Lesson Objectives
By the end of this lesson, students should be able to demonstrate an understanding of intersectionality by discussing this concept with others. This lesson is designed to be an introduction to intersectionality to help students gain a basic understanding that they can apply to later assignments and lessons.
Materials Needed
- Projector/screen
- Device to project to screen
- Internet connection
- Optional: Post-it Notes
Pre-class student work:
- Students should watch and create notes about the video “Dr. Michelle Liu on What Asian American Studies, Literature, and Art Teaches Us During COVID-19” (~21 minutes) before class.
- Optional: Student reading. Many of these suggested/further readings could be used to initiate productive discussions about intersectionality. Also, this poem + recording of Ocean Vuong reading “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong” could lead to a generative discussion on intersectionality.
Lesson Plan
Warm Up: Social Identities (10 minutes)
Description
Ask students to work individually to think about their social identities and how they intersect.
Briefly explain these social identities:
- Language/Linguistic Identity
- Ethnicity
- Race
- Religion/Spirituality
- Age
- Socio-economic Status
- Gender Identity
- Sexual Orientation
- National Affiliation
- (Dis)ability (physical, developmental, emotional)
These can be written on the board and described, or the Social Identities Worksheet can be printed out and provided to students.
After students have thought about how they associate with these identities, ask students to identify how much they think about these identities by drawing different sized, intersecting circles on a piece of paper. For example, a student who thinks about their sexual identity often could draw a large circle for that identity, but perhaps a smaller circle for an identity they think about less often, such as gender identity.
If time allows, you could ask students to redraw these circles, this time thinking about the identities that have the greatest effect on how other people see them.
Rationale
By first identifying and then drawing these identities as intersecting circles, students can further relate to these identities and a conversation about intersectionality can emerge. When drawing, students can intersect these circles, showing how one identity merges with another, or they can draw a circle completely separate from another, showing how students see different identities as being distinct, based on context, or emerging in different situations.
This activity is loosely adapted from The University of Michigan’s Social Identity Wheel.
Small-group Discussion (25 minutes)
Description
Break the class into small groups.
Play this portion (~4:48-6:10) of Dr. Liu’s video for the class.
Ask each group to discuss the following questions:
- How does Dr. Liu define responsibility? Where does she get this definition? Did this definition surprise you?
- How can this definition be related to our warm-up activity? How do identity and response-ability intersect?
Ask each group to nominate one person to share their discussion with the entire class.
Show the next portion (~6:10-9:40) of Dr. Liu’s video for the class.
Ask each group to discuss the following questions: How can an intersectional lens be applied when examining social problems? What are privilege and oppression and why is it important to understand them?
- What are the forces that are working to deny rights to the people Dr. Liu discusses?
- How can an intersectional lens be applied to this portion of the video?
- What is oppression? What is privilege?
- What examples of oppression and privilege can you identify in this portion of the video?
- Why is it important to understand both oppression and privilege?
Rationale
These discussion questions have been developed for a class that has not read any of the suggested readings. Adaptations could ask students to identify intersections between a chosen reading and this portion of Dr. Liu’s video.
The first all-class share-out could be an opportunity to guide the conversation toward a deeper understanding of intersectionality, which could help students in the second group of questions.
This second set of questions has been designed to help students gain a deeper understanding of intersectionality: how these overlapping systems of discrimination are interdependent.
Wrap Up (10 minutes)
Description
Ask each group to share their discussion.
Ask students to reflect on what they heard/learned/read during this lesson.
This can be done individually on a piece of paper, or you could ask students to write a key thought on a Post-it Note and turn it in before leaving class.
Rationale
Individual reflections are a low-stakes way for teachers to hear from students. Students can be anonymous, which takes the pressure off of them, but could also provide their email in case the do want to be in contact with their teacher.
These can also be used to generate future discussion topics.