The lesson plans and activities outlined in this section will take place over the course of a year. Each lesson described will take between 2-3 class periods. The scope and sequence of Social Justice Theatre is inspired by the work of Facing History and Ourselves (FHAO). FHAO is an international nonprofit educational and professional development organization. Their mission is to "engage students of diverse backgrounds in an examination of racism, prejudice, and antisemitism in order to promote the development of a more humane and informed citizenry".
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Their curriculum units follow the scope and sequence illustrated in the figure below.
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Figure 5. This figure illustrates the cycle and scope of any given Facing History and Ourselves course.
This organization designs units that engage students in exploring the historical roots of the Holocaust and other moments of genocide with the goal of inspiring students to make choices that will contribute to the building of a just world.
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To borrow Emily Style's metaphor, FHAO curriculum serves as both a window and mirror for students.
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To be sure that the learning environment is equitable for all students, the content must reflect students' experiences.
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Students need immersion in content that reflects their own experience, a mirror, and content that opens their eyes to the experience of others, a window.
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This provides students with a holistic learning experience, encouraging empathy. By including a rich selection of materials that cross cultures, students examine other perspectives but are still given the opportunity to see their own identity mirrored in the content. I will draw from this philosophy and implement strategies to teach my students about how their economic station in life shapes their identity and impacts the opportunities that they can access, specifically regarding higher education and career opportunities.
Strategies for Building a Positive Classroom Environment
After five years of implementing this curriculum, I have found that surest way to find success in rigorous conversations around identity is to set up a classroom climate that is safe for all students. Students will be reluctant to engage in classroom discussions if they feel as if their voice is not being heard or, worse yet, if they feel threatened by their peers or their teacher. There are several strategies that I use daily to create this classroom climate that is safe and productive.
Check-in
I begin each class with a check in, asking each student to share out how they are currently feeling. I provide limitations for the students. For example, I ask them to share their feeling in one word. Sometimes, I ask them to share how they are feeling as a color. This is especially helpful for students who are not prepared to be specific about their feelings. On this note, I allow students to pass if they do not feel like sharing out. I have found that when I do a check in each day, the students who decide to pass at the beginning eventually feel comfortable enough to be specific in the days to come.
These check-ins provide me with valuable information. I can take the temperature of my classroom within the first five minutes of class. This helps me to anticipate actions that I may be able to take to help the students who may be having an off day feel more comfortable. It also allows the students to hear how their peers are feeling.
Circles
If I am fortunate enough to arrive to my classroom before my students, I set the room up in a circle or horse shoe formation. If this is not possible, I ask the students to help me set up the room at the top. Students are used to sitting in rows, so this change is not always easy for them to make. Consistency is key. I have found that by the third week of class they are comfortable in the circle and making eye contact with their peers during conversations.
Chunking a Lesson and Reflection
The lessons outlined below are 90 minutes long. It is challenging for students to focus for that length of time. Furthermore, without breaks, students will struggle to retain the information that they are learning. By chunking a lesson and allowing time for students to reflect on the material, you will increase the likelihood that your students will retain and transfer the knowledge learned. I chunk my lessons using the Primacy-Recency effect. David Sousa describes this phenomenon in his book
How the Brain Learns
as the inclination for a person to remember best that which is taught to them first and last during a learning episode. There are three sections in a learning episode: prime-time 1, downtime, and prime-time 2.
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It is advised that new information be delivered to students in the first prime-time. Practice with the new information should occur during the downtime and closure should happen in the second prime-time. For longer blocks of time, it is best to divide learning episodes into smaller chunks of no less than 20 minutes. For example, in a 90-minute class period, I divide my lesson into four learning episodes. Halfway through the class, I give my students a “brain break”. It is during this break that I make announcements or collect homework. By breaking my lesson up in this way, the pace of my class moves quickly. It also gives me a structure to ensure that I am not talking at my students for the entire block. I try to arrange it so that only two of the four blocks are teacher lead, with the other two learning episodes consisting of student lead activities. This affords the students with multiple opportunities to interact with information in a variety of ways.
It is important to note that downtime does not mean a student break. For example, during the downtime, I may ask my student to reflect in their journals on the lesson using targeted questions. Sometimes I ask them to comment on the strategy I used to teach the content. Providing time for students to reflect on the strategy and offer feedback helps me determine how I can adjust the strategy to meet the needs of the student. Furthermore, through this reflection students can connect with how they learn by determining their strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, the student can determine which strategies will help them grow their working memory capacity.
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Ice Breakers
The first few weeks of class consist of ice-breakers and team building exercises. The purpose of these activities to break down walls between our group and to get students laughing and talking to each other. I participate in all activities. I found that in leading by example, I show the students that I am willing to step outside my comfort zone which encourages them to participate.
An example of an ice breaker that I use is called Blobs and Lines.
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In this exercise, the group is asked to line up in order according to a prompt. For example, ask everyone to line up in order of birthdays or height. You can also prompt the group to get into blobs of things that they have in common. For example, you can prompt students to group by only child versus siblings. This exercise encourages students to talk to each other around safe or mundane topics. It is a stepping stone towards conversations that may be more intense.
It is important to note that when organizing ice breakers to start with exercises that are easy and safe for students and then move towards ice-breakers that may be more intense. The first activity listed in Lesson one below would be considered an ice breaker that is more personal and perhaps more challenging for students to talk to each other about.
Lesson Number 1
Activity 1: In this lesson, students will identify the factors that compose their identities by creating identity maps that organize the qualities that make up their identity.
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An identity map is a graphic organizer much like a word web. The students name goes in a circle in the center of the page and then spokes come from the circle that have words to describe the individual. Prior to starting the map, it is useful to have a classroom discussion on the various things that make up a personality. I ask my students to call out these items and I create a list on the board. Students can then use this list to create their identity maps. Some items that are typically called out are: age, gender, race, and religion. Students almost always leave out their socio-economic status as an identifier. I typically volunteer this identifier for the students. And this identifier will serve as the focus for the remainder of the lesson.
Once the maps are created, students share their work with a neighbor. Students are prompted to look for similarities and differences in their identities. This is a powerful tool for building relationships across peers.
Following this share out, students will reflect in their journals by responding to the questions:
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Which aspects of your identity to do you determine for you self?
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Which aspects of your identity are determined by other people or society?
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Which aspects of your identity are out of your control?
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Which aspects are within your control?
Volunteers can then share out their responses. This conversation will transition into an investigation on economic status as determined by parental income level.
Activity 2: Students will analyze charted data on the probability of a child earning more than their parents’ by explaining the patterns they see in the data and make predictions for their birth cohort’s income.
Figure 6. This graph shows the decline in the percentage of children that earn more than their parents.
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Using the Think Pair Share strategy, students will analyze the patterns they see by answering the following questions in their journals:
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What story is being told in this chart?
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What predictions can you make about your generations future income?
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Why is it valuable to be aware of trends in children's income given parent's income?
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How does this information change the way you think about your identity?
Students will share their Reponses in small groups and then participate in a whole class, teacher lead discussion on the questions.
At this point it will be valuable to introduce the concept of intergenerational mobility, a child's chances of moving up the income ladder relative to that of their parents' income.
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For the closure, have students respond to the following questions on a slip of paper.
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What did we learn today?
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Why was this learning useful or relevant to you?
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How does this new knowledge change the way you think about your identity?
Lesson Number 2
Activity 1: The Penny Boat Challenge. This lesson opens in a small group activity that is a variation of the Penny Boat Challenge.
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Science teachers use this activity to explore buoyancy. I have adjusted how the materials are distributed to give students a real-world experience with inequality. The materials needed for this activity are:
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Roll of foil
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Masking tape
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Popsicle sticks
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A small bucket of water
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At least 100 pennies
I begin by dividing the students into groups of three or four. Once the groups are divided, I explain to the class that they will be participating in a competition for a prize. Each group will have ten minutes to build a boat using foil, tape, and popsicle sticks. The objective is to build a boat sturdy enough to hold more pennies than the other groups boats. At this point, I go around and distribute the materials. As I go around, I give some groups more materials than other groups. For example, I may give one group just a sheet of foil while I give another group foil, popsicle sticks, and tape. I also vary the amount of supplies I give to each group. I make this distribution as obvious as possible because I want the students to recognize that I am not distributing the materials equally. Typically, at this point students are commenting on how it is not fair. On my computer, I keep a document open where I record these comments. I continue to record students' comments as the move forward with the boat building, I do not attach student names to these comments. This document will be projected following the activity for a class discussion. Once the ten minutes is up, each group brings their boat to the bucket of water. I add the pennies to each boat until the boat sinks. Whichever groups boat holds the most pennies wins.
After this exercise, I project the document of students' comments and we discuss their experience. I use the following questions to guide this discussion:
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How did you feel as I distributed the materials?
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How did your feelings affect your group's process for boat building?
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How much control did you have over the materials you received?
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How does this connect to our previous discussion on children's incomes relative to parents' incomes?
Activity 2-Identity Map: At this point, I use an identity map to unpack the concept of inequality. As a whole class discussion have students call out words and phrases that they connect to the word inequality reminding students to consider the boat exercise to help trigger words and phrases. I record responses on the whiteboard. Once the web is complete, work as a class to develop one definition. You can then compare the students generated definition to Webster's definition of the word and adjust if necessary. I have found that constructing knowledge in this way helps make the work more meaningful to the student. It is important to guide the students in this process to develop a definition that is accurate.
Activity 3-Examining Inequality Charts: Introduce students to wealth and income inequality. Students will then examine graphs on income and wealth inequality in the United States and discuss the trends that they notice. Guiding questions for this discussion:
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What do you think it means to win the birth lottery?
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What types of opportunities do you think the 1% has access to that the bottom 50% may not have access to?
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How does income and wealth inequality affect upward mobility?
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Predict the types of interventions that may help close the inequality gap.
Closing activity-Chalk Talk: Students will participate in a Chalk Talk. A Chalk Talk is when questions are posted around the room. Students go to each question and respond with their answer. Students can create their own response or build off someone else's response. Questions:
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How does this information about economic inequality change the way you identify yourself?
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How does this information on economic inequality change the way you think others/society view you?
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Has this information changed the way you think about your future? Why or why not?
Lesson Number 3
Objectives: Students will deduce a variety of interventions to increase access to opportunity regardless of economic status by gathering information from J.D. Vance's story in his Ted Talk
America's Forgotten Working Class.
Students will hypothesize when it is best to implement interventions by comparing J.D. Vance's experience to a visual representation of the vicious cycle of inequality.
Activity 1: The lesson opens with a discussion on the concept of the birth lottery starting with an identity map for the term. Children do not have control over the economic status that they are born into and this facet of their identity is one influencing factor of the opportunities that a person can access.
After this discussion, students will Think-Pair-Share using the following guiding questions:
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What do you think it means to win the birth lottery?
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How can winning or losing the birth lottery shape your life? What types of opportunities do you win or lose access to?
Variations on this exercise: Students can work in groups to create visual representations of a person who won the birth lottery versus someone who lost the birth lottery. When doing an activity such as this, I allow my students to choose if they would like to draw, collage or use technology to create their visual. This can be a teaching moment to discuss stereotypes associated with various stations in life.
Activity 2: Students will now view the Ted Talk
America's Forgotten Working Class
by J.D. Vance.
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The purpose for watching this video is for students to see an example of a person who "lost the birth lottery" but through a variety of interventions was able to make educated choices for himself to climb the income ladder. The transcript of this Ted Talk will be printed and distributed to all students so that they can follow along with the video and take notes or highlight important information. While watching the video, students will take notes using a graphic organizer that is sectioned off in the following categories: Factors of his life that oppressed him, interventions that increased success, describe social capital, what do you know now that you didn't know before this video.
In his Ted Talk, Vance discusses his birth lottery and his journey towards upward mobility. He touches on the various aspects that oppress a child born into a family that is at the bottom of the income ladder, specifically social capital. Social capital is the informal network of people in your community and the knowledge that they can pass on to you. Social capital is valuable when it comes to making decisions about education or finances. He explains that his community in Ohio near the Appalachian Mountains taught him how to shoot a gun going on to explain that their knowledge "was not built for the 21
st
century." He concludes by sharing the interventions that helped push him upward, touching on the opportunities his grandparents helped him access early in life and the various mentors and programs that expanded his social capital.
Closing Activity: In small groups, students will look at a graphic of the vicious cycle of economic inequality and label where they feel specific interventions can be placed to increase opportunities to people born at the bottom of the income ladder. These visuals will be displayed, and students will do a Gallery Walk.
A Gallery walk is when students look at their peers' visual representations and using Post-It notes comment on the work they see. I use sentence starters to guide feedback such as:
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I was surprised to see _________ on your chart because ___________.
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I did not think of ____________ when planning my interventions.
Lesson Plan 4
Objective: Students will reflect on how economic inequality shapes their identity by considering the power money has over the range of choices that they can make regarding their future.
Activity 1: Text-to-Text, Text-to-Self, Text-to-World: This strategy works especially well with texts that have universal themes that students experience. It gives students a purpose for reading and gets them to practice making connections to text.
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There are three sections in this strategy, all with a different purpose.
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Text-to-Text: How do the ideas in this text remind you of another text (book, song, movie)?
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Text-to-Self: How do the ideas in this text relate to your own life, experiences, or ideas?
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Text-to-World: How do the ideas in this text relate to the larger world-past, present, and future?
The resources section of the Facing History website provides a useful worksheet for students. It is separated into the sections outlined below and provides three guiding questions for each section.
The text that I am using for this activity is Lyndon B. Johnson's commencement address for Howard University in 1965.
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In his speech he discusses the need to redefine the word equality. He touches on the ideas of equality of opportunity and the lottery of birth. I like to speeches in Social Justice theatre because it gives a student who enjoys acting an opportunity to take on a character and read aloud. For this activity, I will give the speech to a student in advance so that they can practice it at home before reading aloud to the class. Students will hear the speech and then re-read the text to answer the questions on their worksheet.
Following this exercise, students can share out their connections to the class. When orchestrating large group discussions, I draw names from a hat to determine who shares out. Using this process ensures that I am not calling on the same students repeatedly.
Activity 2-Gallery Walk: A gallery walk is when various items are displayed around the room. Students walk from piece to piece analyzing the item and taking notes. The items can range from visual art, quotes, or student work. It is valuable to provide students with a purpose for note taking, for example, a guiding question or graphic organizer. The guiding questions for this gallery walk are:
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What conclusions can you draw about equality of opportunity based on the data in the charts?
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How does knowing this information change the way you think about the choices you can make regarding your future?
The Brookings Institute compiled a series of 14 charts from Raj Chetty's
Equality of Opportunity Project.
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I will be using these charts as the material for my gallery walk. If it is possible, its more impactful if you can blow the images up. I plan to do that with this series of charts as they are easier seen when enlarged and in color. The charts I plan to include are:
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The Fading American Dream?
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The Geography of Upward Mobility
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Housing Vouchers Work, for Younger Children
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A good Kindergarten Teacher=Higher Earnings
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College Education Levels the Playing Field
Closing Activity: Students will write a journal entry that displays their understanding of equality of opportunity by responding to the following questions:
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How could your economic status hold you back from opportunity?
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Describe three things that could help you climb the economic ladder. Use evidence from previous lessons and the gallery walk to support your ideas.
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Develop a Theory of Action for yourself. A theory of action is a sentence that clearly states steps that can be taken to obtain a goal. For example, If I research accessible colleges that I can afford, then upward mobility will be more likely.
Lesson 5
Objective: Students will create neo-futuristic theatrical pieces suing texts, data, charts and case studies from this unit.
This lesson serves as the summative assessment for the year. The purpose of this assessment is for students to take what they have learned and find a creative way to present it to a public audience. In a way, they could potential increase the social capital of their audience who may not know that economic inequality is a cycle, a cycle that can be broken by leveling the playing field using various interventions.
I will provide students with a packet of materials to help frame their presentations and performances. It will include charts, excerpts of texts, and images explored throughout this course. It will also include a list of five ingredients that must be used in their presentation. Students will also receive a time limit for their presentations. Providing these limitations is helpful, especially for a novice theatre artist. Some students find it particularly challenging to create work when given an open-ended theme because the possibilities could be endless, which could be overwhelming.
These projects will be presented to a public audience and count as their final exam grade.