Who do we say that we are?
Peter Johnson

Overview
     This lesson is set up for students to examine different racial and cultural identities through the use of novels, music and television.

Goals
     The goals of the lesson are for students to recognize the stereotypes that are present in the things they read, watch and listen to every day.

Materials and Resources
     Students are going to need to be provided with access to the resources that they need to read, watch and listen to. It's safe to say that almost every house has a television (or perhaps it isn't). It will probably be best to have students work in groups to assure that there is open access to all of the technological resources necessary to complete the lesson. Books can be read anywhere, music can be listened to in the class or at home and people can watch videos at home or at school as well, there are a variety of ways of going about getting access to the resources, it really shouldn't be a problem.

Activities
     What this lesson would entail is the reading watching and listening to a number of sources that tap into particular cultural centers. Students will learn about the different cultures, their stereotypes and the assumptions that people make about them. Taking in all of this media will serve as springboard for a more critical analysis of a specific work of media chosen by the student and approved by the teacher.

Accommodation
     This lesson could be a problem with students who have difficulties either hearing or seeing. It won't have the same impact for them, as it will for students who can have all the different media experiences. Things can be read and transcripted for them, but I don't know that it will have the same attraction.

Extension
     The paper is the natural extension of the synthesis that we will be learning in class. If you wanted to go further I suppose that you could have students write about how their cultural views have changed as a result of the lesson.

Assessment
     Students will be responsible for writing a paper that will talk about the insight that they've gained to a specific work by looking at multiple forms of media. This task causes the student to integrate their knowledge of what they have learned in a variety o fashions in to a single product.