Classroom Activities
Activity One
To begin this unit, I want students to think about themselves and how they may have been activists in the past. I will develop a prompt something along the lines of: “Think about and describe a time in your life when you have stood up for someone by speaking out or taking action.” Students can then reflect on what they have already done to help a friend, right a wrong, or call attention to a situation that may need fixing. They may not think about themselves as activists, but this would help them to start thinking about that term in a more personal way, thinking about their actions that they may have already taken.
Activity Two
One of the next early activities that students will engage with is a chapter in a pamphlet from Daniel Hunter that discusses organizing to protest mass incarceration. Writing specifically about Mass Incarceration, his chapter talks about the roles in organizing which he outlines as the helper, advocate, rebel, and organizer. After reading the introductory material together as a class, I will divide the class into four roughly even segments and groups of four and then assign each group one of the roles. The students will be tasked with reading additional details about each role and preparing an information poster that includes a title, appropriately detailed text explaining the role, and a symbol or drawing that relates. Once the posters are complete each group will present their information to the rest of the class, which will compile the information into a graphic organizer that I provide.[28]
After the presentation have been made, students will be paired with others and will have a conversation about what role they see in their partner. Students may not know each other well at the start of the year but will be tasked with having a conversation that allows them to develop that opinion about others. After some time to share and discuss in pairs students will be moved into groups of four so that they can share what they have learned about each other’s opinions.
Activity Three
Another activity that I plan to use while teaching this unit is to have students create biographies of student activists. In order get as much breadth as possible they will not get to choose their subjects in this activity, but will rather draw names from a hat or use some other randomization process. Each student will research their activist and then complete a biographical poster that includes:
- Name and age
- Background (where born, education, family life, etc.)
- What change they are working towards
- A list of accomplishments
- Continuing goals of their activism
- A quote
- A drawing of their person
When the posters are complete students will present them cooperatively to at least three other students. This can be done any number of ways that a teacher is comfortable with, I like to again have some randomization by putting students into two parallel lines and having them present to the person across from each other. One could also use playing cards, or different color index cards, or whatever. The point is to have each student use this as an opportunity to teach other students about the activist that they researched. Once the sharing and presenting is finished students will write a short paragraph about what they have learned, including specifically what the activists have in common with each other.
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