ELA B10: Equity & Ethics, Equal Opportunity

Discussion Questions:

1. What are some of the factors that create inequality?
2. How have inequalities shaped our world? 

Refer to “Equal Opportunity” from Identities 9: Endless possibilities or find photographs highlighting historical injustices.

Equity and Ethics Lesson Two Equal Opportunity

Reading & Viewing Historical Records

Historical records give us clues about past events. There are two categories of historical evidence that people use to get an understanding of the past—primary and secondary evidence.

Primary evidence: the record of the actual words or other documentation of a person who participated in or witnessed the events described. These records might be photographs, letters, diaries, interviews, newspaper accounts, video footage, audio records, autobiographies, or legal documents.

Secondary evidence: the record of the findings of someone who did not participate in the event but who used and interpreted primary evidence. The information in most textbooks would be considered secondary evidence.

Strategies

1. Predict: Before reading, use the text features (visuals, captions, headings, titles) to make predictions. Questions: What is this about? Are these primary or secondary accounts? Summarize your ideas in a couple of sentences.
2. Visualize: Using the visuals provided, make a mental map of what is going on in the texts. Questions: What is going on? How is the visual related to the text around it?
3. Connections: build connections between these texts and what you already know. Questions: How does this information connect with other things I’ve read or experienced? What background events about the events do I already know that can help me interpret the information?
4. Questions: Look for gaps in your understanding or in the information. Questions: Is there anything I don’t understand? Are there parts that seem confusing? Is there background information missing that I need to find out in order to understand the situation?
5. Infer: Use clues in the text and your own knowledge to fill in the gaps and draw conclusions.
6. Evaluate: Think about the text as a whole and form opinions about what you’ve read. Questions: Which individuals and groups are portrayed in a positive way? Which are presented in a negative way? What kind of language is used to describe them? What perspectives do the images project? What is the background of the person presenting the information? What message is he or she trying to get across to the reader? Is there another side to the issue?