Teaching about Race and Racism Across the Disciplines

Learning Activity #2: Find Someone Challenging a System

This experience accomplishes what Cati de los Ríos and others articulate in “Critial Ethnic Studies in High School Classrooms: Academic Achievement via Social Action:” projects should “promote academic literacy development, civic engagement, and critical racial consciousness for the young people involved.”²¹

Students should look around their community to find someone who is challenging instituationalized systems of racism, sexism, ageism, or simply someone who is challenging some stereotype or norm.

To help students see how systems can be challenged, students can read these articles and use these guiding questions:

1. How are the people seeking change presented as experts who deserve attention from society?  What are phrases, descriptions, or quotes the journalist uses to aim for this?
2. In the article, which systems create “the indecent and unjust social order of our society,” in Lipsitz’s terms?
3. Should we accept the journalist’s bias? If readers accept this information, will this contribute to a more decent and just social order in our society or no?
4. Examine the structure of the articles: Where does the lead end and the background begin?  Where does the background end and the perspectives begin to be presented?  Where do the perspectives transition to a turning point or ultimate challenge?  Where does the conclusion begin?

“Students boycott [Chicago Public Schools] school lunch” by Bill Daley, Chicago Tribune, December 7, 2015

“Youth activists march to Lightfoot’s home to demand removal of police from schools” by Matt Masterson, WTTW, August 13, 2020

“Latinas in L.A. become street vendors to pay for college” by Brittany Valentine, Al Día Social, August 12, 2020

“Chicago Teen Struggles With Fear of Having His Parents Deported” by Ray Salazar, Latino USA, April 6, 2017

“Chicago Sons Help Father Keep Dream of Neighborhood Gym Alive” by Ray Salazar, Latino USA, June 13, 2017

More confident and outgoing students might feel comfortable focusing on a community organization or interviewing someone in the community with a reputation for leading major efforts for social justice.  More reserved students, however, can find individuals in the school or in their families who are taking small but significant steps to change racist or sexist social structures: the first Latina in the family who has not dropped out of high school, the young man who helps care for an elderly family member, the first male cheerleader of the school, one of the only African American males in a mostly Latino school.

In de los Rios’s article, we see how “students were guided in setting up interviews with community cultural treasures, individuals who have made positive contributions to the culture and people of East Los Angeles.”²²  This is important because “seeing positive images of community members who are transforming and expanding the cultural landscape is critical for the development of empowered youth.”

Students should follow this guiding principle from the Solutions Journalism Network: “encourage journalists to report on how people are responding to social problems in such a way that it generates more knowledge for society.”

To ensure a thought-provoking and evocative piece, students should generate questions about the person’s background, knowledge of the situation, behavior before and after the experience, their values because of this, and their feelings about themselves and the situation.

Of course, students need to follow standard journalism guidelines when conducting the interview: ask for the person’s willingness to share the story, articulate that is for publication, request permission from parents if required by school policy.

Students will produce a two-page profile of the person’s experience. This profile follows the structure we see in most magazine features: introduction with the conflict, background, the experience, an emotional high point, and some indication of implications.

While students prepare for and audio record interviews, learning in the classroom can move on to the next learning experience.

A note on transcription of interviews: I never have students transcribe the entire interview.  Instead, they listen to it once and summarize what the person said, pausing the interview every so often.

Then, they listen to the recording again. This time, they pull out quotes they’d like to use in the article.

To encourage accuracy, students show these transcriptions--not the article draft--to the person interviewed to ensure they captured the person’s ideas accurately.

Along with an audio recording, a resource they might use is the “Voice Typing” feature in a Google Doc. Go to Tools, then Voice Typing.  This will require some editing, but it saves time transcribing.