Sickle Cell Disease and Health Justice

This unit was created by Nicole Clark, a Social Studies teacher at Two Rivers Public Charter School in Washington, D.C., as part of the fall 2020 Pulitzer Center Teacher Fellowship program on Arts, Journalism, and Justice. It is designed for facilitation across approximately four 90-minute class periods, or eight 45-minute class periods.

Objectives:

Students will be able to...

• Describe the origins of sickle cell and explain what sickle cell is and how it affects the body BY analyzing infographics (Day 1)
• Identify injustices that people with sickle cell endure BY watching a short documentary and determining the values, identities, and actions (Day 2)
• Increase awareness  of sickle cell disease BY creating a found poem from the point of view of a sickle cell (Day 3)
• Increase awareness of the injustices related to sickle cell disease BY creating a poster (Day 4)

The essetial questions for this unit are:

• What is social justice and why is it important?
• Can an image change someone’s mind? Can it create new perspectives?
• How can you make a difference?

Unit Overview:

In this lesson, students will use sources gathered through journalism to identify the injustices that people with sickle cell disease endure, and create art (poetry and poster) to not only bring awareness to the disease, but also the injustices people experience as a result of the lack of awareness about the disease. Students will read and watch multiple texts across mediums on the same subject (sickle cell) to increase their knowledge of the disease and to prepare for their performance tasks: writing a poem that demonstrates their understanding of the disease and increases awareness, and creating a poster to bring more awareness to the injustices related to the disease.

Resources for Facilitating this Unit:

• Daily activities and performance task guidelines
• Examples of student work
  • Reflections on the values, identities, and actions represented in the documentary "My Blood"
  • Found poems about sickle cell disease written in response to "My Blood"
  • Posters to raise awareness about sickle cell disease and related injustices

Performance Task:

After completing this unit with students, educators may adapt this summative assessment to evaluate student learning. Read below for examples of reflections written by students at Two Rivers Public Charter School after completing this unit in fall 2020:

"We all deserve justice and fairness. This directly correlates to health because Black people with sickle cell are not being treated fairly, and they need fairness no matter what their skin color is."

"Art can help people be aware, and if they are aware of an issue, then they can get justice for it."

"Some people are treated unjustly because their state of health isn't understood or known."

"Justice can be conveyed and understood through art."