Social StudiesIntegrate with: Language Arts, Art, Math, and Technology
Focus Question: What can we as individuals do to assure our culturally-diverse nation learns to live in community, moving beyondtolerance to acceptance?
Students will: understand individual responsibility for the democratic system, develop a multi-cultural perspective that respects the dignity and worth of all people, recognize that literature and art reflect the American quest for justice, recognize connections among the various parts of a nation's cultural, economic, technological, and democratic life, and, be able to define and clarify a problem, judge information related to the problem, suggest solutions, and draw conclusions.
Elementary School
This structure outlines activities useful in preparing students for the program and in providing post-program enrichment activities. Individual teachers and teams are encouraged to select activities from this matrix to suit their needs.
Language Arts
Visit a local history museum and request a tour for young children that focuses on the positive contributions peoples of diverse cultures have had in shaping and unifying our country. If a museum is not accessible, peruse the school library history books with your students highlighting the same. Have students give a report of their findings.
Arts
Using a variety of grains, beans, corn, etc., ask students to compose a unified design that employs many colors, textures, shapes, and sizes, symbolizing the beauty of diversity within our American community. Have students display their design in the classroom or school and/or use it as visual support of the language arts pre-program activity.
Social Studies
Using a large world map, have students trace their heritage by marking the map at the geographic location of their birthplace and those of their ancestors. Create time lines to reflect the historical chronology of people living in and coming to the U.S. Discuss how America is made up of many peoples who have become part of the U.S. community.
Math
Arrange students in groups of 3 or 4 and challenge them to list the number of possible varieties or types in an assortment of categories (cartoons, vegetables, emotions, etc.) Have students identify differences and similarities within each category. Discuss how the similarities form the framework for the category and how the differences enrich each category.
Technology
Ask students to watch one hour of parentally approved TV, listing the number of times that they recognize diverse groups or individuals interacting with each other in a positive way. Have students identify what made the groups diverse and describe the positive interaction. Save results for post- program math activity.
Elementary teachers: this program may be more appropriate as staff development.
Language Arts
Help students produce an "I believe..." statement expressing the concept of respect and acceptance. Use a variety of means of expression: visual arts, drama, speech, song, dance, etc.
Arts
Have small groups of students select recorded music originating from a particular country somewhere in the world. Groups should highlight their recorded music with a visual display expressing what they appreciate most about the music from their select country.
Social Studies
Share pictures of symbols we use today and in the past, such as a peace sign, a red cross, etc. Using a variety of art media, challenge each student to create a symbol of his or her response to the feeling of "belonging" or "not belonging." Have each student explain their symbol to the class.
Math
Have students share their individual recordings from the technology pre-program activity. Create graphs using the class findings. Facilitate a discussion regarding how the graphs illustrate the positive findings of the class.
Technology
Assist students as they interview each other on an audio tape recorder or a video tape recorder. Use one or more of the discussion questions listed on this page as a guide, or use the language arts pre- program activity as a starting point.
Discussion Questions:
How can I celebrate my uniqueness?
How can I appreciate your uniqueness?
What visual /musical symbols are used to define America?
What does "liberty and justice for all" mean in the Pledge of Allegiance?
Who are America's leaders, past and present who have fought for liberty and justice for all ?
What was the Holocaust?
What is the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.?
Middle School
This structure outlines activities useful in preparing students for the program and in providing post-program enrichment activities. Individual teachers and teams are encouraged to select activities from this matrix to suit their needs.
Language Arts
Have students read Langston Hughes' poem, "A Dream Deferred." Using the poem as a starting point, encourage an in-class discussion of the issue of respect and acceptance.
Arts
Challenge students to identify and interpret visual images in the school's social studies texts. Have students respond to the questions: what visual/musical symbols are used to define America?
Where did these symbols come from? Why do they define America?
Social Studies
Request students bring to class newspaper and magazine clippings related to tolerance, intolerance and respect. Have students build a bulletin board display or make posters with these articles.
Math
Have students research national demographic percentages of people by gender, age, race, income, etc. Help students create demographic charts (bar graphs, pie charts, etc.) estimating these percentages.
Have students deduce what the results might imply. How are large percentages of people treated differently than small percentages? How does our Constitution deal with the issue of the rights of small groups?
Technology
Ask students to conduct an informal poll (using a computer network if available) documenting viewer awareness of cultural diversity within a certain TV program. Discuss the findings, focusing on how diversity is celebrated and how it is minimized in the media.
Language Arts
Ask each student to write a short story in which the main character encounters a moment when he or she is being "tolerated." Have students transfer feelings discussed in their stories to peoples from mother cultures or races. Analyze differences in student experiences and the realities of intolerance based on race or culture.
Arts
Using whatever media is available, challenge students to create a personal expression of Langston Hughes' poem, "A Dream Deferred" via painting, drawing, sculpting, collage, music, prose, and/or poetry, etc. Each student or group of students should present their project to the class. Social Studies
Ask students to either recall or imagine a situation where they were not accepted as a member of group. Challenge students to write a short skit, create a visual display, write a poem, or use any other acceptable medium , to express their feeling of not belonging.
Math
Have small groups of students design a cultural center , making concept sketches and a floor plan (including measurement labels). Using cardboard, tape, and other available resources, have student groups create a "to scale" model of the center based upon the dimensions identified in their floor plan. Use the center to display products created in other program activities.
Technology
Have small groups of students design a cultural center , making concept sketches and a floor plan (including measurement labels). Using cardboard, tape, and other available resources, have student groups create a "to scale" model of the center based upon the dimensions identified in their floor plan. Use the center to display products created in other program activities.
Discussion Questions:
How can I celebrate my uniqueness?
How can I appreciate your uniqueness?
What visual /musical symbols are used to define America?
What does "liberty and justice for all" mean in the Pledge of Allegiance?
Who are America's leaders, past and present who have fought for liberty and justice for all ?
What was the Holocaust?
What is the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.?
Secondary School
This structure outlines activities useful in preparing students for the program and in providing post-program enrichment activities. Individual teachers and teams are encouraged to select activities from this matrix to suit their needs.
Language Arts
Using a journal/reflective writing format, ask students to tell of a time when they personally experienced or witnessed an act of injustice or intolerance. Ask students to respond to the question, "What can you as an individual do to stop the activities you have described?"
Arts
Have students read/interpret the photography of Dorthea Lange. Compare/contrast student reviews and interpretations. What may this analysis say about how people and situations are viewed and how we relate to people in the areas of respect and tolerance? Encourage discussion.
Social Studies
Have students research and write a small report on the background of each of our Supreme Court justices. Challenge students to deduce how these justices may have been viewed and treated as justices in the U.S. a hundred years ago. Facilitate discussion of how the justice system has or has not encouraged respect of various groups in the U.S.
Math
Have students research national demographic percentages of people by gender, age, race, income, etc. Help students create demographic charts (bar graphs, pie charts, etc.) estimating these percentages. Have students deduce what the results might imply. How are large percentage's of people treated differently than small percentages? How does our Constitution deal with the issue of the rights of small groups?
Technology
Invite a representative from a local ad agency to talk to your students about advertising techniques. Using video, computers, CDS, laserdisks, or whatever technology may be available, have students create an ad expressing tolerance/intolerance/ respect and diversity.
Language Arts
Using representative samples of ethnic/cultural poetry as a guide, have your class write an anthology of poems where the voices of the poems represent the disenfranchised, and also characterize the joy and beauty of being from a culture/ethnicity different from ones own.
Arts
Examine a variety of pieces of American art that address the issues of diversity, respect, tolerance, and/or intolerance. Ask students to create their own visual essay on the issues.
Social Studies
Assign "I-Search" papers (see resource list) about the legal system or an essay on methods of advancing the theme of respect within a diverse community of peoples.
Math
Using spreadsheet software, have students create a mock budget to fund the school library with various resources that will serve to bring student awareness to the issue of respect and tolerance. Obtain catalogs, directories, price lists, etc. from the school librarian.
Technology
Have students examine how music videos depict different groups of people, i.e. women, the elderly, the sick, the poor, as well as ethnic groups. Encourage a class discussion on whether these people are portrayed in a respectful light.
Discussion Questions:
How can I celebrate my uniqueness?
How can I appreciate your uniqueness?
What visual /musical symbols are used to define America?
What does "liberty and justice for all" mean in the Pledge of Allegiance?
Who are America's leaders, past and present who have fought for liberty and justice for all ?
What was the Holocaust?
What is the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.?
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