This unit was created by Maria Solis, a high school ELA teacher at Benito Juarez Academy in Chicago, IL, as part of the Spring 2021 Pulitzer Center Teacher Fellowship program on Journalism and Justice. It is designed for facilitation across approximately five 45-minute class periods.
For more units created by Pulitzer Center Teacher Fellows in this cohort, click here.
Objectives
Students will be able to…
- Compare their lived experiences based on gender to the lives of those they read in the texts.
- Analyze the way in which writing can be a form of justice when other forms of justice fail.
- Compose a piece that raises awareness on gender related issues.
Unit Overview:
This 5-day unit is centered around the themes of gender roles, gender related issues, justice, and the power of writing. In order to dive into these themes the lessons will be centered around essential questions in relation to these themes.
- How does culture affect gender roles?
- What does justice look like for victims and survivors of gender based violence at a national and global level?
- How is justice different for minority communities at a national and global level?
- How can writing be used as a form of justice when other forms fail?
Through these questions, students will be able to reflect on their own lived experiences through the lens of gender. This will also allow the students to discuss topics of gender inequity that are experienced globally. Through these lessons and discussions, students will be able to gain a perspective of the disparities that still exist in the world and think of ways in which these disparities can be addressed to create a just world for everyone. Then students willpractice different forms of writing from poetry to informative pieces to spread awareness about a gender related issue.
The unit begins with a lesson in writing, followed by a discussion on underreported stories. Then students will read an article on gender violence on the US-Mexico border and analyze Disappearing Daughters, a multimedia project that uses poetry to redefine justice for victims of femicide in Mexico. Finally, students will write poems, social media posts, or craft a presentation on gender-related issues in their own communities, nationally, or globally.
Performance Task
Students will demonstrate how powerful writing can amplify/uplift underrepresented voices by choosing to write a poem, social media post, or craft a presentation that draws attention to a global or local gender related issue. Students can focus their writing on the general topic of gender related issues or they may select a specific gender issue to address (ex: pay disparity, femicides, gender roles, etc). Students will work in groups to choose a topic and craft their writing piece.
Unit Plan
Complete five-day unit plan including warm-ups, resources, discussion questions, and activities
Performance Task
Students will demonstrate how powerful writing can amplify/uplift underrepresented voices by choosing to write a poem, social media post, or craft a presentation that draws attention to a global or local gender related issue. Students can focus their writing on the general topic of gender related issues or they may select a specific gender issue to address (ex: pay disparity, femicides, gender roles, etc). Students will work in groups to choose a topic and craft their writing piece.
Student Work
This packet is used to capture student work throughout the unit.
Common Core Standards
Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language of a court opinion differs from that of a newspaper).
Analyze various accounts of a subject told in different mediums (e.g., a person's life story in both print and multimedia), determining which details are emphasized in each account.
Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; identify false statements and fallacious reasoning.
Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, description, reflection, and multiple plot lines, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.
Use precise words and phrases, telling details, and sensory language to convey a vivid picture of the experiences, events, setting, and/or characters.
Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
Propel conversations by posing and responding to questions that relate the current discussion to broader themes or larger ideas; actively incorporate others into the discussion; and clarify, verify, or challenge ideas and conclusions.
Respond thoughtfully to diverse perspectives, summarize points of agreement and disagreement, and, when warranted, qualify or justify their own views and understanding and make new connections in light of the evidence and reasoning presented.
REPORTING FEATURED IN THIS LESSON PLAN
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Lesson Plans
Finding & analyzing underreported news stories: Critical thinking, text analysis and writing
Students explore news articles and instructional videos to evaluate how they can find and analyze under-reported stories in the news, and in their own communities
