Teaching Strategies
The crux of this unit is rhetorical analysis. In the today’s society, inquiry-based textual analysis skills are essential to forming a solid informational base and coherent arguments. To that end, many of the activities in this unit challenge students to analyze the words and actions of policy-makers, civil servants and United States presidents within the context of history and the climate of mass incarceration.
Students will be provided with the necessary background information covered in this unit through a variety of pedagogical techniques. These include, but are not limited to, direct instruction via lecture, close-reading, whole-class and small group discussions, multimedia analyses, Socratic Seminars and case studies. Case studies in particular will take a variety of forms. Often students will be tasked with analyzing an abridged version of a Supreme Court ruling, political speech, advertisement or media ad.
The final unit project will be an empirical endeavor that charges students with producing a research project focused on an individual case study that they conduct. Students may choose to identify and review an existing case within the framework of the unit, the general criminal justice system or interview a friend or family member who has had experience in the system. The selected individual could be a police officer, civil servant, attorney, or someone who has been incarcerated. Student selections will be approved by the discretion of the teacher.
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