Activity #6 Lesson Plan
One Day
*This activity only works after Culture Activity #1 has been done first.*
Step 1:
Students answer the following questions:
|
Step 2:
Discuss responses to Step 1 questions with a partner and as a class. |
Step 3:
Make copies of the article below for students. Read the article out loud. After reading, have students respond only to the quotes below and the question that goes with each quote. |
Step 4:
Discuss the responses to each quote either one by one or all together. |
Step 5:
Take out culture icebergs and add aspects of culture to the iceberg based on new thoughts. Make sure students explain what the aspect is as well as why it is placed where it is.
|
Walter Dean Myers on Why These Observations Matter
Follow the link to the article for Step 3 above.
What does Myers mean by saying that he didn't want to become the "black representative"? What is Myers saying he really needed? |
"But there was something missing. I needed more than the characters in the Bible to identify with, or even the characters in Arthur Miller’s plays or my beloved Balzac. As I discovered who I was, a black teenager in a white-dominated world, I saw that these characters, these lives, were not mine. I didn’t want to become the “black” representative, or some shining example of diversity. What I wanted, needed really, was to become an integral and valued part of the mosaic that I saw around me." |
"Then I read a story by James Baldwin: “Sonny’s Blues.” I didn’t love the story, but I was lifted by it, for it took place in Harlem, and it was a story concerned with black people like those I knew. By humanizing the people who were like me, Baldwin’s story also humanized me. The story gave me a permission that I didn’t know I needed, the permission to write about my own landscape, my own map." |
How did the story from James Baldwin change Myers' life? What does Myers mean by saying it "humanized" him? |
What is the danger of students reading books that do not portray diverse cultures? How do books transmit values? |
"Simple racism, I thought. On reflection, though, I understood that I was wrong. It was racism, but not simple racism. My white co-worker had simply never encountered a black chemist before. Or a black engineer. Or a black doctor. I realized that we hired people not so much on their résumés, but rather on our preconceived notions of what the successful candidate should be like. And where was my boss going to get the notion that a chemist should be black? |
References
Myers, Walter Dean. "Where are the People of Color in Children's Books?" The New York Times. 15 March 2014. Web.