A great resource to educate young adults on hate and discrimination is literature. There are many young adult literature books that deal with ranges of issues from racism to gender hate crimes. It is in these novels that characters are able to address the issue of discrimination in hopes of fighting against it. These stories give hope to young adults living under the torture of discrimination. Many times students accept the harassment they receive. It is important for these students to know that there are options in standing up to discrimination.
To encourage students to think about the destruction of hate and discrimination, I have planned a curriculum based on young adult literature and classroom activities. These tools will be used to educate students on the reality of discrimination around them. Students will also be given ideas as to prevent acts of hate and discrimination. They will be expected to not only identify discrimination in the literature they read, but also in current events in media around them.
One focus of this unit will be on the autobiography of Anne Moody titled Coming of Age In Mississippi. This book is the story of an African-American woman growing up in Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement. It tracks her involvement in fighting against racism and hate. This story realistically describes the torture of dealing with discrimination everyday. This book will be taught to give students a clear understanding of hate in historical times. The next focus of the unit will be on WhaleTalk, by Chris Crutcher. This novel will be read so that students will understand discrimination is not merely a thing of the past. This novel deals with racism and prejudice when it addresses the different cliques that form in high school. Through this book students will be confronted with the reality of discrimination in high schools like theirs, and among teenagers like themselves. The characters in this book will force readers to think about the consequences of prejudices and acts of hate. In bringing attention these serious issues, students will be aware of the power of hate.
Launching the Unit
1. Before beginning the reading of both novels have students define in their own words racism, prejudice, and discrimination. Once they define these terms themselves, have students look up actual definitions. Next, have a discussion on where students see discrimination and hate. Is it a thing of the past, or can they see it in current events today?
2. Next pass out handouts of quotations on hate and discrimination. Have students work in groups (each group gets 2 quotations each) to discuss their thoughts and analyses of the quotations. After five-six minutes of group discussion, each group will present to the class their thoughts on their assigned quotations.
Quotations taken from http://home.att.net/~quotations/quotes.html
(Possible extra credit: have students find their own quotations on hate and/discrimination and write a one-page response to it.)
Before reading Coming of Age in Mississippi or Whale Talk present hate crime facts to class. Before telling students the facts, have students give their ideas as to how often hate crimes occur. Once students throw around ideas, present them with the following facts. Facts taken from http://www.tolerance.org
Everyhour * Someone commits a hate crime Every day * at least eight blacks, * three whites, * three gays, * three Jews * and one Latino become hate crime victims. Every week * a cross is burned. Have students discuss their original guesses compared to the statistics they learn. Since students are now aware of the occurrence of hate crimes, have them discuss locations of hate crimes. Do they think hate crimes occur mostly in the south? Mostly in rural or urban areas? After this discussion present locations of hate groups in the United States with map handout.
Hate group locations taken from http://www.tolerance.org
Using handout, have students locate the hate organization near them. Have discussion in which students talk about their feelings of living near hate groups.
1. Read Coming of Age in Mississippi and Whale Talk. I recommend that Coming of Age in Mississippi be read first, and Whale Talk second. The first novel should be read at a slower pace, whereas the second novel can be read more quickly. Throughout the reading of both novels have students record the hate crimes they read about in a journal. During this period also have students record any acts of discrimination they see or hear. (This could be in their own lives or in the media) Some discussion questions/ideas about the novels are as follows
2. Play the song "Don't Laugh at Me" by Mark Wills. Have students discuss the images they pictured, and the emotions they felt when they listened to the song's lyrics. What did the song make students think of?
Song lyrics were taken from http://www.lyrics.com
"Don 't Laugh At Me" Lyrics
Artist: Mark Wills
I'm a little boy with glasses/The one they call the geek
A little girl who never smiles/'Cause I've got braces on my teeth
And I know how it feels/To cry myself to sleep
I'm that kid on every playground/Who's always chosen last
A single teenage mother/Tryin' to overcome my past
You don' t have to be my friend/ But is it too much to ask?
Don't laugh at me/Don't call me names
Don't get your pleasure from my pain/In God' s eyes we're all the same
Someday we'll all have perfect wings/Don't laugh at me
I'm the cripple on the corner/You've passed me on the street
And I wouldn't be out here beggin'/If I had enough to eat
And don't think I don't notice/That our eyes never meet
I lost my wife and little boy when/Someone crossed that yellow line
The day we laid them in the ground/Is the day I lost my mind
And right now I'm down to holdin'/This little cardboard sign... so
Don't laugh at me/Don't call me names
Don't get your pleasure from my pain/In God's eyes we're all the same Someday we'll all have perfect wings/
Don't laugh at me
I'm fat, I'm thin, I'm short, I'm tall/ I'm deaf, I'm blind, hey, aren't we all?
Don't laugh at me/Don't call me names
Don't get your pleasure from my pain/In God's eyes we're all the same Someday we'll all have perfect wings/
Don't laugh at me
5. Read the poem "Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou. Have students discuss the journey of overcoming something. Students can share personal examples. Students should write a response poem, in which they write about Angelou's bravery. "Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou was taken from http://www.empirezine.com
"Still I Rise"
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got goldmines.
Diggin' in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with you rhatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise? That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meetings of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history 's shame Irise up from a past that' s rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
1. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings liberates the reader into life simply because Maya Angelou confronts her own life in such a moving wonder, such a luminous dignity. I have no words for this achievement, but I know that not since my days of childhoods, when people in books were more real than the people one saw every day, have I found myself so moved (James Baldwin writes on the back cover of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings). 2. The Color Purple by Alice Walker: The Color Purple is about the life of Celie, a Black woman growing up in the South. She must overcome misogyny, racism and poverty to establish herself as an independent person. The novel also follows the maturation of her sister Nettie and the lives of Shug, Albert, and much of his extended family. http://www.gradesaver.com
3. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor: Set in Mississippi in 1933, the story covers twelve turbulent months in the life of the Logans, a Black land-owning family. The narrator is Cassie Logan, an independent-minded, nine -year-old girl who questions the social situation that requires her to be subservient to the local white families -- even to the point of accepting physical assault by Charlie Simms, for whose daughter Cassie refused to give way on the sidewalk. The Logans had bought their land during the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, but the original owners, the Grangers, are attempting to get it back by fair means or foul. A number of incidents, including the firing of Mary Logan (a progressive teacher) by the White school board, depict the difficulties and apparent powerlessness of the Black population who, in this locale, are mainly sharecroppers. www.scholar.lib.vt.edu/journals
4. Name Me Nobody by Lois-Ann Yamanaka: Emi-Lou knows she isn't like the rest of the girls in her high school; for one thing, her mother abandoned her, she has never known her dad, and the popular girls in her Hawaiian town are all thin and Japanese and prone to calling her nasty names. Emi-Lou's best friend Yvonne is her savior, helping her with makeovers and tough talk. But when Yvonne gets crushed out on a girl, Emi-Lou freaks. This compelling novel explores issues around gender, sexuality, and racism, all the while delivering a powerful story about being a teen. www.teenreads.com
5. Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Chris Crutcher
"An obese boy and a disfigured girl suffer the emotional scars of years of mockery at the hands of their peers. They share a hard-boiled view of the world until events in their senior year hurl them in very different directions. A story about a friendship with staying power, written with pathos and pointed humor." http://ya.barringtonlibrary.org/tolerance.html
6. Ghost Boy by Iain Lawrence: A troupe of circus "freaks" befriends a young albino dubbed" Harold the Ghost" in this extraordinary story of friendship and loss. (A greatbook for the right student, someone who will stick with it's long and a bit slow but poetic. http://ya.barringtonlibrary.org/tolerance.html
1. Have students choose a book from above (or another novel, approved by teacher) to read and present on. Students must stick with the theme of ate/discrimination. After theyhave read their book, they will present their finding to the class. 2. Students will write an essay on the importance of knowing about hate and/or discrimination. This essay should include what they have learned, and how this will help them in the future. As a creative writing, students can create a short story or play that has a story line of hate. 3. The last requirement of this unit is that students share their final essay (what they have learned) with someone outside of the classroom. This helps them pass on the knowledge they have learned.
Angelou, Maya. I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.
Crutcher, Chris. Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes.
Moody, Anne. Coming of Age in Mississippi.
Walker, Alice. The Color Purple.
Author Unknown. The Barrington Public Library. http://ya.barringtonlibrary.org/tolerance.html
Author Unknown. Quotes from Famous People. http://www.tolerance.org/
Unknown Author
http://www.scholar.lib.vt.edu/journals
Unknown Author. Tolerance.org: Fight hate and Promote Tolerance. Montgomery, Al. 2004
http://www.tolerance.org/
Unknown Author. "Music for your Head."
http://www.lyrics.com
Author Unknown. Empire:zine A Writers Cookbook. http://www.empirezine.com
Grade Saver : Editing Services and Literature Study Guides. GradeSaver.com. 22 March 2005 . http://www.gradesaver.com
Unknown Author. www.teenreads.com.