Elizabeth Maley

Assignment 2

When it comes to teaching high school English students about discrimination and the

mistreatment of others, I wouldn’t want to just do a quick activity but rather I want students to

walk away thinking. Now going along with the lines of discrimination I would also talk about the

differences between culture and race. My plan would be to start the lesson by having students

write down any experiences they might have had dealing with discrimination and if they have

not had a personal experience, they could talk about any experiences they have heard or seen

from peers or from the media. After this we would begin a discussion on culture vs. race to see

what students know going into the first part of the lesson, the next part would be an activity that

goes over the differences between culture and race. Finally, to end this first part of the lesson I

would have students complete an assignment telling me about their and their family’s cultures,

this assignment would also include a question on how their culture is different from the

stereotypes surrounding their race. For the second part of this dual lesson the plan would be to

have students read certain passages from the book Disability Visibility, which is a collection of

17 story’s written by people wanting to share their story’s. Following these story’s, I would have

students jot down things they learned than either I myself will read or the audio book recording

for parts of the book Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice. I would choice to use this this book

due as it combines elements of poetry as well as having people of color discuss activism,

discrimination, and justice. I feel that this would work great for these students as it would show

them there are so many different perspectives of the world. To finalize this portion of the lesson I

would have students participate in a group discussion talking only about what they learned

during this lesson.