Executive Dis/Order,Featured,Lesson Plans |
June 24, 2025

Executive Dis/Order Project

About the Executive Dis/Order Project Lesson Series

This lesson plan is part of a series of assignments and activities developed for the Executive Dis/Order Project, a collaboration between The Pedagogy Lab, The Abusable Past, and the Center for Feminist Futures (UC Santa Barbara). The project examines contemporary politics and political art as a tool of resistance against executive power and anticipatory compliance. Each unit in this series focuses on a different Executive Dis/Order submission—an artistic and textual intervention into the political landscape—analyzing its themes, rhetorical strategies, and creative methods of refusal. The series covers a range of topics, reflecting the diverse ways executive actions impact communities. Other lessons in the series may address issues such as immigration, DEI crackdowns, gender policies, environmental deregulation, and academic freedom.

Each unit centers a different executive order and offers a sample political art piece (an Executive Dis/Order submission) as a case study for analysis and creative response. Lessons can be used individually or as part of a larger unit on public political art, executive power, or artistic resistance. The structure follows a repeatable format: information about the executive order, background and context for the order, close analysis of the artwork, discussion and critique of its themes and artistic strategies, and a hands-on creative exercise where students generate their own responses. Instructors are encouraged to modify discussions and activities to fit their students’ engagement levels and course goals.

Lesson Plan Overview

This lesson addresses the Executive Order “Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities” (March 2025), which initiates the closure of the U.S. Department of Education and the redistribution of federal education functions—including management of student loan debt—to other agencies, such as the Small Business Administration. The order is framed as a return of power to states and local communities, but critics argue it signals the dissolution of federal protections and oversight in public education.

Estimated time

1–2 class sessions

Grade level

High school; early college

Relevant Fields of Study

Political Science & Civics; Literature & Creative Writing; Communications & Media Studies; Sociology & Anthropology; Education Studies; Law & Public Policy; Gender & Ethnic Studies

Themes & Keywords

Higher education, debt, bureaucracy, discipline, compliance, refusal, austerity, neoliberalism, executive power, economic governance, poetry, found text, constraint-based writing, rhetoric, education policy, student experience, institutional critique, privatization, racialized economic policy, class mobility myths, generational debt

License

CC BY-NC 4.0

Learning Goals

Students will:

  • Analyze the visual and rhetorical structure of bureaucratic documents
  • Identify how debt functions as a system of discipline and control
  • Examine poetic form and repetition as tools of political critique
  • Explore the role of student debt in shaping educational and economic opportunity
  • Create original works that challenge or reimagine bureaucratic language and tone

Art Object Focus

Pre-Lesson Preparation

Instructors

  • Review the 2025 Executive Order referenced above.
  • Project or print the object Record of Transfer.
  • Review assigned or suggested readings.

Students (optional)

  • Read Harney & Moten’s “Debt and Study” and Astra Taylor’s lecture transcript or video (see Suggested Readings section).
  • Bring in a form letter, bill, or institutional communication they’ve received.

Lesson Outline

1. Warm-Up (10–15 minutes)

  • What does “student debt” mean to you?
  • Who benefits from systems that make education expensive?
  • What tone or feeling do you associate with government paperwork?

2. Guided Analysis (30–40 minutes)

A. Content and Language

  • How does the piece sound when read aloud?
  • What words are repeated? What effect does that create?
  • Where is the voice of power located?

Follow-up prompts if students get stuck:

  • Does this feel like a poem? A form? An instruction manual?
  • What emotions do the instructions provoke?

B. Visual and Formal Analysis

  • How does the structure mirror a real form?
  • What happens to your reading rhythm because of spacing?
  • What does the absence of context or clarity accomplish?

Follow-up prompts if students get stuck:

  • What design choices suggest authority or threat?
  • What makes it feel like you’re being spoken to—or about?

3. Creative Activity: Write Your Own Executive Dis/Order (30–45 minutes)

Students produce their own poetic or bureaucratic art object in response to a real or hypothetical executive action. They can use redacted documents, rewritten form letters, poems formatted like bills or notices, or mixed media collages with institutional text. Encourage the use of fragmented voice, dry tone, constraint-based writing, and digital tools.

Examples include:

  • A poetic notice of refusal or non-compliance
  • A fake payment notice that reveals a critique through fine print
  • A speculative bill for services the student never asked for
  • A bureaucratic form that demands or grants a radically different future

4. Post-Activity Discussion (10–15 minutes)

Host a classroom reading circle where students (or volunteers) read each other’s work aloud. Then discuss:

  • What tools did you use to mimic institutional voice or disrupt it?
  • What does refusal look or sound like in bureaucratic language?
  • How do these pieces reflect or resist the values embedded in the original form?

Suggested Readings & Resources

Open Access

Requires Purchase or Institutional Access