Teaching with and through Maps

CONTENTS OF CURRICULUM UNIT 25.04.02

  1. Unit Guide
  1. Introduction
  2. Demographics
  3. Rationale
  4. Content Objectives
  5. Teaching Strategies
  6. Teaching Activities
  7. Classroom Texts and Materials
  8. Annotated Bibliography
  9. Appendix on Implementing District Standards
  10. Notes

For the Record: Mapping Disparities in American Homeownership

Kariann Flynn

Published September 2025

Tools for this Unit:

Guide Entry to 25.04.02

In this 2-3 week supplemental curriculum unit, multilingual learner (MLL) students will build content knowledge and map analysis skills to understand how New Deal-era housing discrimination in the United States created racial and socioeconomic class disparities in American homeownership rates that persist today. The unit will utilize maps as visual learning tools to teach the history and legacy of housing discrimination in America and its effect on current homeownership disparities. Students will also practice gathering data from maps to form claims about a map’s purpose in the historical moment in which it was created. At the end of this unit, students will plan how to creatively and effectively represent demographic data of a formerly redlined community as it relates to housing and infrastructure quality, land use, exposure to environmental hazards, and rates of homeownership in the city of Wilmington. Upon completion of this supplemental unit, students will be more able to write argument essays in response to the larger unit’s essential question: Has the American Dream of homeownership been a false promise?

(Developed for English Language Arts, grade 11; recommended for English Language Arts and Social Studies, grades 9-12)

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