Classroom Activities
Utilizing Podcasts and Audio Documentaries
Podcasts and audio documentaries give students an opportunity to gain in-depth knowledge in an accessible and engaging way. For students who face reading challenges, podcasts provide them access to rigorous texts that tackle complex ideas and prompt thoughtful analysis. Podcasting has become a popular means of expression in recent years, and there are countless podcasts available online, encompassing a wide range of genres and topics.
Prior to listening to a podcast, students will be provided with a typed transcript of the program. They will use the close reading strategy to think critically about the podcast and analyze it on multiple levels. They will listen to the podcast several times, taking a different approach with each listen. For the first listen, they will sit back and take in the experience of hearing the podcast for the first time. They may choose to read the transcript as they listen if that helps them stay focused and aides in their understanding. During the second listen, students will annotate the transcript, using coding and jotting strategies to show their thinking. They will note connections, questions, and reactions as they listen. After the second listen, students will engage in a discussion with their peers about their reactions to the podcast. These discussions may be conducted in small groups or whole class, with the teacher facilitating. Prior to the final listen, the teacher will provide students with writing prompts that push them to think deeply and critically about the text. As they listen, they will have these prompts in mind. After the final listen, they will respond to these prompts in writing. We will conclude the lesson with a whole group discussion, where students will share their thoughts and analysis.
The following podcasts and documentaries address issues around housing segregation in a dynamic, engaging way that is appealing to middle school students.
This American Life - Episode #512 - House Rules
House Rules explores housing discrimination and segregation in the United States, and what has (and hasn’t) been done to rectify it. It follows the stories of a teenager impacted by school segregation in Akron, Ohio and housing activists in New York City who are working to expose and stop rental discrimination. It looks at the history of housing policy in the United States, and how former Michigan governor and newly-appointed HUD Secretary George Romney tried to strengthen the Fair Housing Act and take affirmative steps towards residential integration, only to be thwarted by President Nixon.
This American Life - Episode #562 - The Problem We All Live With
In this episode, we learn about a school district in Normandy, Missouri that accidentally stumbled on an integration program in 2013. Normandy is on the border with Ferguson, and the district includes the high school Michael Brown attended. Reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones follows a teenager from Normandy who participated in the integration of the nearby Francis Howell School District.
Ghetto Life 101
Ghetto Life 101 is an award-winning radio documentary exploring the lives of residents on the South Side of Chicago. It was created in 1993 by 8th graders LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman, in collaboration with public radio producer David Isay. The teenagers using portable audio equipment to document life in and around the Ida B. Wells Homes in Bronzeville. Lloyd lived in the projects, and LeAlan lived nearby. They interviewed family, friends, teachers and members of the community. Through their direct interview style, punctuated with humor and insightful observations, Lloyd and LeAlan paint a moving portrait of life on Chicago’s segregated South Side.
The Case For Reparations
While not an audio documentary, Ta-Nahisi Coates’ influential Atlantic essay has an accompanying audio version. The essay, written in 2014, gets to the heart of what we as Americans have avoided for too long. Our country was founded on the false notion of white supremacy, and the dehumanizing brutality that resulted has spread and reinvented itself over and over since 1776, with segregationist housing policy at all levels of government playing a central role. Students will follow the close reading progression, using the audio version to support them as they read a hard copy of the essay. When annotating the text, they will pay close attention to vocabulary, marking any unknown words, and using context clues and online dictionary resources to aid in their comprehension. In this engaging and persuasive essay, Coates calls for us to reckon with and make amends for slavery, Jim Crow and government-mandated housing segregation. He discusses The New Deal, redlining, and restrictive covenants, alongside stories of South Side Chicagoans like Clyde Ross who fought back against predatory contract sellers.
The essay will be the centerpiece of a week-long study of reparations. We will look at video footage of Coates’ June 2019 congressional testimony in support of H.R. 40, a bill that would create a committee to study and develop reparations proposals. We will watch testimony and read statements by those who support reparations, including Cory Booker, who introduced H.R. 40, and other 2020 presidential hopefuls Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. We will look at those who oppose reparations, including President Barack Obama, who discussed his views with Coates’ in a 2016 Atlantic article. Students will then engage in a four corners debate about reparations (see “Teaching Strategies” section).
Exploring Interactive Digital Tools
When studying complex topics that explore legal, economic, social and political patterns, it’s important that the material be accessible and engaging for students. This is especially important when working with middle school students. The more interactive, relevant and multi-sensory an activity, the more likely it will resonate with students and sustain their attention. The following interactive maps and games are excellent resources that help students better understand housing segregation and its complexities.
Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America
From 1935-1940, The Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC), a federal agency created as part of the New Deal, formalized redlining through the creation of residential security maps. These security maps color-coded urban neighborhoods, dividing them into 4 categories based on the perceived risk of providing home loans in a given neighborhood. Neighborhoods coded green were considered the “best” areas, blue areas were “still desirable”, yellow areas were “definitely declining” and red areas were “hazardous”. For each neighborhood, an accompanying “area description” was created, detailing the neighborhood’s demographics, services, public amenities, and types and conditions of homes.
Mapping Inequality is a collaborative project between three teams at four universities: University of Richmond, Virginia Tech, University of Maryland, and John Hopkins University. They have digitized HOLC security maps for every major city in the United States, created digital overlays to increase interactivity, and scanned and transcribed area descriptions for thousands of neighborhoods. Students can find their own neighborhood on the maps, and learn what color-code it received in the New Deal era. They can read area descriptions for their neighborhoods, which often include alarming language referring to such things as “Negro infiltration” and “containment.” These digital maps are an incredibly valuable and engaging tool that allow students a closer look at the HOLC security maps that were used to segregate every major U.S. city, the impacts of which we still see today.
2010 Racial Dot Map
The Racial Dot Map was created in 2013 by Dustin Cable, a demographic researcher at the University of Virginia’s Weldron Cooper Center for Public Service. It provides an interactive visualization of geographic distribution, population density, and racial diversity of the American people in every neighborhood in the entire country. It uses colored dots representing race, one dot per person for the entire U.S. The map is based on 2010 census data, providing students with a relatively up-to-date snapshot of our country’s racial distribution. The colorful map is visually appealing and allows students to seamlessly zoom out to view the entire U.S., and then zoom in to their own city, or any other city they wish to view. Students are able to plainly see the segregation that still exists in cities across the country. They can compare the Racial Dot Map of their city with the corresponding HOLC security map to see how the legacy of redlining plays out today.
Parable of the Polygons
Parable of the Polygons is an student-friendly computer game based on economist Thomas Schelling’s model of neighborhood segregation. In this interactive simulation, students move polygons around in various configurations, representing the ways in which communities become segregated or integrated through individual choices. As students play the game, it becomes apparent that small individual bias can lead to large collective bias. This shows that de facto segregation can happen even when well-meaning people have a seemingly benign preference to live in a neighborhood where at least a third of their neighbors look like them. These are people who embrace diversity, but also prefer that some of their neighbors look like them. The game shows that if enough people have this small bias, neighborhoods will become segregated over time. But it also shows how we can combat segregation through active, anti-bias measures. After students play the game, we will have a whole class discussion about de jure and de facto segregation, and how we must be proactive about addressing both forms of segregation if we want to live in an integrated, equitable society.
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