This unit helps guide teachers with some and little experience with journalism to help high-school students find stories that challenge preconceived notions of race while developing their skills with research and writing. Essentially, students will be able to gather, evaluate, and synthesize information to produce news articles that provide their school communities with socially conscious insights.

This unit was designed for a high-school journalism class to accomplish what Cati de los Ríos and other authors articulate in “Critical 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.” 

Students will learn how to see race and produce accurate articles and editorials. As students engage with mentor texts that present a race-conscious perspective grounded in facts and committed to accuracy over fairness, they’ll learn how to write about situations in a way that promotes empathy and insight about the systemic issues that perpetuate inequality. More importantly, they’ll learn about the importance of including a person’s agency in their reporting.

(Developed for Journalism, grades 11-12; recommended for Journalism and English, grades 9-12)