Narratives of Citizenship and Race since Emancipation

Classroom Activities

Lesson One – Racial Classification

How are racial and ethnic categories determined in the United States? What problems are associated with these categories? How do the roles of chance, context, and choice affect racial and ethnic categories?

This introductory lesson gives students an opportunity to learn about the classification of races.

Anticipatory Set: Have students brainstorm what the word race means/how would they define it. Students can do this in a Blog format in which they write their answers/thoughts on the Class Blog. Have them share these ideas with their classmates with a partner. Students will participate in the exercise, What's My Race? in which they will determine the race/ethnicity of fifteen people. They will categorize each of the people's photographs they see into one of the six racial/ethnic categories that are used in the US Census. Students will share their answers with a partner and afterwards, each pair will partner with another to compare and contrast their observations. Then, answers will be reviewed and discussed as a whole class.

Directed Instruction: Introduce information about the social construction of race through a PowerPoint presentation. Students should take notes for later use (study for exam).

Activity: Students will read the informational text, How the Law Decided if You were Black or White: The Early 1800s and view the film, Skin. They will use the information from these two texts to answer the guiding questions.

Assessment: Students' will respond to an essay in which they will incorporate all information acquired to answer the guiding questions.

Lesson Two – Racial Attitudes

How does discrimination and prejudice affect individuals and society?

This lesson focuses on the ideas of discrimination and prejudice – how it can be defined and better understood.

Anticipatory Set: Have students define the terms: bias, discrimination, prejudice, and stereotype with a partner. Discuss their answers and clarify the meanings. Have students listen to the children's story, Sneetches, by Dr. Seuss. Afterwards, in small groups, students should list examples of the terms that were earlier defined.

Directed Instruction: Present PowerPoint regarding the terms from the sociological perspectives. Then, show film clips depicting real-life examples of these terms. Have students take notes on a graphic organizer. Review this information as a whole group, after students have had an opportunity to share with their tablemates.

Activity: Have students read My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew on the One-Hundredth Anniversary of Emancipation by James Baldwin and White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Backpack by Peggy McIntosh. Afterwards, students will participate in a Socratic Seminar.

Assessment: Students' Check for Understanding consists of the Socratic Seminar rubric. Is there evidence to support their solid knowledge of the two pieces of text and are the students able to apply this information to answering the guiding questions.

Lesson Three – Racial Actions

What are the causes and consequences of classifying people by race?

This lesson focuses on a collaborative writing component in which students use Google Docs and partner with students from the opposite school site to read and analyze two pieces of text.

Anticipatory Set: Have students look back at their original definitions/meanings of race. Have them add or subtract to these and explain why.

Directed Instruction: Introduce historical information about both Frederick Douglass and Barak Obama and the time frames from which they come. Have students take notes on a graphic organizer. Review this information afterwards.

Activity: Pair up students from opposite school sites and have them "interactively read the two texts/speeches: "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" and "A More Perfect Union." Using a Google Doc, they will record relevant information from the speeches that will aid in their Socratic Seminar. In working with each other, they will interact more with the texts, constructing meaning of the information together.

Assessment: Students' Check for Understanding consists of the Socratic Seminar rubric. Is there evidence to support their solid knowledge of the two pieces of text and are the students able to apply this information to answering the guiding questions.

Follow up lessons will consist of students conducting their own sociological research by using surveys and interviews to reflect on their school communities' racial attitudes. They will compare and contrast the data acquired from both schools. Additionally, they will present this information in a formal manner as they would be modeling the research of a sociologist.