Morrill Summer Retreat: Shared Stories and Single Stories

Goals

• Come together as a staff and share our stories 
• Critically consume and respond to media 
• Share techniques for using media in the classroom to develop critical literacies

Agenda
Tuesday Night:

• Back-to-Back Stories: Our Morrill Stories
• The Single Story of the Inner City Public School
• The Danger of the Single Story
• Creating Counter Narratives
• Reflection 

Wednesday Morning:

• Framing, Goals, Opening Reflection
• Media Consumption and Representation by Demographics
• Media and Racial Identity
• Viewing through a Critical Lens
• Classroom Connections
• Reflection

TUESDAY NIGHT

Back-to-Back Stories: Our Morrill Stories

Think about your experience at Morrill, what is the story of that experience?  Choose a particular event, student, class, project, etc that epitomizes your experience at this school and explains what makes you a Morrill teacher.

You will tell your story multiple times and listen to the stories of multiple people (though the rules change slightly as we go along).

After the activity, you'll end up with one word, and we'll share our words with each other.  As you listen to everyone's words, what do you notice?  Are there similarities?  Differences?  What would someone think about Morrill, just by hearing these words?

The Single Story of the Inner City Public School

Hollywood loves telling the story of the Inner City Public School, but they usually tell it the same way.  Below is the trailer for the movie Freedom Writers (2007), about a first year teacher who incorporates poetry into her practice to reach her students.

The National Association for Media Literacy and Education (NAMLE) has developed a list of questions to help audiences critically analyze media.

• Who made this? Who paid for it to be made?  Who DIDN'T make it?
• Who is the audience? How do you know?
• Why was this made? 
• Who is represented here?  How are they represented? Who isn't represented? 
• Whose perspective is the story told from? How can you tell?  Why was that the choice?
• What did the filmmakers want us to feel or think when watching? How do they communicate that?
• What is the impact of a film like this?  Who benefits? Who is harmed?
• How does this compare to other media depictions of Inner City Public Schools?
• How does this compare to your own experience in an Inner City Public School?
• How would you tell the story of your experience?

The Danger of the Single Story
In a wildly popular TED Talk, writer Chimamanda Adichie illustrates the danger of the single story by sharing various experiences from her own life.

BIG QUESTION: As educators, what is our responsibility to ensure that our students aren't learning from a single story?

Want to use this video with your students?  Here are some examples of discussion questions/ sample lesson plans based on Adichie's talk:
Facing History
Kid World Citizen
Culturally Responsible Urban Education (CRUE) Center

Narratives and Counter-Narratives

Now that we've examined the dominant narrative of the Inner City Public School, let's revisit our own narratives.  By publishing our own stories, we can ensure that the single story doesn't have the power it once held.  

Currently, media organizations such as National Public Radio, the National Writing Project, and Smith Magazine are publishing submissions of "Six-Word Memoirs" from professional and amateur (and teen) writers.  Using your own Story of Morrill, compose a six-word version that gets at the essence of your story.  For now, we'll do a low tech version: Write your six word story on a piece of paper (big, so it's visible), and have a partner take your picture with your story (you can show or hide your face).  Then email the picture to teamccap@gmail.com.  These will be compiled into a video to be published on this blog and possibly the school's website.

WEDNESDAY MORNING

Opening Question: How does the single story of the Inner City Public School represent our students?  What is the impact of that representation on our students?

Media Consumption and Representation
According to recent research, young people of color are consuming about 13 hours of media per day, about 4.5 hours more than their white counterparts, and most of that time is spent watching television.

via TurnOffYourTV.com

via Color Lines

But during those 1500 hours per year that our students are watching television, what are they seeing?  Beyond our concerns about them seeing violence, sex, language, drugs, and other "adult situations," what single stories are they ingesting?  More to the point, what single stories are they ingesting about themselves and other youth of color?

Before we even ask the question about how people of color are represented on television, let's ask this question first: Are people of color being represented on television?

What is the possible impact of this distribution of representation?

Now let's take a look at what's happening behind the cameras.  Each year, a TV Staffing Brief is released, reporting on the diversity of TV writers by race, gender, and age.  American writers' rooms are overwhelmingly white and male.  (The report lists statistics broken down by shows and networks, so you can you see if your favorite show is guilty of underrepresentation.)

How does who's telling the story affect whose stories get told?

This phenomenon is not just present in television (or broadcast media, for that matter). According to a recent study by the Cooperative Children's Book Center, less than 8% of the approximately 3,600 books published in 2012 for young readers were about people of color.  Even fewer were written or illustrated by people of color.  

How might this kind of representation and underrepresentation contribute to a Single Story being told about people of color?  What affect might this have on our students?

Studies have shown that violence on television, in movies, and video games have an impact on our society, particularly on youth, who consume more of these media outlets than other age groups. So it should be of no surprise that the negative depictions and/or the absence of people of color have very real consequences on how society views these groups and how these groups view themselves.

In the case of Black males, research studies have found that negative media depictions have the following impact on the way society views/treats Black males (The Opportunity Agenda, 2011):

• General antagonism towards Black males
• Exaggerated views of, expectations of, or tolerance of race-based socioeconomic disparities
• Exaggerated views of violence and criminality
• Lack of identification with or sympathy for Black males
• Public support for punitive solutions to problems (i.e. zero tolerance and three strike) 

But do these attitudes translate into actions? YES!!! These attitudes inform practices that have far-reaching and life-altering consequences:

*less attention from doctors (Aubrun, Brown, and Grady, 2007; Burgess et. al, 2007) 

*harsher sentences by judges (Entman & Gross, 2008; Rachlinski et. al, 2009)

*lower likelihood of being hired for jobs and/or admitted into schools (Goff & Steele et. al, 2008)

*lower odds of getting a loan (Brown, 1999)

*higher likelihood of being shot by the police and/or weapon holders (Greenwald et. al, 2003; McDonald, 2005)

These depictions also affect the way Black males feel about themselves and their opportunities:

• Feelings of low self-esteem and expectations and increased anxiety and stress especially in educational contexts (i.e. stereotype threat)
• The most common "role models" in media (i.e. rap stars and NBA players) imply limited options. (The Opportunity Agenda, 2011).

***Interestingly, recent studies that explicitly measure the racial views of individuals suggest that attitudes regarding race have not changed significantly since the election of President Obama. (The Opportunity Agenda, 2011)

Viewing Through a Critical Lens

We know that our kids consume so much media, and we know that often they are ingesting an incomplete single story about race; how can we as educators help our students develop a critical and questioning eye, so that while they're watching tv (or movies, or listening to music, or playing video games, or...) they're protecting themselves against harmful media messages and building their literacy skills at the same time?  

Many researchers have found huge benefits in adults making space for complex discussions about race, including topics like institutional and societal racism, with even very young children.  Media can often be a helpful place to start the conversation.

Let's watch the clip below from Disney's Pocahontas:

Using some of the Key Questions from NAMLE that we went over last night, let's think about this clip through a critical race lens.

• Who made this? Who paid for it to be made?  Who DIDN'T make it?
• Who is the audience? How do you know?
• Why was this made? 
• Who is represented here?  How are they represented? Who isn't represented? 
• Whose perspective is the story told from? How can you tell?  Why was that the choice?
• What did the filmmakers want us to feel or think when watching? How do they communicate that?
• What was the process like in making this film? (Click HERE for some behind-the-scenes information on the making of Pocahontas)
• What has been left out or changed?  Why did the filmmakers make that choice? How would the story have been different?
• What is the impact of a film like this?  Who benefits? Who is harmed?
• How does this compare to other media depictions of Native Americans? Is this contributing to or working against a Single Story?
• How would the story have been different if it had been made by Native Americans?

Key Points:

• Media is made by people with distinct points of view.
• Even media that is not considered overtly racist can be viewed through a critical race lens. 
• Depending on lived experiences, people will pick up on different aspects of a piece of media.
• Support your points with evidence from the "text."
• Having these conversations can build habits that mitigate the effects of the Single Story and develop literacy skills

Classroom Connections: Developing Students' Critical Literacy-an Example:

Title of Multidisciplinary Project: Elements of a Hip-Hop Video
Purpose: To critically examine the story being told through popular hip-hop videos.
Grade: 7th
Common Core Standards:
Reading: Literature.7.2: Determine a theme or central idea of a text.
Writing.7.9: Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
Statistics & Probability.7.5: Investigate chance processes and develop, use and evaluate probability models

Setting the Stage--Building Background: During a class discussion, students will be asked about their favorite song/video. They will then be asked to list the elements that go into creating a successful hip-hop video. All suggestions get written down at first, but then students will narrow the list to what they feel are the most important 6-7 elements. My students narrowed their list down to money ("making it rain"), expensive cars, a water scene (i.e. a beach, shower/tub), liquor ("popping bottles"), beautiful women scantily dressed, flashy jewelry, and a party/club.

Assignment:

• Students will watch an episode of a popular music program, 106 & Park. 106 & Park features the top 10 most requested hip-hop videos of the day. Students will record the names of all 10 videos.
• As they watch each video, students will record any and all of the 7 necessary elements of a hip-hop video they found. 
• Students will get into groups and compare their results.
• Math Connection: Students will then determine the experimental probability of each of the elements for the 10 videos they saw (i.e. Out of the 10 videos, how many times were beautiful women a major element? liquor? expensive cars? etc). They will record their results into one frequency chart. They will use their frequency chart to create a bar graph of their results.

• Writing Connection: Students will then write a reflection piece answering the following questions:

1. How correct were we in determining the necessary elements of a hip-hop video? (Use your chart and graph to explain.)
2. What is the "story" being told in hip-hop videos? What does this story say about those represented in them?
3. How accurate do you think that story is?
4. Why do you think this is the story being told? Who is telling it?

                
Reflection

• What are the implications of the Single Story for your students?
• What is our responsibility as educators to talk about race with our students?
• What are some ideas you have for doing this in your own class?
• What support do you feel like you still need?

More Resources

For more web resources on talking about race with your students, check out these links:

NPR's CodeSwitch:  Daily articles and radio pieces about issues of race in politics, society, and media

How Young Children Learn Race: Scholarly article with lots of research focusing on racial identification in children 6 months-6 years old.  Includes tips on how to have conversations about race and discrimination with children.
Common Sense Media: Tips for parents and educators for navigating media landscape with young people.  Great tips on having tough conversations and countering stereotypes (though mostly focused on gender).