Rationale/ Problem Statement

Throughout my 14 years of teaching a range of courses, including English literature, History, and Theory of Knowledge (a course taught in conjunction with the International Baccalaureate Program) in the School District of Philadelphia, I have found myself perpetually faced with the opportunity to investigate texts that appeal and provide relevance to my students. By exploring and generating instructional content centered on the works of authors like Toni Morrison, Ralph Ellison, Octavia Butler, Elizabeth Acevedo, James Baldwin, Lynn Nottage, and Nawal El Saadawi, I have been able to reach my students and share literature with them that appealed to their interests and context. For much of my time in the district, my students have been predominantly African American. In the last few years, my students have diversified markedly to include many more South and East Asian American students than I’ve ever taught before. As a result of the shift in our student body, and the historic lack of text availability in our school, I find myself in a situation where there is a significant underrepresentation of Asian history, identity,  and culture in our English and History curriculum and texts.

Most students learn about historical events like the Chinese Exclusion Act, the ancient traditions of the East, and the roles of Asian countries in major wars. However, I believe that, for the most part, students are graduating with little background knowledge on the particulars of Asian countries, their histories, and their literature. Exposure to the geography of the East, specific Asian cultures, traditions, and histories is quite inaccessible, and should be strengthened through in-depth study of these histories. This also should be shaped through a cultural understanding of how race, immigration, socioeconomic status, and public perception are interacting elements that shape the history and culture of Asian American people.

These are all reasons that I applied for the TIP program and to enroll in the course: Asian Americans in U.S. Education. I have been fascinated by the course content and particular aspects of the history of Asian Americans in the U.S. The ideas of racialization of minority and marginalized groups has piqued my interest and led me down a research path to form my curriculum unit.

Seminar: Asian Americans in U.S. Education

The information that we have been learning and discussing in our course, Seminar: Asian Americans in U.S. Schools will improve my teaching tremendously. Integrating this new knowledge will help to contextualize and expand upon students’ historical and literary knowledge about Asian American history, sociology, and its context within the topics addressed in this unit. Understanding the role that events and political moments in history have defined the racialization of groups including Asian Americans is particularly prescient to the curriculum that we uncover in Theory of Knowledge, the course in which this unit will be taught.

Asian Americans in US Schools as a course has sought to first contextualize the racialization of Asian Americans, and then describe their role in US schools. By going back to the beginning of immigration in the United States, the course has outlined a physical and etymological journey of race.

The course has outlined how race has historically been determined, how definitions and determinations of specific groups have shifted, how race has become a social construct of sorts. It has demonstrated that many geographic and cultural groups have been racialized only because of their relationship to the state, and not through personalized identification.

The course has provided background on how different Asian American subgroups have been received and related to as immigrants, and the degree to which assimilation, language, culture, economic status, and immigration push/pulls have influenced the experience and perception of these groups in America.

This intellectual infrastructure provided a framework for the knowledge, which ultimately is the namesake of the class: Asian Americans in US Schools, which required examining the approaches and perspectives Asian American families have on educational opportunities, and their influence on those academic systems.

Out of this course my interest was most piqued by the concept that race, ethnicity, panethnicity, and identity are all distinct and overlapping as concepts. While each concept shapes the other, they capture different aspects of experience. The concept I am most interested in is race and how it is shaped, in great measure, by its relationships to the state.

What is race?

Until the 16th century, “race” was not a widely used term, in fact, the term was not historically associated with categorizing groups of people. Alternatively, it came into use in conjunction with the formation and development of the United States and has been the thread that has followed its history to the present day. Even “whiteness” was not originally a term used to describe what we today think of when we use the word. It was reserved for the highest class of English women, in reference to their skin tone from lack of exposure to the sun. (“Talking about Race”) However, as The United States evolved, so did these terms. The intersection of capitalism, colonialism, the theft of native land, and the enslavement of African people for purposes of free labor created a demand for the justification of these atrocities, and definitions of difference were the answer, coming in the form of the racialization of these subjugated groups. (Omi and Winant 3). Activist Paul Kivel says, “Whiteness is a constantly shifting boundary separating those who are entitled to have certain privileges from those whose exploitation and vulnerability to violence is justified by their not being white” (“Talking about Race”).

The 18th and 19th centuries were known for being the “age of enlightenment,” a time when many mysteries of the biological world were being revealed by science, and many notions that had long been held were being thrown away. While much good came of this in the forms that we now embrace as Western medicine, the origins of the nefarious elements of scientific racism, phrenology, and eugenics were imagined during this time. Based on pseudo-science, these disciplines justified racism through arguments of biological difference and hierarchical classifications of race (Roediger).

Even in recent years, academics have made arguments of the biological underpinnings of race. In 1994, The Bell Curve was published, and falsely argued that there are specific inherited and environmental contributing factors to a concrete and (self-described) objective human intelligence. The authors, Herrnstein and Murray problematically posited that much of what they defined as intelligence was largely heritable. They thought that social and economic success in American society was based largely on the IQ measure of an individual’s intelligence. They further argued that these individuals with higher IQs were forming an increasingly small group of top-tier intellects, what they called “cognitive elite,” and a cohort of people at the bottom of the intellectual scale were dependent on the state. They argued that these people were a burden on the “custodial state.” The authors implicitly argued that there was a relationship between intelligence and race and made policy suggestions based on this false claim. The book was not immediately dismissed, likely because of its “fact-based” approach, with much of its data collected from governmental sources such as the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience of Youth and the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, among others; however, much of the study’s argument was based on false assumptions. (Herrnstein and Murray 1994).

Contrary to these false narratives, we now know, based on contemporary science, that all human beings share 99.9% of their DNA, making us overwhelmingly more similar than different. However, the need to separate ourselves from one another based on those minute differences seems to be an ongoing struggle we have created for ourselves. In her article on “How Science and Genetics are Reshaping the Race Debate of the 21st Century,” Vivian Chau describes the shift in race determination from identifying people’s geographic origin or skin color and identifying people by one of the “5 races,” to a post-human genome project world, in which, for a mere $99, one’s genetic profile can be mapped. She describes how the human genome project made it possible to look at genes and determine ancestry. Even so, the complexity of genetic variation can be easily seen, revealing that the scientific answer is not always the one that produces clarity. (Chau 2017)

These biological arguments for race and its implications have persistently peppered discussions of the definitions of race, but determination of race has been just as likely, especially in the last century, to be defined as a social construct.

What has propelled shifts in the perception and determination of race?

WEB Dubois, in his 1897 article on the “Conservation of the Races” explains that while race is a fact of life for African Americans, that the biology of race points more to genetic intermingling and that, in fact, there are characteristics of race that are “subtle, delicate and elusive, …but definitely separated men into groups. At all times, however, they have divided human beings into races, which, while they perhaps transcend scientific definition, nevertheless, are clearly defined to the eye of the Historian and Sociologist” (Du Bois 1897, 5). In this, he is describing without using the term, the social construction of race. These “elusive” characteristics are what bind groups, not the concrete or scientific.

During the Harlem Renaissance, Alain Locke also began to explain the concepts of race as a social construction in his speech “Race Contacts and Interracial Relations: Lectures on the Theory and Practice of Race,” providing an alternate perspective on the pseudo sciences that had been used defined race in some intellectual circles (Fitchue 1998).

In the wake of post colonialism, a push to do away with biological definitions of race accompanied a rejection of hierarchical/ racial categories that had been determined and reinforced by the conquering powers. Along with this new perception, the philosophies espoused by the study of eugenics were also thrown away. With the rise of Hitler, academics and leaders alike realized the danger of the assumptions of the discipline and began thinking differently about race and its implications (Omi).

As important to this push against the scientific debate remains the need for individuals to self-classify and not be classified by their physical and biological characteristics. In studies of recent immigrants to the United States from countries such as Jamaica, Trinidad, and Ethiopia, individuals surveyed did not classify themselves as “Black” Americans, as they did not feel that they were culturally related to this group. As a result of people not wanting to be defined by their physical and biological characteristics, the push back against the inherent inequality of colonial rule, and the lack of truth in biological racialization, the idea of race as a social construct has been widely accepted. (Chau 1997)

In his chapter on the changing meaning of race, Michael Omi explains that “Race cannot be an objective fact, nor treated as an independent variable” and will “always be subject to multiple determinations.” Because race as a concept has few biological or physical concerns, and decidedly more social and political implications, the idea of race as a social construct is possibly the strongest argument still. And yet, inasmuch as race is a social construct, it must, by its very nature, be still a concrete state of being for some. For people whose race is “corporeal” and “ocular” by nature, the construct of race is impossible to overlook. These individuals live with race as a reality and not simply as an illusion (Omi and Winant 2014, 110, 246).

The implications of race in America are often concrete, regardless of its elusiveness.  “It is not important whether or not the interpretation is correct- if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” (Thomas and Thomas, as cited in Omi and Winant 2014, 247).

Is a post racial society a goal?

Over a decade ago, in 2013, when Barack Obama had been re-elected to the White House, I assigned my ninth-grade students at West Philadelphia High School an essay that addressed the question that was often being brought up at the time: Now that we have elected (twice!) an African American to the White House, have we entered a post-racial America? Even the famed journalist, Ta-Nahisi Coates, at the time said:

“The history of black citizenship had, until now, been dominated by violence, terrorism, and legal maneuvering designed to strip African Americans of as many privileges… Obama’s reelection rejects that history and shows the power of a fully vested black citizenry.” (Coates 2013, Atlantic)

My student at the time, R. Bowens, wrote with great hopefulness (and a touch of inaccuracy):

“I believe that by 2020 if Barack Obama is still president, more whites will come together to join the movement, and both races will come together as one. Many things have changed since an African American was elected for president. Race Relations improved generally, African American women are overcoming stereotypes, and more African Americans became politically involved. All because Barack Obama inspired “Hope and Change For All.” (Bowens)

The romantic idea of a post racial America was appealing. It promoted the possibility that one day all the conflict and atrocities associated with racism could magically disappear and everyone would feel and be equal in every way. The idea that we could all be defined by our personalities and character traits rather than our racial identities seemed to be an ultimate freedom of sorts.

However, while racial categories can sometimes serve to “strip away not only people’s origins, traditions, histories, but also their individuality and differences,” (Omi and Winant 2014, 247)

“to ignore ongoing racial inequality, racial disenfranchisement, quasi official segregation of schools and neighborhoods, and anti-immigrant racism – it’s a long list – under the banner of color blindedness, is to indulge in a thought process that is composed, in substantial parts of malice, disingenuousness, and wishful thinking” (Omi and Winant 2014, 258)

Even with regard to dangerous political adversaries, the concept of a post-racial world is an alarming myth, with right wing political groups weaponizing color-blindness by using it against policies such as affirmative action. These groups present an argument that in a post-racial world, there is hardly a need for “special treatment” of marginalized groups (Omi and Winant 261).

The danger of this argument and “liberal dream” is that it comes at a risk to special interest groups that gain support and safety specifically because of their groupings. Race is an “important organizing principle of individual identity and collective consciousness” (Omi 2001, 243). Segmenting people into discrete groups is both a messy and beneficial project of the state (among others).

The 1977 Office of Budget and Management Statistical Directive of was one of the more influential examples of this, and was developed to provide standardized methods to classify people based on their race and ethnicity for the explicit purpose of “provid[ing] standard classifications for record keeping, collection, and presentation of data on race and ethnicity in Federal program administrative reporting and statistical activities. These classifications should not be interpreted as being scientific or anthropological in nature, nor should they be viewed as determinants of eligibility for participation in any Federal program. They have been developed in response to needs expressed by both the executive branch and the Congress to provide for the collection and use of compatible, non duplicated, exchangeable racial and ethnic data by Federal agencies” (OMB 1977).

The project of defining racial identity is an effort to distribute resources along political lines (Omi and Winant 261). To measure and address the negative social and economic impacts of racial inequality, the identification of racial and social groups is required (Omi and Winant 257).

Racialization is essential for a beneficial relationship with the state

While some might argue the goal of the 20th century was often to eliminate the need for race-based categorization among people, there is a grave danger in the “dream” of the post racial world. “Bureaucracies, policies, and practices exist within government, academic, and private sectors that rely on discrete racial categories” (Omi 2001, 249).

Pan ethnic organizations are therefore necessary for political value, as can be seen in the OMB designations for Federal funding opportunities.  Multiracial categories, which may be increasingly in need for people who wish to self-identify for personal reasons, are a threat to the protected minority statuses. In the 2000 Census, the bureau considered including a “multiracial” category, but later changed it for these reasons. Instead, the Census ended up with a question that instructs people to choose “one or more” races with which they identify (Pew).

Racialization is also a factor in an adversarial relationship with the state

While racial categorizations are a factor in a beneficial relationship between marginalized groups and the state, they also are a factor, or a result, of an adversarial relationship between group and government. From its inception, the economy of the United States was borne on the backs of enslaved people, indentured servants, immigrants, and migrant laborers. The capitalist system, in fact, remains dependent on cheap labor to maintain growth, and we see this at a macro level reasserted even in our current economy. Race has also been a way of justifying divisions, violence, and even war. The idea of “other” is inherent to the power dynamic that dominates the hierarchy of our country. The “ocularism of race has been used to seize land, consolidate domination, and extract mass labor from people of color for hundreds of years” (Omi and Winant 249).

The racialization of Asian immigrants runs parallel to this theory. Stereotypes of “Coolies,” Chinese laborers who filled a labor shortage in the beginning of the 20th century abounded. These laborers were either depicted as a hard work force that would replace slave labor or as an “inferior race that was vulnerable to cruel exploitation just like African slaves” (Lee 10). The immigration boom from China at this time was often referred to as the “yellow wave,” the “plague,” or “the yellow peril” (Lee 11). The Chinese Exclusion Act that followed was largely a response to a labor shortage, and subsequently a piece of legislation that dehumanized this much-needed labor force (Lee 14). Over the years, this formula has been repeated, and the idea of an “Asian” race began to be defined by an intersection of migration, international relations, economics, capitalism, and white supremacy (Lee 21).

How race as a framework has been a “portable” tool to other marginalized groups

Race as a “master category” has played a significant role in guiding history, politics, and class in the United States. The women’s, LGBT+, African American, and other social justice movements all show the “dual edged and dynamic qualities inherent in the social category of race.” While each group bears the stigma and resulting repercussions of their label, these designations serve also to quantify their numbers and thus provide political and social power for economic and political support (Omi and Winant 2015, 106).

Connections to the unit plan

This history and context of race and racialization of marginalized groups, and the “portability” of this “master category” (Omi and Winant 2015, 106) regarding its characteristics in terms of interaction with the state can be transferred onto similar moments of political and social momentum that connect because their influence on the racialization or the development of a group based on its relationship to the state.

Content Overview and Objectives

Course Overview

This unit will be taught as an introduction to the Fall semester of the course, Theory of Knowledge, an element of the International Baccalaureate Diploma program. Theory of Knowledge is a course designed to introduce students to a metacognitive level of thinking mainly accessed at the university level. While the term epistemology is a discipline focused on the theory of knowledge itself, the course focuses on what are called “knowledge questions” which help to guide the course itself and support student thinking about the larger concepts. This is an extremely difficult course for students, in that much of the work is in asking and answering questions that are metacognitive in nature. As teachers, we do not simply provide information to students, but we are asking them to question the very nature of information itself, and not limiting that information to simply that content produced by the academy. This exploration of knowledge conveys into the realms of cultural, spiritual, religious, personal, and emotional knowledge. The course posits that there are many different “ways of knowing” including:

sense perception

language

reason

memory

emotion

faith

intuition

imagination

In addition to these “ways of knowing,” the International Baccalaureate also introduces and takes an in-depth approach to “areas of knowledge:”

Mathematics

Natural Sciences

Human Sciences

History

Religious Knowledge Systems

Indigenous Knowledge Systems

The Arts

Ethics

This unit will approach Theory of Knowledge through its examination of history. The purpose of history as a discipline is to collect and document the past. Knowledge has often been created and formalized through conventional institutions, like universities. However, historians cannot generate historical accuracy from first-hand experience and therefore are likely to have holes or shortcomings in their authenticity. Historical knowledge requires historians to make inferences and assumptions based on artifacts and objects, and those inferences come with the biases of the historian and are often written into what is often touted as formalized knowledge.

Assessment in the Theory of Knowledge (TOK) course

Exhibition: In the Spring of their Junior year, students’ final assessment was to choose a knowledge question and create an exhibition with three objects that connect to both the question and to one theme. For example, students may explore the question: Can new knowledge influence beliefs or opinion? This question, while it seems “Easy” really is asking about the difference between knowledge, belief, and opinion. In this, students will need to first examine those relationships, and then generate objects that meet their criterion. The process of defining these terms, poking holes in arguments, trying out objects, and challenging their explanations and connections is where the learning happens, and where critical thinking begins.

TOK Essay: In the fall of their senior year, students will select from a set of provided essay topics. Examples of essay topics from the May 2022 session include: Can there be knowledge that is independent of culture? Discuss with reference to mathematics and one other area of knowledge. Or How can we distinguish between good and bad interpretations? Discuss with reference to the arts and one other area of knowledge. These essays require much of the skill of answering the knowledge questions, but also challenging one’s limited understanding of knowledge and its relevance to areas of knowledge. Students are expected to answer using real world examples, academic examples, and personal experiences.

The purpose of this unit in the Theory of Knowledge course delivery

Theory of Knowledge is a course delivered over 100 hours in the Spring of International  Baccalaureate students’ Junior year and the fall of their Senior year. This unit will be taught at the beginning of Fall 2022, to the seniors who have had half a year of TOK already. They will therefore have already approached knowledge questions, had an introduction to three areas of knowledge in the spring, with a focus on Knowledge and Language, Knowledge and Technology, and Knowledge and the Knower. Students will have completed and submitted their exhibition and will have a strong basis for understanding complex concepts and the approach of a TOK thinker. Nonetheless, this unit does not assume that all students will remember everything they learned in the Spring and includes scaffolding to introduce the thinking required and support students through their reasoning.

Developing student understanding of racialization, its motivations, implications, and purposes in relationship to the state

The considerations of racialization as a concept is useful for the purposes of the Theory of Knowledge curriculum because it deals with the intersection of truth, fact, science, politics, and identity. The idea of racialization is about how a group is identified, and subsequently treated by society and by the state. The metacognitive nature of how these identities are formed lends itself to the study of knowledge. If identity is defined outside the individual, then how is that knowledge formed, perpetuated, and what, indeed, is the value of these different perspectives, opinions, and truths? Who are we if our identity does not come from within? What is the motive of racialization? Who benefits? Who suffers?

5E Model of Instruction

Although the 5E method of instructional planning emerges from a scientific teaching approach, it is a strong guideline for generating interest for content, providing a framework for learning, and following through with a set of engagement strategies. The “5 E’s” stand for Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate. (Bybee)

Post-its

Using sticky notes as an instructional tool seems basic, they are quite useful as tools for communication, feedback, questioning, brainstorming, opinions and review. For the purposes of this unit plan, sticky notes will be used primarily for posting possible knowledge questions and anonymously reviewing them for accuracy and quality as a group (Quigley).

Generate/ Sort/ Connect/ Elaborate

“This routine can be useful as a pre-assessment before the beginning of a unit of study if students already have a lot of background information about the topic. Conversely, it can also be useful as a post or ongoing assessment to see what students are remembering and how they are connecting ideas. Individual maps can be used as the basis for construction of a whole classroom map. Maps can also be done progressively, with students adding to their maps each week of the unit” (Project Zero, Harvard GSE).

Creative Question Starts:

Question stems are a valuable way to support learners in developing their own thinking around a concept and help them gain confidence in their writing.

Step-in/step-out- step-back:

“This routine invites learners to take other people’s perspectives e.g. religious, linguistic, cultural, class, generational; recognize that understanding others is an ongoing, often uncertain process; and understand that our efforts to take perspective can reveal as much about ourselves as they can about the people we are seeking to understand. The routine helps learners to identify individuals with various perspectives in a given situation; provide evidence for thoughts, values and feelings these individuals may hold; and explain how societal or more macro-forces—particularly roles and relationships—shape their perspectives. Scaffolding for healthy skepticism and reflection invites learners to take note of the biases and preferences that shape their understanding of others” (Project Zero, Harvard GSE).

Service Learning

As an extension activity to this project, students might be able to take what they learned about the development of knowledge around group identity and support a campaign to help others understand the nature of these groupings. From these incidents of racialization, stereotypes, prejudices, and misinformation often develop. A targeted service project might help combat this.

Jigsaw

The jigsaw is an excellent activity to support student understanding of a text or texts by chunking the reading and asking individuals or small groups to digest and then share with the rest of the group, or another subset of each small group. In the context of this project, the primary and secondary sources provided may be too dense for all students to read, but chunked may be much more manageable.

Collaborative writing

In writing analytical responses to a text or doing critical thinking and putting it in writing, students benefit greatly from collaborating on short writing assignments. The metacognitive approach to writing creates an openness about how to develop a good paragraph, and if expectations are exceptionally high with regard to precision in writing, grammar, conveyance of thought, students often rise to the challenge, work well together, and learn a lot from one another.

Jamboard

One of the simplest digital tools for learning is the Google Jamboard. Sharing the active link with students and allowing them to edit the document allows them to see others’ ideas in real time. Most useful in an online classroom, it can also be used in an in person setting to help engage students at the outset. There is something about seeing your thoughts publicly displayed that generates buy in.

New York Times: What’s Going on in this Picture:

This online tool is a multimedia resource designed to engage critical thinking in learners.

Steps for Content Delivery

Before the Unit: Because this unit comes at the beginning of the school year, students will have been out of school for several months and out of the habit of thinking metacognitively, the first exercise will be a light and fun approach to the process that will follow with more nuanced and complex material. Using Britney Spears as an example of someone/something whose identity and value was defined by many people and institutions besides herself, we can learn the approach we will take to the much headier racialization of groups in reference to their relationship with the state. By taking a look at primary source documents from Spears’ recent court case, students can perform an investigation, develop knowledge questions and walk through the system of  investigations they will perform with the subsequent primary unit content.

During the Unit: Students will explore moments of shifts in racial and cultural identification/ investigations. Based on the following four investigations, students will grapple with the development of related knowledge questions (such as: If it is difficult to establish proof in history, does that mean that all versions are equally acceptable? Are historians’ accounts necessarily subjective? Is it possible to know who we are without knowledge of the past? Is empathy more important in history than in other areas of knowledge? How might the existence of different historical perspectives be beneficial to historical knowledge?)

Investigation 1 looks at the primary and secondary source documents on the emergence of the racialization of Asian American people in 1968 at the University of California. In pursuit of a diversified curriculum on the campus of UCLA, students from a variety of Asian backgrounds came together to identify a collective identity to use to gain political power and leverage institutional support for their cause.

Investigation 2 examines the racialization of Muslims in post-9/11 America. As a result of the attacks on September 11th, 2001,  Muslim Americans were targeted and grouped. Laws such as the Patriot Act greatly expanded the Government’s power and leveraged it against Muslim Americans specifically, mandating registration and generating fear across the nation.

Investigation 3 focuses on the Stonewall riots and the AIDS epidemic, which created a need for the LGBT community to band together for funding, recognition, and legitimacy by society and by the state. This is where there is portability of the categorical nature of racialization, as referenced above.

Investigation 4 is an examination of the emergence in popularity of the term “African American.” During Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign of 1988, he made it a point to argue for the usage of the term, and imbued the phrase African American with integrity and pride. While it was not a new term, he revitalized its use and at the same time used this to create legitimacy around his campaign.

Assessment: Students will create group presentations that explore knowledge questions and use investigation artifacts to support their argument – in practice for TOK Essay.

Daily Lesson Plans

Lesson One: Engage

Lesson Objective: Students will be able to complete a Step-in/step-out- step-back (Harvard Project Zero) activity IOT Integrate and evaluate primary sources to address the question of who or what determines one’s identity?

Common Core Standards: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.7

Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem.

Do Now: Students will free-write on the question- How is identity determined? Who and what determines identity? What cultural, economic, and social factors might influence identity and how identity is seen from the outside?

Engagement: Ask students what you know about Britney Spears. Have students use a jamboard to put up things they think they know about who she is, what she is like. This should be very informal and fun.

Direct Instruction: Explain that students will be provided with primary source documents and will be using the Step-in/step-out/step back model to collect information from primary source documents, and that this is a warm-up for some more difficult primary source document work we will be doing later on.

Independent Work:  Students will independently take notes on court documents and primary sources from different perspectives using the all accessible here: https://www.freebritney.army/court-documents

Guided Practice: Students will then group together based on their primary source and determine what the perspective is that has been presented by the source.

Lesson Two: Explore

Lesson Objective: Students will be able to generate creative questions using knowledge question stems IOT begin to take a critical stance towards the evidence presented about Britney Spears in their primary source documents.

Common Core Standards: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.7

Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem.

Do Now: Provide students with post its- two different colors. Ask students to write a question on the first color that challenges the knowledge contained in the primary source document that they examined in the prior day. Once they have finished, students will put the post-it on the board.

Engagement: A student will volunteer to read the questions and as a group we will try to categorize those questions.

Direct Instruction: The teacher will provide a re-introduction to knowledge questions. What are they? What is the purpose of asking these? The teacher will provide students with a reference for forming knowledge questions (Lajunan).

Guided Practice: Students will work in their groups to develop knowledge questions about the content provided.

Independent Work: Each student will post a knowledge question using the post its (new color) provided.

Homework: Students will be assigned the task of watching the “Framing Britney Spears” documentary linked here.

Assessment(s): The formative assessment for this lesson will be the student’s knowledge questions. Successful knowledge questions will meet the metacognitive standards for TOK knowledge questions.

Lesson Three: Explain

Lesson Objective: Students will be able to explain their primary source, its relevance to the larger scope of Britney Spears’ life and identity creation, and present their knowledge questions about their document.

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.7

Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.1.A

Come to discussions prepared, having read and researched material under study; explicitly draw on that preparation by referring to evidence from texts and other research on the topic or issue to stimulate a thoughtful, well-reasoned exchange of ideas.

Do Now: Students will sit in groups that convene one person from each of the prior day’s groups, say hello, write one of their knowledge questions from the prior day on a post-it.

Engagement: Students will share their experience watching the documentary the night before, coming with a collective assertion about the film’s main message.

Direct Instruction: The teacher will present instructions for sharing primary source info, and the collaboration link for sharing knowledge questions.

Guided Practice: Students will explain their primary source, its relevance to the larger scope of Britney Spears’ life and identity creation, and present their knowledge questions about their document.

Independent Work: Students will choose one knowledge question and begin to tackle an answer to that question using evidence from the primary and secondary sources.

Homework: Students will complete their answer to the knowledge question. This should be 250-500 words.

Assessment(s): Students’ ability to respond to the knowledge question should demonstrate an understanding of the metacognitive nature of knowledge questions. The entire purpose of this Britney Spears element of the lesson is to introduce students to the structure of the following lessons.

Lesson Four: Engage

Lesson Objective: Students will be able to complete a Step-in/step-out- step-back (Harvard Project Zero) activity IOT examine primary sources on their assigned investigation (see investigations and materials in resources section) to infer the experience of the authors or objects of each source.

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.1

Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.2

Determine two or more central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to provide a complex analysis; provide an objective summary of the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.3

Analyze a complex set of ideas or sequence of events and explain how specific individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop over the course of the text.

Do Now: Students will be asked to sit in heterogeneous groups based on skill with knowledge questions and critical thinking. This will help with decoding the investigation.

Engagement: Students will be told they will be uncovering a moment in history. We will talk about some moments in history that changed the world. Students will brainstorm a quick list and share them with their groups and then the whole class.

Direct Instruction: Provide students with handouts for Step-in/step-out- step-back activity (digital). Explain that uncovering the significance of the moment in history will take time, and that they may not understand it immediately, but that putting themselves in the shoes of the authors or objects of each document will be a good starting point.

Independent Work:  Students will independently take notes on court documents and primary sources from different perspectives.

Guided Practice: Students will then group together based on their primary source and determine what the perspective is that has been presented by the source.

Lesson Five: Explore

Lesson Objective: Students will be able to generate creative questions using knowledge question stems IOT begin to take a critical stance towards the evidence presented about their investigation topic in their primary source documents.

Common Core Standards: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.7

Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem.

Do Now: Provide students with a prompt from the New York Times “What’s Going on in this Picture” website asking students to make inferences in order to engage basic critical thinking before demonstrating critical thinking in direct instruction.

Engagement: students will be provided with chart paper onto which they will begin to write observations about their secondary sources.

Direct Instruction:  Distribute secondary sources to groups. Each group may have 1-3 secondary sources, distributed evenly among the group. Ask students to silently read/investigate the sources.

Students will begin to ask questions, critical thinking questions, about the knowledge in the sources they are examining. The teacher will explain what a critical thinking question looks like by presenting question stems for critical thinking. The teacher will use an example of a primary source document to demonstrate how to examine a source, ask questions and develop a knowledge question.

Guided Practice/Independent Work: Students will work in their groups to develop knowledge questions about the content provided.

Assessment(s): The formative assessment for this lesson will be the student’s knowledge questions. Successful knowledge questions will meet the metacognitive standards for TOK knowledge questions.

Lesson Six: Elaborate

Lesson Objective: SWBAT create brief group presentations IOT share the content of their investigation, their knowledge questions, and possible answers to those questions with regard to the investigation.

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.1

Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.2

Determine two or more central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to provide a complex analysis; provide an objective summary of the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.7

Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem.

Do Now: Provide students with a prompt from the New York Times “What’s Going on in this Picture” website asking students to make inferences in order to engage basic critical thinking before demonstrating critical thinking in direct instruction.

Engagement: The teacher will present an example presentation to the class based on another moment of racialization or an example of “portable” racialization in history.

Direct Instruction: The teacher will provide students with a rubric for their presentation and explain expectations and timeline.

Guided Practice/Independent Work: In groups, students will develop their presentations based on a rubric.

Lesson Seven: Evaluate

Lesson Objective: SWBAT present brief group presentations IOT share the content of their investigation, their knowledge questions, and possible answers to those questions with regard to the investigation.

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.1

Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.2

Determine two or more central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to provide a complex analysis; provide an objective summary of the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.7

Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem.

Summative Assessment: Students will be assessed based on their groups adherence to the rubric, their ability to present relevant and accurate knowledge questions, and their ability to critically engage those knowledge questions.

Possible Extension Activities for this unit:

Write Interview Narratives: After working with the sources and ideas present in these investigations, students could interview family or friends to college primary source information about individual identity and how personal experience and perception interplays with the definitions provided by the state and society.

Social Media Campaign (Service Learning): Students could develop social media campaigns that address the ideas with which they have engaged. Understanding the development of social and racial identities might help inform students on how they perceive others and support their more nuanced understanding of social, cultural, and racial categorizations.

Visual or Performance Art Project: Through either visual or performance art projects, students could engage with the idea of groupings, racialization, and the development of that knowledge in order to create an art piece that asks knowledge questions at its center.

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Aioki, Richard “AAPA rally at UC Berkeley.” 28 July 1968.

“Are you AAPI or Asian American.? It’s complicated” PBS. 20 May 2021. 13 June 2022. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bLwF_KFrZU>

“Are you “Black” or “African American?” | Say It Loud.” PBS Digital Studios. 14 February 2019. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDJsC_Fwcvk>

Bakhtiari, E. “​​Health effects of Muslim racialization: evidence from birth outcomes in California before and after September 11, 2001” SSM-Population Health, 2020 <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7721634/>

Bybee, Richard. “The BSCS 5E Instructional Model: Origins, Effectiveness, and Applications.” Biological Sciences Curriculum Study. BSCS Science Learning. July, 2006. <https://fremonths.org/ourpages/auto/2006/9/7/1157653040572/bscs5efullreport2006.pdf>

“Citizenship by Time of Arrival.” 2011 Muslim American Survey. Pew Charitable Trusts. 2011.

Chau, Vivian. (2017. How Science and Genetics are Reshaping the Race Debate of the 21st Century. Harvard University: Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Chi, Sang; Robinson, Emily Moberg, eds. (2012). Voices of the Asian American and Pacific Islander Experience. Santa Barbara, California: Greenwood. pp. 16–18. ISBN 978-1-59884-354-5.

Coates, Ta Nahisi “The Emancipation of Barack Obama” The Atlantic. March 15, 2013. <https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/03/the-emancipation-of-barack-obama/309237/>

Dabashi, Hamid “Who is a ‘Muslim American?’” Al Jazeera. 17 September 2019 <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wdtzC50Row2QfUcCUrlW1FnzNltU_E06nyd5j_C3LjE/edit#heading=h.eqz30lkn4y6e>

Du Bois, W.E.B. “The Conservation of the Races.” The American Negro Academy. The Occasional Papers, No. 2. 1897. The Academy.

Espiritu, Yen Le, and Michael Omi. 2000. “Who Are You Calling Asian?”: Shifting Identity Claims, Racial Classifications, and the Census.” The State of Asian Pacific America: Transforming Race Relations 5 (2000): 43-101.

Gidra Magazine. 1969-1974. 13 June 2022. <https://scalar.lehigh.edu/asian-american-little-magazines/gidra-magazine-los-angeles>

Goodrich, Carter. “What so Proudly We Hailed.” New Yorker Magazine @ Conde Nast Corporation. 2001.

“How The AIDS Crisis Changed The LGBT Movement” NBC News Now. 20 June 2019. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC1e9Zrb7cI>

Iovannone, Jeffry. “A Brief History of the LGBTQ Initialism.” Queer History for the People.9 June 2018.  June 13. 2022. <https://medium.com/queer-history-for-the-people>

“Jesse Jackson’s Primary Wins Set the Stage for First Black President.” NBC Nightly News segment. 1998. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8p5jMmYews&list=RDCMUCausCRKXO7VTqMag_UKHsAw&index=4>

Le Espiritu, Yen. 1992. Asian American Panethnicity: Bridging Institutions and Identities. Vol. 231. Temple University Press.

Lee, Eika. 2007. “The ““Yellow Peril”” and Asian Exclusion in the Americas.” Pacific Historical Review 76(4): 537-562.

Loewen, James W. 1988. The Mississippi Chinese: Between Black and White. Waveland Press.

Mattson, Greggor. “The Stonewall you Know Didn’t Happen… and that’s OK.” JSTOR Daily. 12 June 2019. <https://daily.jstor.org/the-stonewall-riots-didnt-start-the-gay-rights-movement/>

Morehouse, Lisa. “Grapes Of Wrath: The Forgotten Filipinos Who Led A Farmworker Revolution.” NPR. 19 September 2015. <https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/09/16/440861458/grapes-of-wrath-the-forgotten-filipinos-who-led-a-farmworker-revolution>

“Muslim Americans on life after 9/11: ‘The toll has been huge.” The Guardian. 10 September 2021. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXMcu939dcQ>

Omi, Michael. 2001. The Changing Meaning of Race. America Becoming, Vol. 1. National Academies Press. <​​https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/9599/chapter/9>

Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. 2014. Racial Formation in the United States. New York: Routledge. (most recent edition)

Parker, Horowitz, Morin, Lopez. “Chapter 1: Race and Multiracial Americans in the U.S. Census.” Pew Charitable Trusts. June 11, 2015 <https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2015/06/11/chapter-1-race-and-multiracial-americans-in-the-u-s-census/>

Paik, Susan, Stacy Kula, L. Erika Saito, Zaynah Rahman, and Matthew Witenstein. 2014. “Historical Perspectives on Diverse Asian American Communities: Immigration, Incorporation, and Education.” Teachers College Record 116(8): 1-45.

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Program PlatformStatement. Gay Liberation Front.

Roediger, David. “Historical Foundations of Race.” National Museum of African History and Culture. Smithsonian Museum. Accessed 2 June 2022. <https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/topics/historical-foundations-race>

Shepherd Fairey, “Revolutionary Muslim Girl”

“The Stonewall You Know Is a Myth. And That’s O.K.” NYTimes. 31 May 2019. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7jnzOMxb14>

Tariq, Hanna. “Summer 2020: The Racialization of Muslim-Americans Post 9/11: Causes, Themes, and Effects” Trinity College, Hartford Connecticut

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Quigley, Alex. “Post It Note Pedagogy.” The Confident Teacher. 8 December 2012. 13 June 2022. <https://www.theconfidentteacher.com/2012/12/post-it-note-pedagogy-top-ten-tips-for-teaching-learning/>

“Rev. Jesse Jackson, Other Black Leaders Push Term ‘African American’.”

BNC News. 21 December 2021. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrSA6vbqC90>

Ruiz, Edwards, and Lopez, “One-third of Asian Americans fear threats, physical attacks and most say violence against them is rising” Pew Research Center <https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/04/21/one-third-of-asian-americans-fear-threats-physical-attacks-and-most-say-violence-against-them-is-rising/>

“Talking about Race” Smithsonian, National Museum of African American History and Culture. 22 April 2022.

Schulson, Michael. “The Islamaphobia Election: How Muslim became a Racial Identity.” Religion Dispaches. 7 November 2016. <https://religiondispatches.org/muslim-racialization/>

“Video Essay the AIDS Memorial Quilt: Origins, Legacy, Futures.”

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Wang, Yanyan. “The long history and slow death of a word once used to describe everyone and everything from Egypt to China as well as rugs” The Washington Post. 13 May 2016.

SEE PDF for photos.

Investigation #1

Artifact 1 (AAPA, UCLA 1969):

Artifact 2:

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/09/16/440861458/grapes-of-wrath-the-forgotten-filipinos-who-led-a-farmworker-revolution (Morehouse)

Artifact 4:

On July 28, 1968, Richard Aoki gave a speech at an AAPA rally at UC Berkeley, where he described the AAPA’s ideology in depth.

“We Asian-Americans believe that American society has been, and still is, fundamentally a racist society, and that historically we have accommodated ourselves to this society in order to survive…We Asian-Americans support all non-white liberation movements and believe that all minorities in order to be truly liberated must have complete control over the political, economic, and social institutions within their respective communities. We unconditionally support the struggles of the Afro-American people, the Chicanos, and the American Indians to attain freedom, justice, and equality… We are unconditionally against the war in Vietnam… In conclusion, I would like to add that the Asian American Political Alliance is not just another Sunday social club. We are an action-oriented group, and we will not just restrict our activities to merely ethnic issues, but to all issues that are of fundamental importance pertaining to the building of a new and a better world.”^[8]

 Artifact 5 (Gidra 1969):

Artifact 6 (Gidra):

Artifact 7 (Gidra).

Artifact 8

Artifact 9

Wang, Yanyan. “The long history and slow death of a word once used to describe everyone and everything from Egypt to China as well as rugs” The Washington Post. May 13th, 2016

Artifact 10

Investigation #2

Artifact 1 (Goodrich):

Artifact #2:

Summer 2020 The Racialization of Muslim-Americans Post 9/11: Causes, Themes, and Effects Hamna Tariq Trinity College, Hartford Connecticut

Artifact #3:

BY MICHAEL SCHULSON  NOVEMBER 7, 2016

THE ISLAMOPHOBIA ELECTION: HOW “MUSLIM” BECAME A RACIAL IDENTITY

Artifact #4

Artifact #5

Dabashi, Hamid “Who is a ‘Muslim American?’” Al Jazeera. 17 September 2019

Artifact #6

Shepherd Fairey, “Revolutionary Muslim Girl”

Artifact #7: Linked Video

Artifact #8: Linked Article

Musli Americans Reflect on the impact of 9/11

Investigation #3

Artifact #1

Artifact #2

Gay Liberation Front Program Platform Statement, 1970. <https://drive.google.com/file/d/11WTHVNaFodaPbvmlrrG0A6n2Si96SeHa/view>

Artifact #3: Linked Video

Artifact #4:

Article Linked to picture below Mattson, Greggor “The Stonewall Riots didn’t start the Gay Right’s movement” JSTOR

Artifact #5: Linked Article

Iovannone, Jeffrey “A Brief History of the LGBTQ Initialism” Medium. 9 June 2019

Artifact#6 Linked Video

Artifact #7: Linked video

Artifact #8: Linked Video

Investigation #4

Artifact #1: Linked Video

Artifact #2: Linked Video

Artifact #3: Linked Video

Artifact #4: Linked Article

Artifact #5: Linked Speech

Objectives

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.7

Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.1.A

Come to discussions prepared, having read and researched material under study; explicitly draw on that preparation by referring to evidence from texts and other research on the topic or issue to stimulate a thoughtful, well-reasoned exchange of ideas.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.1

Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.2

Determine two or more central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to provide a complex analysis; provide an objective summary of the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.3

Analyze a complex set of ideas or sequence of events and explain how specific individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop over the course of the text.