Great Divide Toolkit

Digital Engagement Toolkit

Great Divide

This toolkit accompanies Great Divide: A Clara Barton Story, a theatrical meditation on memory, mercy, service, nationhood, and the uneasy work of holding a broken country together.

Use it to prepare for the production, deepen reflection, and explore how care, recordkeeping, witness, and endurance shape both personal history and national identity.

You can use this toolkit before viewing, during a classroom or community discussion, or afterward as part of writing, research, reflection, or group conversation.

Quick information

Who it is for: Educators, students, audiences, community groups, and facilitators.

What it supports: Viewing, discussion, reflection, and historical engagement connected to Great Divide.

How to use it: Move in order or choose the sections that best fit your group, schedule, and setting.

Start here

Ways to use this toolkit

In a classroom: Start with the essential question, review the historical context, and use the prompts to discuss war, public service, memory, and national responsibility.

In a community setting: Use the toolkit to explore disaster response, the ethics of care, women’s labor, institutional failure, and what it means to serve across divisions.

For individual use: Read through the guide before and after the production, then reflect on how the river, the basket, and Clara’s recordkeeping shaped your understanding of mercy and nationhood.

What you can do with this toolkit

  • Explore how the play presents Clara Barton not as a monument, but as a working human being shaped by care, fatigue, wit, and moral resolve.
  • Reflect on mercy as action: carrying, washing, stitching, feeding, identifying, recording, and staying.
  • Consider how rivers, objects, lists, and fragments become symbols of national memory and unresolved history.
  • Discuss women’s labor, authority, and the institutions that rely on work they often fail to honor.
  • Use the production as a way to think about public service, division, witness, and what it means to refuse disappearance.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need prior knowledge of Clara Barton to use this toolkit?

No. The study guide provides the key historical background, including Clara Barton’s Civil War relief work, her efforts to identify missing soldiers, and her role in founding the American Red Cross.

Is this toolkit only for schools?

No. It is designed for students, educators, audiences, community groups, and facilitators.

What makes this production especially useful for discussion?

The play connects battlefield care, disaster relief, recordkeeping, women’s labor, and national identity, making it especially strong for conversations about service, memory, mercy, and division.

Need help?

If you encounter a barrier, please
contact Arizona Theatre Matters.