Islamophobia 

 

The sixth grade social studies standards include a study of religions. We started our unit by having students interview people in their lives about the impact religion has on them. This way, students were able to learn more about their own religions and about their classmate's religions, building both pride in themselves and respect for other religions.

My students became very interested in learning about Islamophobia. They were able to identify many examples of Muslims being portrayed poorly in video games and movies. They also became interested in the story of the MTA being forced into putting up attack ads on the subways. You can read more about the story here. For my class, I told them the basics and showed them the ads. We discussed taking quotes out of context from the Quran and skewing statistics to make them sound scary. The ads are a good way to start a discussion and can become a good prompt for analytic writing. 

 

 

Teaching kids about Media Portrayal

The common core standards for reading do include a standard about identifying bias and author's point of view. Identifying bias in the media is a great way to discuss bias in our culture. Here are a few resources I have used in my classroom:

iCivics media

iCivics generally has some useful lesson plans in general, and they have a whole section on bias in the media. 

Racist Media Headlines

Huffington Post put together a list of headlines that illustrates the difference between how black victims and white perpetrators are portrayed. It is easily accessible to most kids and really clearly shows how much racism there is within our media.

Advertising and Gender 

Pictures:
These pictures can be a good source of discussion and writing.

Welcome!

This blog is a result of the New York Collective of Radical Educators' Inquiry to Action Group called Transforming the Curriculum: Social Justice Pedagogy Meets Mandated Curricula. Here, we are collecting resources, lessons, and suggestions to address issues of social justice in the classroom during an era of mandated curricula and the Common Core learning standards.