Respecting Diversity – a Road to Understanding

Lesson Title:  Respecting Diversity – a Road to Understanding

6th-8th Grade

Subjects: Arts, Language Arts, Library / Technology, Philanthropy and Social Studies

Key Words/Concepts 

Purpose:

Learners will define prejudice, bias, racism, and stereotype so that they will have the necessary skills to analyze the effects these attitudes have on society.

Learners will identify how acts of philanthropy worked to defeat bias, prejudice, racism or stereotyping.

Duration:

Two Fifty Minute Class Periods

Objectives:

The learner will:

• define the vocabulary words bias, prejudice, stereotype and racism and give an example of each.
• With their group, add their own vocabulary words suggested by this video (e.g., conformity, consumerism (McBean’s sales pitch), bandwagon, “group think”, name-calling, exclusion, instant gratification)
• identify various groups who have historically struggled to win the right to be heard.  
• identify an act of philanthropy in the struggle to achieve the right to be heard  
• analyze the effects of the various forms of prejudice on a society.

Materials:

• One copy of The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss (see Bibliographical References). The Sneetches video
• from a school collection or viewed via YouTube: https://youtu.be/Ea1myhXi82g
• Optimally, student group members can work collaboratively from a shared desktop computer (or laptops) so that they can refresh their memories of the video as they go through their discussions and build their PowerPoint.

Instructional Procedure(s):

• With the words the class suggested, including these: bias, prejudice, stereotype, and racism, on the board. Have the students work in their small groups to come up with a definition of each word. Provide the url for the online Merriam Webster: m-w.com, but tell them that their PowerPoint should include their own ideas and examples of what these terms mean in real life..
• Have one person, selected by each group, share the definition for one of the words with the class.
• Ask them to discuss (and review if they need to) , part of The Sneetches, posting the url where they can retrieve them:

• https://youtu.be/Ea1myhXi82g
• Ask learners to include in their PowerPoints examples of prejudice, bias, racism, and/or stereotype from the video. Optionally, Guide them to use the PowerPoint template you’ve loaded onto the classroom computers to enter their examples.  Tell them the group to decide collaboratively how to present their PowerPoint to the class following their creation.  (Explain that they may not find examples of each.)

• Have a spokesperson from each group share one of the group's examples with the whole class sharing their PowerPoint pages. Ask the learners to give an example of philanthropy from the story.
• Have learners return to groups to research different examples in history where individuals have been denied their rights due to discrimination. Research may be done on the Internet or in the library.
• Encourage each research group to come up with at least one example that has not yet been mentioned in class discussion. Add examples to the PowerPoint presentation.
• Share the PowerPoint with the research results with the whole class. Discuss the importance of including every voice, and ways in which society as a whole has benefited from the participation of those individuals formerly excluded.
• Discuss how the bias for or against stars affected the "Sneetches" society, and when/how/if they overcame this prejudice.
• Discover through learner responses how the story may have turned out if they had not been able to change their attitude

Assessment:

Have the group create two PowerPoint slides each (within the presentation they are building) describing a situation from the reading and one historical event from their research that demonstrates each of the four vocabulary words.

Paragraph Rubric

School/Home Connection:

Have the learners ask their parent/guardian to share with them any instance they know of that would demonstrate bias, racism, prejudice or stereotype. Have the students write these examples on a sheet of paper, in complete sentences, to add to their groups’ PowerPoint presentation.

Pick another Dr. Seuss story and create a PowerPoint about its social message:

Suggestions:

The Zax  https://youtu.be/1-iakbqcJEY

The Lorax  https://youtu.be/8V06ZOQuo0k

Bibliographical References:

Seuss, Dr. The Sneetches and Other Stories. New York: Random House, 1961.

Original Lesson Developed and Piloted by: Margaret Balyeat
Benton Harbor Area Schools
Creative Arts Academy
Benton Harbor, MI 49022    http://learningtogive.org/lessons/unit92/lesson1.html