by starting with some free sketching to work out some ideas. After students have settled on design concepts, they will build their monuments (most likely in small groups of two-four). The materials used will vary from sculpting clay to cardboard to wire. I expect this lesson to take one-two weeks of class time, in 45-minute class periods. — Christine Todd

I teach 8th and 11th grade English students in Southwest Virginia. I’ve been teaching for four years. I admit that each year my 9/11 focus changes as a result of my annual tweaking but, I really like how last year’s 9/11 remembrance worked out. For the sake of space I will focus on my 11th grade students.

Each year in September, my 11th-grade students and I find ourselves in an American Literature introductory unit which includes our oral tradition. A few days before 9/11, I give my students a homework assignment to discuss with at least two people what they remember about 9/11. One has to be a family member and 1 other person (could be a friend or someone they know that is old enough to remember 9/11 or another family member).

The students are to take good notes and be prepared to share them on 9/11. Meanwhile in class we are still discussing the strengths of the oral tradition in handing down what the culture’s most important messages are for the next generation. We also discuss how often young people are the audience of these cultural stories so figurative language is used to help them visualize the messages the elders are trying to pass down.

During the week I will also be reading quotes from my own 9/11 family interviews to give my students an idea of the kind of notes I want them to be taking.

On 9/11 I will begin class by showing students one of the many 9/11 memorial videos on YouTube (after previewing them the night before) and then we spend just a couple of minutes discussing what the main message of the video was or the main focus; then we break into groups.

Student share their interviews with their group members. They are to take notes on what stands out as the main memory or main feeling or main message they get from all of the interviews they have heard and discussed. They decide as a group which message they think is the most important to pass down to the next generation.

The next day students get back into their groups and create a story map of a story they could tell in an oral tradition style that would teach one powerful message about 9/11 to the next generation. I suggest they use animals as characters to get away from any stereotyping that could occur in the making of the story and they should use figurative language. Each story needs a message or a moral but the story should stand on its own; no need to add “the moral of the story is…”

Last year we just stopped the lesson at the outline only and with the students sharing their ideas with classmates. I think this year I would like my students to finish their stories and create podcasts that my 8th grade class can then listen to and try to decide what the main messages of each of the stories are. Maybe I will have my juniors create voice threads so the 8th graders can easily comment on them and then they can go back and review.

I really look forward to the results this year. — Alicia Johnson

My students in AP English Language and Composition read Jonathan Safran Foer’s wonderful book “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.” Our focus in this unit is postmodernism and postmodernist literature, and our standard is reading and writing in a specific genre. We watch clips from “The Man Who Walked Between the Towers” and “Falling Man.” We look at reader response theory and how memories of an event transcend the actual physical “being there” in a community. We also talk about style, pairing the novel with the essay “On Ground Zero.” My students have been the protagonist’s age or older for the past five years, so I’m interested to see how my future students will react to an event they were too young to remember personally. — Wendy Turner

I have been teaching high school literature for 30 years and last year I had a magical experience teaching Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” to about 90 regular junior students at the suburban high school where I teach outside of Cleveland, Ohio. The text is especially relevant because it is being made into a movie that will be released in December, starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock. Due to its unusual format, the novel challenges students to use their reading skills in unique ways because it uses a non-linear sequential story line and also includes photographs, illustrations, and experimental typography, as well as offbeat humor with puns and wordplay. My students loved the book and I plan on teaching it again this year. — Linda Lackey

I realized my sophomore students this year were only in kindergarten when 9/11 occurred. (I was a freshman in college.) I wanted to acknowledge the 10-year anniversary in some way, and I decided to use poetry from Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry Web site/column.

My students will read, annotate, and discuss Stuart Kestenbaum’s “Prayer for the Dead” and Tony Gloeggler’s “Five Years Later.” — Jason Stephenson

You and your readers may be interested in my recent Huffington Post story on Ten Books About 9/11 to Share With Kids & Teens . — Rocco Staino

In the aftermath of 9/11, I had my students write a letter to Osama bin Laden. I saved the letters to use as primary sources with my future students. On the first anniversary, I had my students write as essay about their memories of 9/11. I saved the essays, too. Every year I have done a lesson remembering. I show a DVD of the news coverage of the event. Then I bring out the bin Laden letters and the memory essays. The students love to read the accounts from the students who were their age at the time. For several years now the middle school age students do not remember 9/11. For some it is the first they even heard of it. — Annette Duffy

As an English teacher, I have included “The Names” as part of my curriculum during September. This poem, written by Billy Collins, the Poet Laureate at the time, was read at the memorials that year. It is a poem, that no matter how many times I read it, has new meaning and is more moving. I highly recommend that English teachers check it out if they aren’t familiar. I have students draw an image from the poem, or select a part to respond to. — Becky Riley

A former Stuyvesant High School colleague of mine called me to share a discussion he has with his A.P. English literature students about the Billy Collins poem “The Names.” Here is a very brief description of his approach, in my words, not his:

We discuss how “The Names” is an occasional poem and falls within classical traditions and poetic modes, delving into these elements and devices, among many others: the elegiac mode, the use of Homeric dactylic hexameter, the hero and heroic death that recalls book two of “The Iliad,” classical epithets, anaphora, monody and phrenody, juxtaposition of pastoral and urban, tribute to democracy, list-making and name-reading. – Walter Gern

Ideas Using History and Humanities

I am an adjunct professor of philosophy at a SUNY community college. I teach 3 sections of Introduction to Philosophy. Each year, on the anniversary of 9/11, I devote my 50 minute classes to an exploration of the event from the perspective of human nature. The text I use for this course unfolds the history of Western philosophy through the lens of various theories on human nature. I carry over the human nature theme to our 9/11 inquiry.

These are some of the questions we explore: What did 9/11 tell us about our origins, nature, and destiny? What did 9/11 tells us about the human qualities of good and evil, love and hate, strength and weakness, kindness and cruelty, aggression and passivity, generosity and greed, courage and cowardice? How did 9/11 depict us as part angel, part demon, part rational, part animal, capable of great glory and great tragedy? What did 9/11 “say” about who we are? — Katherine FitzGerald

I worked as an undergraduate teaching assistant, alongside my mentor professor, teaching a political science class at the college level called 9/11: A Historical Review. Basically, our approach was to put 9/11 into historical context, with an emphasis on U.S. foreign policy and unforeseen consequences in the world: the Middle East and Central Asia. We reviewed the CIA funding of Osama bin Laden and the jihad in the 1980’s, the Iraqi Tilt policy of Gulf War I and U.S. support for Saddam Hussein, the Iran Contra Affair and more. We framed our semester with a few key questions, some of them being: How have past US policies affected our lives and the world today? Do the ends justify the means?

We discussed the nature of U.S. foreign policy, pre-9/11 – largely done in secret, without public or congressional debate. Because this secrecy fits the definition of conspiracy, we logically entertained all theories about the events of 9/11, and any inconsistencies or questions on which the students chose to focus their attention and research.

We used all forms of media and literature (independent and mainstream) to discover the information our students desired: documentaries such as “9/11 Press For Truth” and “Zero: An Investigation into 9/11,” and required readings, “The Terror Timeline” by Paul Thompson, and the 9/11 Report: The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States . We discovered and discussed information from countless scholars, groups, sources and Web sites with volumes of information relating to 9/11, such as The Project for The New American Century , Dr. David Ray Griffin’s “The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions” and Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth .

We encouraged our students to be their own media by creating a YouTube video about any topic related to 9/11 as their final project. Most students focused their projects on the inconsistencies relating to 9/11, and many focused on the history – past U.S. foreign policies and what roles they might have played in the events of 9/11. Some students even conducted campus interviews, finding and showing an unfortunate abundance of common, often improperly, or not fully informed understandings of historic events. We taught this class three semesters in a row, and it was consistently the most popular and highly peer-recommended class within its particular program, which shows that even 10 years after the event, 9/11 continues to be a relevant and important scholarly topic. — Alissa

I taught social studies to grades 8-12, in a private school, for three years. One of the essential questions we looked at was, How was 9/11 exploited, for political purposes? Since the students were inundated with a textbook perspective that didn’t examine the erosion of civil liberties after 9/11, I sought to give the students a viewpoint that is more akin to Howard Zinn’s in “A People’s History of the United States.: We looked at how whistleblowers, 9/11 victims’ relatives, and other voices of dissent were marginalized. In post-9/11 Ameica, critical thinking about the government often was, and still is, characterized as denigrating the memories of those who died on that tragic day. 9/11 should not be used as a tool to indoctrinate students into blindly obeying the government. Fighting terrorism should never imply ignoring the Constitution. — Michael J. Berman

I was in eighth grade when the towers fell. I was in my classroom 19 blocks from the Twin Towers when the planes struck. I remember every detail of that day.

The school in which I was sitting at the time of the attack is a progressive K-8 school in Greenwich Village. Each year our homeroom curriculum focused on a particular subject and other disciplines found ways to incorporate that topic. In seventh grade my homeroom’s focus was the culture and belief system of Islam. I cannot express how grateful I am to have gained an un-biased perspective on Islamic tradition before the attacks. Because of my curriculum, even as a 13-year-old I was fully aware that this horrible event was perpetrated by a small, fanatical group of Muslims and that the community overall was peaceful and loving. I think that it is so important when teaching about 9/11 to emphasize that the people behind the attacks do no represent the Islamic community as a whole. Making an effort to do so is required to prevent prejudice from developing in young and impressionable minds. — Sarah Philips

In my eighth grade U.S. history class, we debate the merits of having a 9/11 national holiday through a 3-corner debate. We look at a few opposing views on why 9/11 should, or should not be addressed in classrooms and then I write the statement on the board, “9/11 should be deemed a national holiday by the U.S. Congress.” Students take a stand in one of three corners of the classroom 1) Strongly Agree 2) Somewhat Agree/Somewhat Disagree 3) Strongly Disagree. One student at a time from each group then has a chance to try to convince students from the other corners of the classroom to move to their corner. To conclude, we discuss who had the strongest argument and why. This is only a one-day, 50-minute lesson. It sparks great debate over the ways we really want to remember the 9/11 tragedy. — Jill DiCuffa

I drew a lot of comfort from re-reading the details of the Blitz of London, and realizing that if London recovered from months of nightly bombings, NYC and the US would recover from the events of that morning.

Students should always be taught how the people of NYC, Washington and the rest of the US resolved to move beyond the unimaginable, how the world banded together to support us, and how the heroes of that day and the ones that followed turned the story of 9/11 into one about the bravery and devotion to duty that our people can show. It will serve them well when drawing connections and relationships from 9/11 to unimaginable events that occur in their adulthood. — Mark Moran

Pam Moran and Ira Socol , who wrote the guest post Teaching 9/11 | Why? How? , also shared four project ideas with us. Here are descriptions of their projects (they are fleshed out on Mr. Socol’s blog, SpeEdChange ):

• Localizing history – Examining “big events” in the history of the community where your school is located, focusing on how the stories about those events are shared and how they have changed, commemorative gestures like memorials or plaques and groups that play a role in keeping the history of the event alive. In groups, students conduct interviews and visit local sites in addition to conducting research.
• Considering how history is created – Considering and investigating comparisons of other significant events to those of Sept. 11, 2001 by generating research questions related to how various groups in the United States remember those events differently and how those differences affect political and personal decisions. Groups of students then search for primary sources and images, including global news sources like The New York Times.
• Considering iconic absence – How does a place deal with the loss of a landmark? Why might it be important to many New Yorkers to have the ground zero site rebuilt with tall towers? What landmarks define where you live? Have any local landmarks been lost? Students search local history to find lost landmarks and photograph the locations where they once existed. How did locals feel when these landmarks were lost? Students can create QR codes to tag locations in their community, leading users to images of landmark views of the past or to interviews with those who remember the landmark, or to stories about the landmark.
• Reflecting on knowledge of history – What do American students know about U.S. and global history? What do students around the world know about their own country’s history and about world history? Does emphasizing certain historic events in curriculum affect how a nation behaves in the world? Students investigate various incidents and how it is taught and recalled.

– Pam Moran and Ira Socol

Ideas for Younger Students

I teach 7th and 8th grade English in a rural northwest Ohio school district. I use two picture books to teach about 9/11. Students fold a 8-1/2″ x 11″ piece of paper into fourths and we use both sides. I stop three times throughout the books and have students write to a prompt for each “box”: a connection, vocabulary word, a prediction, etc. and the fourth box is always a drawing. The two books I use are “The Man Who Walked Between the Towers” by Mordicai Gerstein and “Fireboat” by Maira Kalman . Our social studies teacher shows the junior high students a DVD she made of images from 9/11 set to music. — Erika Snyder

In the past I have asked my 8th grade students to interview a family member about their memories of where they were, and the impact the day had on them. The students then have the opportunity to share with the class if they choose. In addition, because it is the 10th anniversary, I plan to create a gallery of images posted on big paper where students may silently post, in writing, their responses to each image. — Karen Dorr

My students were not yet born in 2001, and many of them have never been to New York, or even the United States. Most have very little background knowledge about 9/11.

Every year on Sept. 11th, I read “The Man Who Walked Between the Towers,” by Mordicai Gernstein, to my students. I’ve read this book to students from first grade to fifth grade. They are drawn in by the true story of Philippe Petit, and the book is a powerful vehicle for introducing this topic. The book leads naturally to generating questions and discussion. I highly recommend it for elementary classrooms. — Greg Feezell

My fourth graders and I are interviewing the adults in our building to ask them this question: “How has your faith been strengthened or your relationship with God changed?” I teach at a Catholic school and we are focusing on the good that came out of 9/11.

After the interviews, each student will create or locate an image to accompany the words. We will then put the voice and image to music as a multimedia presentation to share with our school and our parent community. — Renee Streicher

I haven’t yet decided how I will address this because I have to have a sense of my new students first — as this is history to them I need to know if they have personal connections or if it is remote to them. Being a New Yorker it is a difficult anniversary for me, but not necessarily for them and I want to keep that in mind as I consider what they need not what I need.

I am considering reading aloud and discussing a new picture book, “America Is Under Attack: September 11, 2001: The Day the Towers Fell” by Don Brown, which will publish on Aug. 16. — Monica Edinger

Carmen Agra Deedy’s picture book “14 Cows for America” tells the true story of an African medical student, his Masai village and the generous gift they wish to present to America after 9/11. It’s a great jumping off point! — Susan Robie

We have taught about 9/11 in our elementary school, with age-appropriate material since it occurred. we not only have a word of silence, read stories,sing songs, write poems, draw pictures, express feelings, but we have established a 9/11 Memorial Perennial Garden that the students work in and have lessons in. This year in commemoration of the 10th anniversary, we will be holding a special assembly, where the students will express their feelings in song, poems,etc and will rededicate our garden. The garden serves a twofold purpose: to never forget those lost on that day while serving as promise for the future to strive for peace. Every school throughout the nation should have 9/11 curriculum in place. I am currently on a quest to write curriculum particularly for the elementary school age child. This should never be forgotten and is a piece of history every child in America should know about. — Susan

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The school in which I was sitting at the time of the attack is a progressive K-8 school in Greenwich Village. Each year our homeroom curriculum focused on a particular subject and other disciplines found ways to incorporate that topic. In seventh grade my homeroom’s focus was the culture and belief system of Islam. I cannot express how grateful I am to have gained an un-bias perspective on Islamic tradition before the attacks. Because of my curriculum, even as a 13-year-old I was fully aware that this horrible event was perpetrated by a small, fanatical group of Muslims and that the community overall was peaceful and loving.

I think that it is so important when teaching about 9/11 to emphasize that the people behind the attacks do no represent the Islamic community as a whole. Making an effort to do so is required to prevent prejudice from developing in young and impressionable minds.

We had three young children and were moving into our house in New Jersey, miles from lower Manhatten, after repatriating from Hong Kong, that fateful day. The crisp and clear autumn day was shattered and broken by 9am. At the time, with young children, we shielded them as much as we could. Not wanting them to become fearful or hysterical, we did not watch alot of TV in their presence, as the days events continued to unfold. The horror was felt by the world, we chose to minimize its acknowledgment in our home. That said, the children are grown up now enough that we have obviously shared with them the travesty and sadness that occurred 10 years ago. They now understand it the best they can for each of their ages. They know people who lost someone that day. They don’t understand hatred, thankfully. But then again, they didn’t lose a close family member.

I do teach about 911. I teach Middle School students. In the aftermath of 911, I had my students write a letter to Bin Laden. I saved the letters to use as primary sources with my future students. On the first anniversary, I had my students write as essay about their memories of 911. I saved the essays, too. Every year I have done a lesson remembering….I show a dvd of the news coverage of the event. Than I bring out the Bin Laden letters and the memory essays! The students love to read the accounts from the students who were their age at the time. For several years now the middle school age students do not remember 911. For some it is the first they even heard of it.

As an English teacher, I have included “The Names” as part of my curriculum during September. This poem, written by Billy Collins, the Poet Laureate at the time, was read at the memorials that year. It is a poem, that no matter how many times I read it, has new meaning and is more moving. I highly recommend that English teachers check it out if they aren’t familiar. I have students draw an image from the poem, or select a part to respond to.

It seems incredible that almost nothing is included in these teaching strategies regarding the reasons for the attacks, virtually nothing examining the motivations of the attackers. Can it be that we Americans are so ignorant that we are satisfied with deceptive explanations ascribing a hatred of liberty as the reason? Or even more idiotic, a willingness to accept the simplistic lable “terrorist” as sufficient analysis? Almost everything I’ve read has focused on what happened, but there has been very little explanation regarding the reasons why these events occured. Examining the motivations and exploring the reasons we were and are the targets for such extreme hatred may be less dramatic than contemplating burning buildings, but doing so is infinitely more important. I suppose it should not be all that surprising. How many of us can provide an accurate description of Japan’s reasons for attacking Pearl Harbor? The simplistic claim that Japan sought to dominate the Pacific is remarkably inadequate.

Two years ago I was moved into a 7th grade English position. I was shocked and amazed that my students did not know ANYTHING about 9/11. They were five at the time. I brought Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising” into class. I read the lyrics of a couple of the song to them and ask “What do think the poet was trying to say to the reader”. I then explained who Mr. Springsteen is and where he is from. I then play the songs and again ask “What message is here in the music?” I tell them the story of myself as a child when President Kennedy was shot and how school was closed and how I saw on TV the man accused of killing him was killed. I tell them who I was with and all the events that I can remember. I tell them of the time when I woke up one morning to have my father tell me that someone had shot Robert Kennedy, then I tell them about the night TV was interrupted to tell the world that Dr. King’s life had been taken. Each experience, I am able to tell them in full details where I was and everyone that was in the room, the looks on the faces the tears that were shed. I tell them that there will be times in their lives that they will remember everything related to that event, where they were, who they were with, and sadly the event itself. I then explained what occurred on 9/11 and all the memories that I have from that day. I show pictures of newspapers, I pull up videos and then I play the songs again and ask if they can find any relation now in the music/poems. I then give them an assignment to ask their parents where they were when 9/11 occurred. They are to write down details paying more attention to what their parents felt more than locations. The reason that I want them to pay attention to the feelings comes back into poems and the feelings needed to really write good poems. We share the papers in class and then we attempt to write poems of what we think our parents felt.

To address Mr. Marcinski’s post, later in the year the social studies teacher does a great job about why the attacks occurred using a book called “Understanding September 11th” by Mitch Frank.

The St John’s University students in my “Creating Theater,” “Acting” & “Core Speech” all wrote about their impressions of the 9/11 incixdent & its aftermath. St John’s University is an international University with campuses all over teh world. In my theater classes we consider technology’s impact on the way we recive information & witha Vincentian approach we consider how any of us might be helpful. My SOS Theater Proect as part of th3 101 Murray Street Think Tank considers the implications of 9/11 as altering the course of history. We compse “useful” theater, bothe poetic & Brechtian or Piscatorian. In my classes are students from Tibet, Iran, Israel, Portugal, Japan, China, Puerta Rico, Guyana. everywhere! There is always compelling & engaging theater arts created by this diverse population. At saval space rwm playwrights lab & professional actors in the hem theater collective side coach & “spot” the younger dramatic arts kids. As professional playwright I wrote “Utopia Rescheduled which has been done about 7 times. Writing is rewriting so there are new monologues added. My studenst also participated in the mosque situation’ firsta hand as it was 2 blocks away. We did an on site tableau vivnat & morality/miracle play. The St John’s Red Stormer s rreminded that theater was reborn in teh Church after the Drak Ages. We face a new Dark Ages & economic crisis. A theater of ideas — areal Grek ‘agobn’ (debate) can happen in a fine Catholic university & in an incluisve, cross-cultural, multi-faith theater think tank. We discover Theater arts & we invent defying the old conventions — the ver-misinterpreted Aristotelian Poetics– as prescriptive not descriptive. History turns ona dime; the concept of performances must be fluid mirroring nature — which is quite stormy lately! TA new theater arises in ACtolic colleges, cafes & the Church! Avanti as Tennessee Williams often told me the last 7 years of his life.

Since 2001 I have shown the documentary 9/11 by Jules & Gedeon Gaudat the week before 9/11. Then I share a personal story. My (at the time volunteer firefighter) son was the managing editor of his college (Kilgore, Texas) newspaper and wrote an anniversary column about ‘the angel in his pocket’–a medallion that made its way from a NYFD firefighter to Josh.

In the spring of 2003 I attended CSPA taking copies of my son’s column with me. I made a pilgrimage to three fire stations. Amazing things happened including the gift of a shirt, and multiple autographs from New York firefighters, police and Port Authority officials on a copy of his column. When I got home I got it framed with mementos and gave it to him for his birthday in April.

The next year I took Josh with me to CSPA and he met many of the firefighters who had signed his column (it was actually on a bulletin board) in one firehouse & they invited him to hang out with them on the night tour.

I show photos and tell this story and the stories of the men who took the time to share with me. Then my students (sophomores-seniors) write letters of appreciation to our local first responders. I make three sets of copies–one to EMTs, one to the volunteer fire department and one to the police. We also deliver cakes that say: WOHS (White Oak High School) loves Hometown Heroes! After this I show them a film that traces the roots of terrorism historically and we discuss what we have learned and they journal their reactions along the way.

This year, because of the fires that surround our community we are having a gatorade/bottled water drive to distribute to our first responders fighting the ferocious fires in terrible heat.

Even as I write this my son is fighting a wildfire in East Texas that has consumed 38 square miles so for. He graduated with a degree in forestry, minor in journalism and a specialization in Wildland Firefighting. And that brings us full circle…it all began with 9/11.

As I write I want to commend all the teachers out there who teach about 9/11. I have been a little shocked to hear that it is oftentimes not covered in history classes in many states. It is a hard topic to approach, and children may encounter a lot of emotional and otherwise delicate material when studying the day that changed America and the World. The very worst of humankind was shown on that day, but then… heroes appeared, and the very best of human qualities also appeared. I feel this is one of the best ways to approach this delicate topic and event for the younger learners: covering what happened and also focusing on the uplifting qualities, the heroes of 9/11 and its aftermath, heroes from all walks of life.

I found these resources from EDSITEment //edsitement.neh.gov/ that guide teachers and students in an exploration of the September 11 Memorial website, and its resources to study what happened on that day, who helped (Heroes of 9/11 and its aftermath) and how to pay tribute. The resources include worksheets, activities, visuals and a detailed guided exploration of the museum’s website. I’d like to recommend it to parents, teachers, students, or anybody wanting to learn more or teach about 9/11 and its aftermath.

National 9/11 Memorial, //edsitement.neh.gov/websites/national-september-11-memorial

EDSITEment Student Launchpad on 9/11, //edsitement.neh.gov/launchpad-guided-exploration-events-911#node-21825

Teacher’s Guide on Teaching 9/11, //edsitement.neh.gov/virtual-visit-national-september-11-memorial-and-museum

This would be great for everyone if schools are planning on teaching or incorporating this historic moment into an instructional learning environment. I believe it must be done from a biblical perspective. If not, we as a whole will be doing an injustice to those who have lost their love ones on that day. This tragic event should be taught with an open mind to engage all minds. Unity, Love, and Peace!!!!

I think 9/11 is really interesting and I want teachers to teach more about it.

Teachers Involved: Shaelynn Farnsworth, Erin Olson, Shawn Hyer, Bev Berns, and Todd Vogts This is the second year of a blogging community between 4 schools, and soon to be 2 International schools. We collaborated and decided to do something as a community to commemorate the 10th Anniversary of 9/11. We are compiling a message of Hope, Peace, and Remembrance written by our students. From their written words we are adding their voice and a visual element to connect all of the schools together for a final product! Most of our students were so young when this happened, we want to impress upon them the changes in society, on many levels, that have been triggered by the events of 9/11. Showing relevance to their daily lives and passions will help them understand the impact caused by the tragic events. We collaborated using twitter, google docs, and skype. I will share a link after the final project is done! We plan to share this with the schools as well as the world!

9/11 is not taught at our school. However, I believe it would be beneficial to students, especially the ones who did not witness the tragedy. It is mentioned in the news constantly, and it would benefit the students if they could fully comprehend what happened on that day.

Not sure why, but this has just finally got to me.

Having a tough time ‘teaching’ through the 10th anniversary. Difficult discussion today when my students explained they were in first or second grade during the 9/11 attacks. Their perspective is completely valid, understandable, authentic, and so hard for me to take. For me, it was yesterday; for them, a lifetime ago. Their most resonant memory? “we couldn’t go to recess” and “the teacher was crying and it made us worried.”

Mine? I remember thinking how ugly the buildings were, and how impressive the lobby and the sky lobby is. Was.

I have no words for my students. And let’s be honest, I have words for everyone, and everything.

My grandfather, a marine, enlisted after the Pearl Harbor attack. I was out of the US Navy in 1989 long before 2001.

The world, changed. My students will never remember the days before 9/11/2001; they didn’t know the world I did, so maybe they don’t miss it.

Suddenly, this week, I understand the look in my grandfather’s eyes when he would talk, very very seldomly, about the Pearl Harbor attack, and what it meant.

So, tomorrow? We’ll get out the second edition of the school year (on day 14 of the school year- proud of my kids). We’ll talk about the history of photography, and in the evening I’ll shoot the JV and Varsity football game under the lights, and on Sunday I will do my best to… to do my best. I’ll distract myself with grad school, take the dogs for a run on the beach (they run, I walk), gather together with friends, and try to be a grown up and take care of myself.

I have no plans for the classroom and 9/11. I have no plans for how to make the day more real for these kids; maybe I hope the day doesn’t have to be real for them; maybe I hope they can be just a naive as I was on September 10, 2001. Maybe my hope for them is that, when the world changes in an instant, they are more prepared than I was, or then I am.

Hats off to the best of us who will wade through it all again tomorrow; find meaning, teach lessons, add context, layer emotion. Lessons planned, images ready, discussion questions written on the board. I wish, I do, I could join you tomorrow. I’ll be the one, remembering students who enlisted and won’t be returning (you’ll remember them too), and holding back the tears.

Or failing that, the one who explains what the tears mean, providing my students with another day where the teacher was crying, and it made us worried.

Thought you would appreciate this 9/11 volunteerism project…

//www.edmestoncentralschool.net/uploads/jchase/911mediaprojects.htm

Great post!

wel u can do a exbit project that the whole class can do i would be really fun

I’m the author of a middle-school book that will come out next week (Sept. 2, 2014) pertaining to September 11. Set in Florida, JUST A DROP OF WATER, tells the story of two thirteen-year-old boys and how their friendship is tested in the wake of September 11. As a former history teacher, I want kids to not only experience that tragic day through Jake and Sam, but explore the why of it all. How did this happen? Why? How can we prevent it from happening again. I have many discussion questions and extension activities posted on my website, as well, and three school locally have already picked the book up to use in the classroom. I hope you find this information useful. Kirkus gave the book a great review saying, “…just the supplemental material middle-grade teachers are looking for.” //www.kerryomalleycerra.com

Here’s how I approached the topic with my fifth graders last year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbVyw5MWNfI

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Module 5: Memorializing 9/11

Vigil in Union Square Park, New York City. Photo by Brandon Remler.

Memorializing 9/11

Why is it important to remember 9/11?

The events of September 11, 2001, irrevocably changed the lives of victims’ families and friends, survivors, first responders, rescue and recovery workers, volunteers, and millions of Americans and people around the world. Today, the legacies of the attacks continue to affect foreign policy, national security, civic discourse, airline security, building safety, the law, and countless individual lives.

The attacks also provide numerous examples of individuals helping others in whatever ways they could, often at the expense of their own safety, under difficult circumstances. Their humanity and selflessness offer a counter to the horror of that day and provide an example as we face difficult moments today and moving forward.

The 9/11 Memorial & Museum, located at the site of the original World Trade Center complex, is the country’s principal institution concerned with exploring 9/11, documenting its impact, and examining its continuing significance. Remembering and honoring the 2,977 people killed in the 9/11 attacks and the six people killed in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing is at the heart of its mission.

Primary Sources

These primary resources include speeches, executive orders, legislative acts and debates, and government reports. 

September 11, 2002 Remarks by U.S. President George W. Bush at the Pentagon Remarks by U.S. President George W. Bush to the Nation

April 28, 2003 Lower Manhattan Development Corporation Memorial Guidelines

January 13, 2004 World Trade Center Memorial Jury Statement for Winning Design

September 11, 2008 U.S. President George W. Bush Attends Dedication of 9/11 Pentagon Memorial

May 15, 2014

Remarks by U.S. President Barack Obama at 9/11 Museum Dedication 

Video: Watch here

September 9, 2016

Presidential Proclamation -- Patriot Day and National Day of Service and Remembrance

September 11, 2016

Weekly Address: Upholding the Legacy of Those We Lost on September 11

Suggested Reading List

14 Cows for America

Carmen Agra Deedy (author), Thomas Gonzalez (illustrator). Peachtree Publishing Company, 2016.

(Preschool–Grade 3)

30,000 Stitches: The Inspiring Story of the National 9/11 Flag

Amanda Davis (author), Sally Wern Comport (illustrator). WorthyKids, 2021.

(Kindergarten–Grade 3)

Towers Falling

Jewell Parker Rhodes, 2016, Little, Brown and Company

(Grades 3–7)

Young Adults

No Day Shall Erase You: The Story of 9/11 as told by the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.

Edited by Alice M. Greenwald. Rizzoli Electa, 2016.

A Place of Remembrance

Allison Blais and Lynn Rasic. National Geographic, 2015.

The Stories They Tell

Edited by Clifford Chanin and Alice M. Greenwald. Rizzoli Electa, 2013.

9/11: The Culture of Commemoration

Dennis Smith. University of Chicago Press, 2006

Portraits in Grief 9/11/2001

Howard Raines. Times Books, 2002

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57 Mozart Essay Topics

🏆 best essay topics on mozart, 👍 good mozart research topics & essay examples, 🎓 most interesting mozart research titles, 💡 simple mozart essay ideas.

• Aspects of Mozart Effect Theory
• Mozart’s and Beethoven’s Styles Comparison
• “Mainly Mozart” Concert: The Overture to “The Magic Flute” and the Sinfonia Concertante
• Features of “The Marriage of Figaro” by Mozart
• The Difference in Career of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven
• Beethoven’s vs. Mozart’s Life and Music
• Mozart Meets Beethoven: Influences in Music
• The “Magic Flute” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart The “Magic Flute” by Wolfgang Amedee Mozart is a representative of the classical music concert. The study of this work can contribute to disseminating awareness.
• Classical Music Pioneers: Haydn, Mozart, Albrehc Joseph Haydn was born on March 31, 1732, in Austria. Haydn’s father was a wheelwright and His mother worked as a cook before she was married.
• Mozart and Classical Period Music Everyone would agree that music nowadays is one of modern global civilization’s central, attention-grabbing, and brightest cultural and political drivers.
• Mozart’s Don Giovanni Opera Critique In Mozart’s Don Giovanni, the main character is the embodiment of superhuman vital emotions of joy and pleasure that know no boundaries and prohibitions.
• The Concert “That Magnificent Mozart” by the Everett Philharmonic Orchestra The music played in the concert “That Magnificent Mozart” by the Everett Philharmonic Orchestra, represented the eighteenth and nineteenth-century historical era.
• Altering Traditional Sonata in Mozart’s Symphony #41 Mozart does not follow the exact sonata form with his Symphony #41, and exactly that is what sets it apart from any other opus in his composition selection.
• The College Concert: Mozart, Piazzola and Beethoven Every concert is an opportunity for talented musicians to demonstrate their understanding and interpretation of certain musical pieces. In this sense the college concert was a success.
• Mozart’s Requiem Mass: Exploring Music History Requiem evoked numerous myths and discussions: one of the main questions is what is written by Mozart, and what was added by Süssmayr.
• Wolfgang Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte: the Winning Duo A leading and most efficient composer of operatic music and plays, Mozart is a genius since his childhood. One of the most noted librettist is Da Ponte.
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Musical Arts Born in 1756, Mozart was one the greatest composers of the classical era. Mozart was involved in music from a very tender age of just five years.
• Mozart’s Women: His Family, His Friends, His Music
• Retracing the Music of Mozart’s Final Creative Outburst
• Beethoven’s Inspirations: Mozart’s Profound Impact
• Meeting Mozart: A Novel Drawn From the Secret Diaries of Lorenzo Da Ponte
• The Music of Mozart: Representing ‘Otherness’ in Film
• Unraveling the Genius of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Through the Lens of Mental Health
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Years in Vienna
• The Influence of Mozart on Classical Music and Composers
• Jupiter Sends His Thunderbolts: Mozart’s Final Symphony
• Mozart’s Journey: From Child Prodigy to Musical Genius
• The Politics of Opera: A History From Monteverdi to Mozart
• Mozart’s Requiem: The Real Story of Mozart, Salieri, and Amadeus
• Key-Specific Structure in Mozart’s Music: A Peek Into His Creative Process
• Waking Mozart: The Mystery of the Requiem
• The Love Story of Mozart and Constanze
• Mozart and the Enlightenment: Truth, Virtue, and Beauty in Mozart’s Operas
• First-Time Perfection: Mozart’s ‘Marriage of Figaro’
• Music for the Gods: A Guide to Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony
• Famous Mozart Operas: An Analytical Guide for the Opera-Goer and Armchair Listener
• Mozart and the Construction of Musical Prodigies in Early Georgian London
• The Culture of Opera Buffa in Mozart’s Vienna: A Poetics of Entertainment
• Mozart and His Infamous Letters of Scatalogical Humour
• The Last Travels of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Mozart vs. Beethoven: Drawing Parallels Between Two Musical Titans
• Process and Morphology in the Music of Mozart
• Beyond Amadeus: Reexamining the Real Relationship Between Mozart and Salieri
• Mozart’s Requiem: It’s About Life, Not Death
• The Life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Music & Operas
• Mozart’s Enduring Genius: A Resounding Influence on Modern Music
• Viennese Classicism and Its Founding Trio Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven
• The Mozart Effect: The Truth Behind the Claims
• Mozart’s Music in Film: Death and Embodied Affect
• Foundations of an Operatic Genius: Mozart’s Youthful Influences
• Mozart’s Orchestral Cantabile Style: Eighteenth-Century Origins of String Performance Practices
• Understanding the Women of Mozart’s Operas
• The Enduring Influence of Mozart’s Music on Society
• Mozart’s Piano Concerto as Operatic Character Studies
• Don Giovanni: Overture by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Mozart’s Enduring Presence in Film and Television

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Bibliography

StudyCorgi . "57 Mozart Essay Topics." August 21, 2024. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/mozart-essay-topics/.

StudyCorgi . 2024. "57 Mozart Essay Topics." August 21, 2024. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/mozart-essay-topics/.

These essay examples and topics on Mozart were carefully selected by the StudyCorgi editorial team. They meet our highest standards in terms of grammar, punctuation, style, and fact accuracy. Please ensure you properly reference the materials if you’re using them to write your assignment.

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8 Top Law School Final Exam Tips

Last Updated: Aug 28, 2024

What to expect from your law school final exams

A full semester of taking copious notes, reading, briefing, outlining, classroom discussions, and surviving the Socratic Method culminates in one final act. Writing law school final exams.

Most professors give essay exams for law school finals. Some are single-topic, short-answer questions. Others can go on for pages — known as issue-spotter exams. Some are taken in class, while others are take-home, allowing students more than the traditional amount of time to answer the essay questions. There are open-book and closed-book exams. And there are those few professors who create multiple-choice exams or (in rare cases) give oral exams.

Whatever type of exam your professor chooses to administer, you will be tested on your ability to analyze and resolve legal problems and demonstrate your grasp of the materials. Your course grade will be largely, if not exclusively, based on your final exam performance.

Here are some high-level tips to help you prepare for your law school finals.

Understand your professor preferences

The foundation for success on your law school finals is to know who is grading the exam. Your mission is to make that person’s life easier. Ultimately, different professors prefer different types of answers. Some want extreme detail — every possible interpretation of every possible fact. Some like answers straight to the point within a page count. It’s okay to ask your professor.

It’s a given that all professors expect well-organized, legible answers, no matter how brief or expansive.

Read the facts carefully

Read the entire problem through once rather quickly to get a general understanding. Focus on the question you are being asked to respond to at the end of the problem.

Then, read through the scenario again, slowly and carefully. This time, evaluate every word and phrase to identify all potential issues. Applying the law to the facts presented is critical in any law school exam. And changing the facts even slightly could result in a completely different result.

Answer the question that is being asked

Always keep in mind the specific question you are actually being asked to answer. Although you may receive credit for ancillary information provided in your answer, you will only receive maximum credit if you specifically answer the question that is presented. Therefore, you must determine what role the professor is asking you to assume before answering. Are you the defendant’s attorney, or do you represent the plaintiff? Are you a judge trying to resolve the dispute? It makes a real difference in how you answer.

Attempts to include unrelated material in your answer could backfire if your professor believes you are incapable of ruling out irrelevant information.

Organize your thoughts

Organization is critical to writing a strong essay answer on any law school finals. After all, if the professor cannot follow your analysis, how can they grade it fairly and appropriately?

Before you start writing, chart the issues in the manner in which you will resolve them. Again, make sure the issues are related to the actual question you are being asked to answer. Arrange the issues in the sequence in which you would expect a court to address them (i.e., normally jurisdictional issues first, then liability, then remedies). Capture the points you will discuss in sufficient detail to prompt you to think the problem through to a fair and practical solution.

Complete your analysis and organization before you start writing

You may find that you devote a solid one-fourth of the time allocated to reading, analyzing the problem and organizing your answer. That’s okay. A logical organization and clear expression of ideas will strengthen your answer. This purposeful approach may even bolster an answer that’s somewhat weak.

Use the IRAC format for each issue raised

As you begin to write out your answer, we recommend you analyze each dispute using the IRAC method.

First, state the issue in precise legal terms (i.e., “Did the defendant’s mistake in computing his bid prevent the formation of an enforceable contract?”). Be careful to avoid generalizations or oversimplification of the issue.

Next, state the applicable law. Be sure to define the pertinent elements of a rule as well as any terms of art.

Application

Then, apply the rules to the facts using arguments. Avoid the common error of stating a rule and then jumping straight to the conclusion. Your professor will not infer a supporting argument for you — you must spell it out. Remember to use the Issue T you created earlier to remind you to discuss which facts in the fact pattern support (or prevent) application of the rule. Discuss and weigh each fact given and the logical inference to be drawn from it. Be sure to include counterarguments where possible.

Finally, come to a straightforward conclusion on each issue. Make sure you have clearly answered the question asked, and you have not left an issue hanging. If a number of outcomes are possible, discuss the merits of each, but always select one position as your conclusion and state why. In close cases, it is generally best to select the most practical and fair conclusion. Just don’t consider yourself bound by the “general rule” or “majority view” in answering on a law school final exam unless the question clearly calls for such.

Argue both sides of legal issues you spot and remember policy concerns

Once a dispute has been framed and a legal theory has been asserted, identify any problems surrounding the theory’s application as well as arguments that each side can make in support of their position.

Also, if time allows, include just a sentence or two regarding the policy implications of your conclusions. Law is meant to provide order in society and, when imposing laws, you should always predict the impact that they will have.

Take a deep breath and try not to panic

If you find yourself panicking, not understanding the issues presented or not remembering the rules related to such issues, don’t panic. Instead, close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Then, start working systematically through the information with these tips and do your best on your law school finals.

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