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LESSON SET FOR 7TH GRADE

TEACHING PRIVILEGE

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS What is privilege? What does it mean to have privilege? Lesson Two: Analyzing Privilege, Part I

Guiding Questions: Who is represented in advertisements and how are they represented? What are examples of institutional oppression in our society? How do advertisements serve to reflect and perpetuate privilege? Materials: Data from students assignment from yesterday Eight stations with Eight computers; there should be two computers/link below: o Poverty Rate by Race/Ethnicity http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/poverty-rate-by-raceethnicity/?state=WI#map o Incarceration Rate by Race/Ethnicity http://www.sentencingproject.org/map/map.cfm#map o Graduation Rate at West High School by Race/Ethnicity http://data.dpi.state.wi.us/data/HSCompletionPage.aspx?GraphFile=HIGHSCHOO LCOMPLETION&SCounty=47&SAthleticConf=45&SCESA=05&FULLKEY=0232690 40840&SN=West+Hi&DN=Madison+Metropolitan&OrgLevel=sc&Qquad=performa nce.aspx&Group=RaceEthnicity&CompareTo=CURRENTONLY&TmFrm=4 o Unemployment Rate by Race/Ethnicity http://www.deptofnumbers.com/unemployment/demographics/ MMSD Curriculum Performance Standards Connections History o (4)Interpret and evaluate sources of information present in graphs, charts, maps, timelines, etc (S) o Processes and SkillsAssess multiple sources, recognizing perspectives and bias Political Science o Processes and SkillsAnalyze and evaluate local, state, tribal, national, and international problems and issues. o Processes and SkillsParticipate in civic discourse o Processes and SkillsEvaluate, take, and defend positions Economics o Processes and SkillsGather and interpret economic information o Processes and SkillsPrepare and use tables, charts, and graphs o Processes and SkillsUse economic information to make personal decisions, organize productive activities, and evaluate government economic policies Behavioral Sciences

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(4)Use concepts such as role, status, and social class in describing the interaction of individuals and social groups. (P) (8)Identify and interpret examples of stereotyping, conformity, propaganda, and racism.

MMSD Curriculum Essential Skills Connections Gather information o Record information by taking notes, making audio-or videotapes, mapping, sketching, or photographing Organize Information o Classify items in categories, find patterns o Summarize information from reading, interviews, questionnaires and other sources. o Describe artifacts and observations o Separate relevant information from irrelevant information Analyze Information: o Identify information relevant to the topic o Identify unstated assumptions. o Identify similar information from a number of sources. o Analyze the values implied in the sources of information. o Analyze sources for gender bias and stereotypes. o Analyze the authenticity and validity of sources. o Identify trends, causes, and effects o Identify gaps in the information Integrate Information: o Combine information, selecting important information to summarize o Modify and reconstruct information Generate Information o Use inductive skills to arrive at a new organization of knowledge or a new perspective Evaluate Information and Outcomes o Set standards or decision-making criteria to judge the information o Use evaluation criteria to confirm the truth or worth of an idea or decision o Judge the consistency, adequacy, and value of the information by external standards Communicate information o Prepare information for a specific audience o Give reasons for choosing and rejecting information o Use a variety of forms of information o Quote statistical data o Present evidence to argue in support or against the issue under consideration o Explain the choice of data or information Participation Skills o Keep informed about societal issues o Identify situations in which a decision is required. o Use a decision-making process. o Determine when it is appropriate to express and act out of personal convictions o Work individually and with others to determine a course of action o Show respect for the views of others o Make a choice after listening to others NCSS Strands (1) Culture

Lesson Objectives SWBAT analyze the representation of identities in the advertisements they consume SWBAT discuss how the theme of intersectionality was present in their advertisement viewing and discussion SWBAT distinguish trends in poverty rates, incarceration rates, graduation rates, and unemployment rates in Wisconsin SWBAT assess how the advertisements they analyzed served to reflect and perpetuate privilege. SWBAT evaluate identities that were lacking representation in the lesson. Lesson Context This is the second lesson in the Teaching Privilege unit. In the previous lesson, students built a common language for discussing privilege, learning definitions for intersectionality, privilege, and oppression. This is the first part of a two part lesson. In this lesson, students will be studying trends of oppression in American society, analyzing them with an institutional oppression lens. Students will also be critiquing the privilege that accompanies these oppressions. Lesson Opening: Analyzing Advertisement Investigation Results Once in class, I will check to see students recorded data from their homework assignment. Then, students will be instructed to split into groups based on the identities they chose to analyze. Designate different areas of the room for students to move to based on the identities (ie. If you analyzed race, come by the board). Students will most likely be in extremely uneven groups. Race and gender may be some of the larger groups. Some identities may be unrepresented, and some identities may only have one student. Once students are in their initial groups, divide students up into smaller groups of 2-3 students. If some identities only have one student, pair those students up, even though they have different identity categories.

Through experience, observation, and reflection, students will identify elements of culture as well as similarities and differences among cultural groups across time and place. (3) People, Places, and Environments o Apply knowledge to social, cultural, economic, and civic issues (5) Individuals, Groups, and Institutions o Institutions are the formal and informal political, economic, and social organizations that help us carry out, organize, and manage our daily affairs. o Students should know how institutions are formed, what controls and influences them, how they influence individuals and culture, and how institutions can be maintained or changed. o Students identify those institutions that they encounter. o Students should be given the opportunity to examine various institutions that affect their lives and influence their thinking. (6) Power, Authority, and Governance o Through the study of the dynamic relationship between individual rights and responsibilities, the needs of social groups, and concepts of a just society, learners become more effective problem-solvers and decision-makers when addressing the persistent issues and social problems encountered in public life. (7) Production, Distribution, and Consumptions o Students will study factors that influence decision-making on issues of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods. (10) Civic Ideas and Practices o Students will explore how individuals and institutions interact o Students will recognize and respect different points of view. o

 Once student are in their small groups, have them discuss their results using the following questions they were given yesterday: What type of media use did you engage in? How long did you engage in it? How many advertisements did you see? What identity category did you analyze for? What identities were represented, how often were they represented, and how were they represented? After students discuss in their small groups, inform them that they will be sharing with the large group. Students should collaborate to pick out themes they want to share. Each group will give about a one minute summary of the themes they found. Students will most likely find themes that reflect society at large. For example, when I did this activity, I watched TV and analyzed for gender. Women were often portrayed as taking care of men. Commercials about food were target for women, and women were cooking and serving food to men. In addition, white women were often portrayed as home owners. There were only two commercials featuring black women when I watched. In one, the black woman was portrayed as middle class. In the other, the black woman was heavier set and portrayed as lower class. The commercial was for Wal- Mart breakfast sandwiches, and the advertisement claimed that Wal-Mart breakfast sandwiches were cheaper than having fast food breakfast every morning. Just as I found all of these themes, students will most likely find many intersections of identities. Discuss student results as a whole class. How did intersectionality come up in their viewing? Procedural Steps **Transition** Great, so, moving into todays lesson, who can remind me of our essential questions for this unit? Have students read essential questions, which should be displayed on the board or in the room. Instruct students that we are going to be exploring different aspects of privilege today. Ask students to read guiding questions, which should also be displayed on the board. Instruct students that since weve already talked a little bit in our groups about who is represented in advertising and how they are represented, now we are going to be looking at how advertisements serve to reflect and perpetuate privilege. As many of you noticed in your viewing, individuals of different races are portrayed quite differently in advertising. Today, we are going to be analyzing racial trends in American society. As we see these trends, I am going to ask you to use a lens of institutional oppression to understand these statistics. For example, one of the things we are going to look at today is incarceration rates. Now if we find one racial group having higher rates of incarceration, rather than thinking people of that race are criminals and bad, I want us to ask, What is going on in our society today that would cause more people of a certain rate to be in jail? We not going to blame individuals; we are going to use our institutional oppression lens and look at surrounding social causes. What questions do you have about that? The classroom will be divided in half. On each half of the class there will be four stations (eight in all). Each station will have a computer with the following web sources pulled up: Poverty Rate by Race/Ethnicity: Students will compare poverty rates in Wisconsin by racial group (White, Black, Hispanic, Other, Total), to other states in the nation. http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/poverty-rate-by-raceethnicity/?state=WI#map

Incarceration Rate by Race/Ethnicity: Students will compare incarceration rates in Wisconsin to other states in the nation and the national rates. Rates are represented as Black: White and Hispanic : White ratios. Students may also see rates of felon disenfranchisement (Total, and Black). http://www.sentencingproject.org/map/map.cfm#map Graduation Rate by Race/Ethnicity at West High School: Students will compare graduation rates of students at West high school, the the high school the middle school feeds into. Racial groups represented include American Indian, Asian, Black, Hispanic, Pacific Islander, White, Biracial/Multiracial. Using the website, students can compare this to district and state data. http://data.dpi.state.wi.us/data/HSCompletionPage.aspx?GraphFile=HIGHSCHOOLCOMPL ETION&SCounty=47&SAthleticConf=45&SCESA=05&FULLKEY=023269040840&SN=West +Hi&DN=Madison+Metropolitan&OrgLevel=sc&Qquad=performance.aspx&Group=RaceEt hnicity&CompareTo=CURRENTONLY&TmFrm=4 Unemployment Rate by Race/Ethnicity: Students will compare unemployment rates between races (White, Black, Hispanic/Latino, Asian). Website can also be used to look at unemployment by education level, age, and gender. http://www.deptofnumbers.com/unemployment/demographics/

The students will be divided in half, and then in groups of 2-3. In small groups, students will travel from station to station, using exploring the sources provided. Students will have about 6 minutes at each station. While at the stations, students will discuss and answer the following questions, using the institutional oppression framework: What trends did do you notice? Who is being oppressed? What is oppressing them? Who is privileged? Why? Students will be instructed to use the definitions from their vocabulary to analyze trends. Students will be instructed to record their answers from each station. Student answers will include that people of color have higher poverty rates, incarceration rates, and unemployment rates, and lower graduation rates. Because of this, white privilege serves to benefit whites in having high class status, lower incarceration rates, higher employment rates, and higher graduation rates. From this activity, students will return to the groups used at the beginning of the lesson, when analyzing advertisement trends. Students will be instructed to apply the knowledge they just learned to their analysis of watching advertisements. How do the larger social trends help explain advertising? How do advertisements serve to reflect and perpetuate privilege? Student answers should include making connections between their finding and the data. For example, in my findings, the only product marketed to the lower class was marketed by a black woman. This is backed up by the sociological trend that African Americans have higher poverty rates. White Americans tend to have higher socioeconomic status, so more products were marketed to them because they have more money to spend. Students will have several minutes to discuss with their group, and prepare thoughts to share with the class. Each group will formally share their ideas with the class. Lesson Closure: Whole Group Discussion

Students will share their thoughts, describing how the advertisements they analyzed serve to reflect and perpetuate privilege. Then, as a group, I will ask students, In the activities and discussions weve engaged in today, whose representations were lacking? Students should be able to identify different racesAsian wasnt always represented, and black seemed to be focused on more than Hispanic. Gender wasnt well-represented; ability and religion were not focused on at all. Remind students that just like we saw yesterday, as soon as we start focusing on just one aspect of someones identity, we start losing individual complexity. Discuss how sometimes this is necessary when analyzing social trends, but its always important to keep in mind the representations that are lacking and the limits of our analysis. Thank students for their hard work today. Tell students that as today we looked a lot at oppression, tomorrow, we will be studying more about privilege. For tomorrow, instruct students to bring in an advertisement from a magazine they read or one that is at home. We will be analyzing this advertisement tomorrow in class. Timing: 50 minutes Assessment Strategies Informal: I will informally assess students participation by circulating the room while students are engaged in discussion and activities as small groups. Formal: I will formally assess students completion of their homework by checking to see if their data is turned in. I will formally assess students understanding of advertisement representation, institutional oppression, and privilege in advertising by evaluating the group share at the end of the lesson. Understanding will be assessed based on depth and complexity of answer. Application to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy 1. Cultural Relevance: Students begin the lesson by analyzing trends in their own advertisement viewing. Then, students analyze social trends in Wisconsin. 2. Academic Rigor: For homework, students will have tallied and analyzed their media viewing. Through this lesson, students are challenged to organize, analyze, integrate, generate, and communicate information. Students will participate in small group discussions. Students will present ideas and findings with a small group to the class. Students will meet history, political science, economics, behavioral science, cultural, people, places, and environments, individuals groups and institutions, power authority and governance, production, distribution and consumption, and civic ideas and practices standards. 3. Critical Consciousness: Students will critically assess the identities they find represented in advertisements. Students will build knowledge on institutional oppression in the form of racism, studying inequities in poverty rates, incarceration rates, graduation rates, and unemployment rates. Students will study how institutional oppression relates to privilege. Students will analyze how advertisements serve to reflect and perpetuate privilege. Through this, students are developing a their critical thinking skills, helping them be informed and critical media consumers.