What if students had to articulate a "direction" or belief about prejudice through text and images?
My classes had been discussing prejudice in history and in literature throughout the year. My goal was to look at the broad implications of different types of prejudice so that we could come to some conclusions about prejudice and its implication to society. But two-thirds of the way through the year, I still felt like my students did not have a grasp on what prejudice is. My students did not seem to be taking lessons from the history and literature and applying them to their lives. They needed a fresh approach.
Since the world of my 8th-grade students is built around images and brief but powerful texts, I started to think about the visual essay — a form in which images are matched with five to seven words. A great example of a visual essay outside of the classroom occurs on CD album covers. The text, in the form of a title, matches an image, which in turn matches the songs, which match the text. All pieces contribute to send the user in the direction the artist intends. I decided that this same concept could be applied to prejudice. What if students had to articulate a "direction" or belief about prejudice through text and images?
My students and I took the word "prejudice" as a starting point. We looked at images that dealt with the issue of prejudice from different directions. We saw pictures of marches, racial profiling, migrant workers and Nazi propaganda. We discussed what was happening in each image and what the image might be saying. We also brainstormed words that would contribute to the meaning of the image. We looked for connections between the images.
Then the students began to design a CD cover. The students thought about what a message about prejudice would say. Some wanted to point out that prejudice was everywhere. Some wanted to say the prejudice was rooted in fear. The messages that the students came up with were dense and powerful. The title, image on the cover, and song selection had to show a unified message.
Students had to think about what their message looked like and sounded like. Along with teaching theme and unity of message, it led to some individual and collective realizations about prejudice.
This activity could fit in with almost any curriculum that discusses prejudice. It was some of the most productive time spent in class all year because it created a multi-dimensional understanding of a very complicated topic, and I hope it gave my students a foundation for future thought about the nature of prejudice.
Kay Honeyman
Highland Park Middle School
Dallas, TX
