Diversity Activities
for High School
In this lesson students will do research to find out who aren’t/what isn’t being represented by the 2010 census. This may include ethnic groups who are forced to choose the “other” category, undocumented immigrants, homeless people and transgender individuals, all who will find there is no way to indicate their specific experiences on the upcoming census.
Students "interview" famous immigrants from American history and present oral and written reports. (from SuccessLink)
This lesson is a study in cultural diversity and community awareness -- illustration, mural art. (from SuccessLink)
Fighting Prejudice and Discrimination Against People with Learning Disabilities
In these lessons, students will work toward understanding what it means to have a learning disability. The goal is make them aware of prejudice and discrimination aimed at those with learning disabilities. (from Teaching Tolerance)
The ABCs of Whiteness and Anti-Racism
These activities help students think about what it means to be white in a multicultural society and what white people can do to work against racism. (from Teaching Tolerance)
This lesson encourages students to investigate domestic hunger in the United States as well as in their own communities and offers resources to support youth in the fight against hunger. (From Teaching Tolerance)
The Depth and Breadth of "Multicultural"
The Depth and Breadth of "Multicultural" is designed to engage students in a process of defining "culture" and examining its complexity. Often, especially in a class about multiculturalism or diversity, "culture" becomes synonymous with "race" or "ethnicity." This activity reveals the limitations of such a conceptualization and challenges the assumptions that are often made by educators about what students identify as the important strands of the "cultural" in "multicultural." (from the Multicultural Pavilion)
Sharing Stories: Prejudice Activity
This activity helps individuals explore how they first became concious of prejudice and discrimination and the feelings associated with it and makes participants aware that everyone has experienced prejudice and discrimination and that it comes in a variety of forms (not just racial). from the Multicultural Pavilion)
Exploring Language: Definitions Activity
Considers language as a vital aspect of multicultural education and awareness. Participants discuss how they define words such as prejudice, discrimination, racism, sexism, classism and homophobia. Issues of power and institutional discrimination emerge. (from the Multicultural Pavilion)
Learning Social Roles: Boy/Girl
Participants write and share short pieces about how their gender identities were affected through childhood messages about what it meant to be a boy or a girl. This activity maintains a focus on talking about issues from one's own experience instead of their perceptions of the experiences of "those people." (Adaptible for race, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class, religion, and other identifiers.) (from the Multicultural Pavilion)
Circles of My Multicultural Self
The Circles activity engages participants in a process of identifying what they consider to be the most important dimensions of their own identity, concurrently developing a deeper understanding of stereotypes as participants share stories about when they were proud to be part of a particular group and when it was especially hurtful to be associated with a particular group. (from the Multicultural Pavilion)
Critical thinking about all media and information is an essential aspect of multicultural learning. Test your and your students' or participants' understanding of race, gender, and socioeconomic class with this activity, leading seamlessly into a dialogue on stereotypes, misinformation, and prejudices and how they inform teaching and learning. (from the Multicultural Pavilion)
Students keep a record of first impressions throughout a semester and use it to examine their own unconscious biases. (from Teaching Tolerance)
Juliette Hampton Morgan: Becoming an Ally
Students learn the importance of being an ally through the story of Juliette Hampton Morgan, a white woman who lived in Montgomery, Alabama, during segregation. (from Teaching Tolerance)
What do Halloween costumes say?
This activity, adaptable across grades, is designed to help students look critically at the Halloween costumes and examine them for bias and stereotypes. (from Teaching Tolerance)
Latino Heritage Month: Mexican American Labor
This lesson encourages students to explore policies and attitudes about Mexican and Mexican American laborers in the U.S. and develop informed personal perspectives of the United States-Mexico border and undocumented Mexican immigrants. (Grades 10-12) (from Teaching Tolerance)
Incorporating Culture/Heritage in Mathematics
Mathematics lesson plan format which incorporates the contributions of a vast diversity of cultures and people into regular mathematics instruction. Includes examples such as Viking navigation, astronomy, athletes, Egyptian pyramids. (from Learning Point Associates)
This lesson plan compares the plot and setting characteristics of several versions of the Cinderella tale to teach students about universal and culturally specific literary elements. (from EDSITEment)
Fables & Trickster Tales around the World
The following lesson introduces children to folk tales through a literary approach that emphasizes genre categories and definitions. In this unit, students will become familiar with fables and trickster tales from different cultural traditions and will see how stories change when transferred orally between generations and cultures. (from EDSITEment)
The lessons in this unit are designed to help your students recognize how people of different cultures and time periods have used cloth-based art forms to pass down their traditions and history. (from EDSITEment)
Lesson plans that teach about the role of myth and oral tradition, and also explores the complex culture of Puerto Rico which combines elements of native Tainos people, Spaniards, and Africans. (from the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute)
Classroom activities examine newspaper articles for stereotypes and prejudice, student groups 'pack' for internment, journal exercise and literature review.
This lesson plan encourages students to explore oral traditions in Africa. Includes interviewing and storytelling. (from PBS)
Students will understand that assumptions can lead to stereotypes and unfair judgments about individuals and groups and how stereotypes and biases affect our lives. (from Discovery Education)
An investigation of American attitudes toward homosexuality, using the death of Matthew Shepard as a focal point. (from TIELab)
Cultural Awareness: Sharing Traditions
In a multicultural secondary school setting many students have built walls around their ethnicity, and they form small cliques, along with prejudices, and stereotypes of others who are different than themselves. The purpose of the activity is to have students within a small team get to know each other by sharing cultural traditions which make their families unique. (from the Educator's Reference Desk)
In this lesson, students investigate a decade of American history when the civil rights movement was a focus of national attention. They create a video essay about a person or event that played an important role in shaping the civil rights movement. They learn why and how that person or event had an impact and present their research in an iMovie project. (from Apple Learning Interchange)
A site that addresses both historical and contemporary immigration issues in the United States, this interactive Web site/online learning adventure engages users in the immigrant experience in a way that builds empathy and understanding for the subjects of the documentary and countless other newcomers to America. (from PBS)
Six lesson plans, carefully balanced to present all sides of controversial issues. (from the Constitutional Rights Foundation)
Students debate a controversial issue. (from the Constitutional Rights Foundation)
By thinking about the intersections of whites, blacks, and others around the blues, students will deepen their understanding of discrimination and prejudice. They will also come to understand the ways in which music can, or cannot, create opportunities for people of different cultures, and with varying degrees of power, to relate to one another and find common ground. (from PBS)
An activity that exposes the history and prejudice of many words or expressions commonly used in the United States. (from Teaching Tolerance)
a bullying survey for early grades and a bullying quiz for middle and upper grades, designed to increase awareness about and decrease instances of bullying. (from Teaching Tolerance)
Help students break out of "politics is boring" apathy with this poetry activity. (from Teaching Tolerance)
Lesson uses history of genocide to further notions of personal responsibility. (from Teaching Tolerance)
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry prompts look at how students respond to mistreatment of their peers. (from Teaching Tolerance)
What can Santa teach us about stereotypes? In this lesson, students will explore the way clothing can influence our perceptions of one another. (from Teaching Tolerance)
Mix It Up: The Discomfort Zone
Students challenge boundary lines in the community. (from Teaching Tolerance)
And Maybe I Can Change that Too
A high school teacher helps his students challenge their own racist beliefs. (from Teaching Tolerance)
Sexism: From Identification to Activism
Students will identify ways in which sexism manifests in personal and institutional beliefs, behaviors, use of language and policies. They then will develop strategies to challenge sexism in their personal lives, in the school or in the community. (from Teaching Tolerance)
Looking at labels and stereotypes and their effects on students. (from Teaching Tolerance)
Since the September 11th terrorist attacks, Arab Americans have been the targets of profound bias, harassment and hate crimes. Ongoing conflicts in the Middle East only exacerbate stereotypes about people of Arab descent. This newly updated activity, originally released in 2000, can help students overcome misperceptions of this ethnic group. (from Teaching Tolerance)
Lesson plan encourages critical thinking about the first amendment and the free practice of religion. Are there limits to free exercise? Resources, discussion questions, activities, essay ideas, and more. (From the First Amendment Center)
What is the (No) Establishment Clause?
Lesson plan explores the separation of church and state. Resources, discussion questions, essay ideas, and more. (from the First Amendment Center)
