Barbara A. Sasso
Lecture: Power Point Presentation
This unit will help students explore data-based ways to achieve prosperity in a society that does not always offer equal opportunity to the poor or to minorities. It will connect to the themes presented in Lorraine Hansberry’s play,
A Raisin in the
Sun, but could be used in English Language Arts classrooms with a number of other literature books that depict disenfranchised people struggling to achieve the American Dream. The unit will begin with a Power Point presentation that will introduce data regarding prospects for the Younger family, based on the data above. One of the points to make here would be to teach students a bit about inflation, and how to assess the relative value of a home or college education in modern dollars.
My real question for students is, what about today? Can one’s life still be improved by moving to find a better job, better education, and a more just environment? What are the economic benefits of buying a home, going to college, or starting a business? The Power Point will be shared with students on my classroom blog and will include a number of websites students can later use for research, such as The Equality of Opportunity Project and the United States Census Bureau, among others. (See Resources.)
The Great Migration Series by Jacob Lawrence
Students will begin by learning more about The Great Migration. Lorraine Hansberry’s father was part of this migration, as are the older generation in
A Raisin in the Sun.
In the play, Lena Younger and her husband, Big Walter, moved away from lynching and racial violence in the South to give their children a better life. Can moving to a better town, with better, more equitable opportunities still make a difference?
A nice way of learning about this historic migration is by viewing and analyzing panels from Jacob Lawrence’s
Migration
series. The Museum of Modern Art in New York has an excellent website that includes not only the panels, but related primary documents, photographs, songs and poems that can enrich learning. (See Resources.) Analyzing complementary works of art in conjunction with language arts meets The Common Core English Language Arts standard, Integration of Knowledge and Ideas, and is a good way to convey the emotional impact of this journey to students – especially students who are low-level readers or English language learners.
Students can first view the entire series and gather facts about why people moved. Graphic organizers can be useful for students as they choose three particular panels to view and assess. Students first should objectively list the details of each the panel, then explain what the image tells them about the Great Migration, using the details to explain why the image conveys a message in a powerful way. Many African American students, especially those who live in the North, might also have family history that ties them to this migration, and should be encouraged to interview family members about their memories and share them with the class.
After assessing the information from the panels regarding jobs, housing and better education for children, students will research statistics that illustrate gains that African Americans experienced in this migration. They will also see that racism and discrimination persisted in the North, and that the migration was just one part of the journey, and that the struggle for greater economic equality still continues.
Can changing neighborhoods still make a difference? Students will continue their research to find graphs that illustrate the positive economic and social effects on children of moving to a better neighborhood and a better school. Students should also be encouraged to share their own family histories of parents struggling to move to find a better life. This would also include children of immigrants from other countries. Certainly many of my students have parents who took incredible risks to make their lives better. What are their stories?
Case Studies both Literary and Personal: College, Business, Home Ownership?
In the play,
A Raisin in the Sun
, a windfall of ten thousand dollars will potentially change the lives of the Younger family. However, by the end of the play, two thirds of that money is lost. What does remain are different dreams of prosperity and a relentless ambition to strive. Lena and Ruth Younger want a home in a better neighborhood. Walter Younger wants to start his own liquor store. Beneatha Younger has dreams of becoming a doctor. Are these viable means of achieving economic prosperity today?
For this part of the unit, I envision asking students to form groups that would research one of these paths and share their findings. Students should follow data over a span of about thirty years, which would include the recent Great Recession. For the demographics of my students, I would ask them to research data on minorities and discuss some of the barriers that still persist for them, including rising costs of college, discrimination in justice, housing and jobs, and neighborhoods plagued by violence, crime and bad schools. Can they succeed in their own lives?
Entrepreneurship and Business Ownership
Some of the key questions to pose to students for this section would be: Have minority-owned businesses overall been successful over the past three decades? What particular kinds of businesses have been the most promising? Where are successful businesses located in the United States? How much money does it take to start a particular kind of business? Where do people get money to start a business? What is necessary for a business to be successful? What are some of the reasons that minority-owned businesses often don’t thrive as strongly as white-owned businesses?
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Students can be asked to narrow their research by choosing a particular kind of business that they might want to start, and find relevant data. Their presentation ideally should include either a family member or a member of the community who is a business owner, something teachers can help facilitate.
Home Ownership and Neighborhood
This group would be researching housing prices in a particular neighborhood in our community over the past thirty years, including what happened when housing prices plummeted during the Great Recession. Depending on how ambitious students are, they could access town real estate records to find out how much a particular house sold for over the thirty-year scope of the project. The United States Census Bureau also lists median home prices in particular areas over time. Is buying a home still a good investment? In which neighborhoods do homes gain most value over time? How much money do you need to purchase a home? Where do people get this money? What other benefits are there to home ownership, such as mortgage interest tax deductions, improvements in credit scores, monthly savings over renting, and refinancing to access capital investment in the home?
In the play, Walter longs for not only his own success, but success for his young son Travis. Students in this group would also consider how neighborhoods and good schools have an economic impact on young children. Ideally, their presentation should also include a parent or community member who has come from a poor background and has moved on to home ownership to talk about his or her own experiences and challenges.
College or Post-Secondary Education
Of all these paths to prosperity, perhaps the one most challenging today not only for my students, but for all middle-class students, is the soaring cost of college education. It is becoming increasingly difficult for many of my students to see the value in a college education – or in many cases, to find the means to go to college at all. Many of my students will graduate high school without the education necessary to succeed in college, and indeed, many of my students struggle in their day-to-day lives and are not particularly academically motivated. In the play, Beneatha is striving to become a doctor, and certainly for academically-gifted students with ambition, becoming a doctor would be a path to economic prosperity. But what about other students? Is an undergraduate degree still a good choice? What about post-secondary training for the building trades, or for service or technical industries?
Students in this group would research data on salary levels of people who graduated from college and technical training schools, and compare these to salary levels for people who have only a high school degree, or did not complete high school. How have these statistics changed over thirty years? Is completing high school and college more important now than it was in the past? Which colleges do best in raising salaries for low-income people, based on the cost of the college? What kinds of grades, test scores and recommendations do you need to be accepted to college or technical training schools? How much do colleges cost, and what are some ways of getting money to go to college?
I teach across the hall from our school’s woodshop and auto repair classes. Almost every week I overhear these teachers discussing how many jobs are currently available in the building trades, technology, and service industries. Students in this group will be asked to find statistics about employment needs in these fields. They will also research local schools that offer training, and research the costs of these programs, as well as admission requirements.
As with the others, this group’s presentation should include someone to come and talk about his or her own experiences. In my school, guidance counselors meet with students to discuss college or post-secondary schools. This might be a good opportunity for guidance counselors to come to initiate that discussion. Family members or former students can be enlisted to come and tell their own stories. One of my former students recently took her nursing exams. Her story included two years at a community college in order to earn a scholarship at a four-year school, which gained her admission to a master’s program to prepare her for her boards. She beat the statistics and was on her way up out of poverty with a rewarding job and good future prospects.
How to Succeed Economically
The final part of this unit would be simply to ask students to write down and then discuss what they’ve learned about paths to economic success. What do they think are barriers to their own success? How might they work to overcome these barriers, both personally, and politically? What are the benefits of fighting for better schools, better neighborhoods, better job opportunities, and better training? What are the benefits of supporting and participating in school programs that offer mentorships and apprenticeships – or of being a mentor or good role model to others?