Unhomed: How Issues of Place Displace African Americans

This unit was created by Faydren Battle, a high school English Language Arts educator in Stone Mountain, Georgia, as part of the 2022-2023 Pulitzer Center Teacher Fellowship program. It is designed for facilitation across 20 45–90-minute class periods over the course four weeks, with work outside of class. For more units created by Pulitzer Center Teacher Fellows in this cohort, click here.

Objectives:

Students will be able to...

• Understand redlining, gentrification, environmental racism, inaccessibility of housing and other geography-related challenges experienced by Black Americans
• Conduct sustained research in order to answer a research question
• Integrate relevant information from multiple authoritative digital sources into an essay
• Create a faux social media post based on research

Unit Overview:

Students will analyze the enduring legacy of U.S. slavery, and gain insight into structural racism, by examining the impact of place on race, and vice versa. Topics students explore will include housing policies, housing access and affordability, environmental racism and climate concerns. Students will analyze selected articles from the Pulitzer Center, along with at least one additional research article, to research and present a project that explores at least one of the following questions:

• Option 1: How does race impact one’s physical environment in the U.S. and how can we combat inequities based on race at the local level?  
• Option 2: How does race impact how and where one exists in the U.S. and how can we combat this issue at the local level?  

Scope and Sequence:

• Background of issue and research question
• Close read (main idea, connections) articles from Pulitzer Center
• Conduct research, close read of research articles
• Write essay on their selected research topic
• Develop news report or TikTok on their selected research topic

To prepare for their final projects, students will also review strategies for selecting a research topic, planning and organizing research on a selected topic, developing strong topic sentences, and organizing key details and themes to share research.

Performance Task:

1. Research essay that responds to one of the following questions. See Final Research Essay Description. [.pdf] [.docx]
2. TikTok-style video: Students create a TikTok-style video to describe their research on an underreported issue to their communities. 
   1. Graphic organizers for TikToks

Assessment/Evaluation:

Formative: See “I will know I have it when…” objectives in each lesson (available under Facilitation Resources).

Summative: Students will write an essay and create an original news report (or TikTok) that reflects their research on an issue they have selected. The topic should reflect unit themes and the final project should include analyses of at least one Pulitzer Center-supported story and one outside source. Research Writing Rubric (modified from the Georgia Milestones Assessment System rubric) [.pdf][.docx]

Twenty-lesson unit plan for teachers, including pacing, texts and multimedia resources, resources for teaching expository writing skills, guiding questions for group discussions, and performance task instructions and grading rubric for the unit.

Unit Resources:

9th-10th Grade English Language Arts Georgia Standards of Excellence (ELA GSE)

ELAGSE9-10RI1: CITE strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

ELAGSE9-10RI2: 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.

ELAGSE9-10W7: CONDUCT short as well as more sustained research projects to ANSWER a question (included a self-generated question).

ELAGSE9-10W8: Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the usefulness of each source in answering the research question; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.

The following examples reflect work by students from Stone Mountain, Georgia who engaged with this unit in spring 2023.

1. Students start the unit by reviewing key terms from the Racial Equity Institute, and key terms related to expository writing, that will support their analysis of unit texts and themes and the development of their final projects. They evaluate their understanding of these terms by taking a quiz in the Kahoot platform.

2. After reviewing the unit goals, students are introduced to the term, "underreported story" and explore news stories related to racial justice in the United States. Students work in groups to summarize these articles and analyze how the stories connect to unit themes.

3. Students utilize their analysis of unit texts and themes to develop research questions that will guide their own final projects. Students utilize the following graphic organizer and rubric to support their development of their research question.

The following are examples of research questions developed by students who engaged with the unit spring 2023:

• What were some of the consequences of segregation of public spaces for Black people?
• How does the lack of attention on Black students affect how them going forward in life, and how can they find a safe haven for themselves?
• How has COVID shined a light on African Americans in terms of healthcare and additional health inequalities?
• How were people of color more affected by evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic?
• How does race affect people of color in times of crisis such as famine, diseases, and homelessness?
• How does redlining still affect Atlanta today and how can we change it?

4. Students spend several lessons reviewing the research process and developing thesis statements for their research projects and Tik Tok projects. The following are examples of thesis statements developed by students in Stone Mountain, GA in spring 2023:

• "COVID-19 has led to a huge increase in inequality especially in the African American community by not having enough access to healthcare, causing a lot of unemployment specifically in low wage jobs, and sparking an increase in the homeless rates."
• "Systemic racism is a set of policies that support an unfair advantage and or harmful treatment of others based on race, and it played a role in Covid-19 because race & living arrangements led to negative impacts."
• "BIPOC neighborhoods are being demolished to build factories and facilities causing people of color to live in unsafe areas which lead to health issues, people living in poverty because of these circumstances, and fatalities from inhaling toxic gases and living in bad environments."
• According to the Equal Housing Opportunity Act, "No person shall be subjected to discrimination because of Race and Color..., in the sale, rental, or advertising of dwellings... in the availability of residential real estate-related transactions," but many landlords are making it difficult for many people of color to keep their homes and rental spaces, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic.  
•  Research question: What is the history of DACA and what are the negative and positive outcomes ?
• Thesis: "DACA's history begins in 2012 with the Obama Administration and has improved the lives of many immigrants, providing protection from deportation and increased access to education, but it has also constrained them by making medical care nearly impossible to obtain and includes the inability to become citizens."
• "Redlining may be deeply rooted in the systemic racism and the prejudice of this country and has negatively impacted the education, health, and economic well-being of African American communities in Atlanta, but it's not too late to put an end to these issues."
• "COVID-19 has led to a huge increase in inequality especially in the African American community by not having enough access to healthcare, causing a lot of unemployment specifically in low wage jobs, and sparking an increase in the homeless rates."
• "Black students should be able to find a safe space in a schooling environment where they're seen as a minority, which would include participating in studies of their culture, surrounding themselves with people they can relate to, and finding a safe space outside of school where they wont be discriminated against."
• "Mental health issues in impoverished Black communities can be identified, improved, and ensured by developing a cultural competence, bettering communication, and promoting African American mental health wellness."

5. Students conduct research and plan their essays using a graphic organizer. The following are examples of planning sheets completed by students in spring 2023:

6. By the end of the unit, students write an essay capturing their research and driven by their thesis statements.

7. Students conclude the unit by creating TikTok videos that outline their research and learning.