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High School

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ELA.SL.9-10.1a

Common core State Standards

ELA: English Language Arts

SL: Speaking and Listening Standards 6-\x80\x9312

9-10: 9th & 10th Grades

1a:
Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions
(one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 9-\x80\x9310
topics, texts, and issues, building on others'\x80\x99 ideas and expressing their own
clearly and persuasively.

a. Come to discussions prepared, having read and researched material under
study; explicitly draw on that preparation by referring to evidence from
texts and other research on the topic or issue to stimulate a thoughtful,
well-reasoned exchange of ideas.

b. Work with peers to set rules for collegial discussions and decision-making
(e.g., informal consensus, taking votes on key issues, presentation of
alternate views), clear goals and deadlines, and individual roles as needed.

c. Propel conversations by posing and responding to questions that relate the
current discussion to broader themes or larger ideas; actively incorporate
others into the discussion; and clarify, verify, or challenge ideas and
conclusions.

d. Respond thoughtfully to diverse perspectives, summarize points of
agreement and disagreement, and, when warranted, qualify or justify their
own views and understanding and make new connections in light of the
evidence and reasoning presented.

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

|

ELA.SL.9-10.1c

Common core State Standards

ELA: English Language Arts

SL: Speaking and Listening Standards 6-12

9-10: 9th & 10th Grades

1c:
Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions
(one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 9-10
topics, texts, and issues, building on others'\x80\x99 ideas and expressing their own
clearly and persuasively.

a. Come to discussions prepared, having read and researched material under
study; explicitly draw on that preparation by referring to evidence from
texts and other research on the topic or issue to stimulate a thoughtful,
well-reasoned exchange of ideas.

b. Work with peers to set rules for collegial discussions and decision-making
(e.g., informal consensus, taking votes on key issues, presentation of
alternate views), clear goals and deadlines, and individual roles as needed.

c. Propel conversations by posing and responding to questions that relate the
current discussion to broader themes or larger ideas; actively incorporate
others into the discussion; and clarify, verify, or challenge ideas and
conclusions.

d. Respond thoughtfully to diverse perspectives, summarize points of
agreement and disagreement, and, when warranted, qualify or justify their
own views and understanding and make new connections in light of the
evidence and reasoning presented.

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

|

ELA.RH.9-10.3

Common core State Standards

ELA: English Language Arts

RH: Reading Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies 6-12

9-10: 9th & 10th Grades

3:
Analyze in detail a series of events described in
a text; determine whether earlier events caused
later ones or simply preceded them.

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

Thought starters

1. What are the benefits of having students choose their own research topics?

2. How does the tree diagram help students think about root causes and effects of the contemporary problems they're researching?

3. How do civic engagement lessons prepare students for their futures?

School Details

Oakland Technical High School
4351 Broadway
Oakland CA 94611

Data Provided By:

Teachers

English Language Arts Social Studies / 9 / Teacher

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High school students in Matt Colley's social studies class work in small groups to synthesize research they've done on a contemporary issue, and begin to make a plan about how and where they can make change. Class begins with students working individually on a tree diagram to process their research.

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Make anything talk!

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Gentrification

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Today we are honored to have YA author Lilliam Rivera join us for YA A to Z to discuss gentrification. Lilliam Rivera is the author of The Education of Margot Sanchez.
When the Lyft driver veers the car to the first right on to Willis Avenue, I notice the large billboard sign. "New Luxurious Condos." The billboard stands erect in front of a large empty lot. I try to remember what was on the empty lot before. Was it a tenement building? Was there a bodega? It's only been six months since my last visit to the South Bronx, New York and I already see so many changes. It's hard to keep up.

Although I've lived in Los Angeles for the past fifteen years, my heart is closely tied to where I grew up in the Bronx. My young adult novel The Education of Margot Sanchez (Simon & Schuster) is set in the Bronx with our protagonist Margot Sanchez being forced to work at her father's failing supermarket. All around her, a slightly privileged Margot sees how the Bronx is quickly changing. The affects of gentrification are taking its toll on the neighborhood and on her family's livelihood. This is the Bronx I see as I exit the car and walk to my parent's house and notice yet another new boutique hotel promoting its grand opening.

When I set out to write my coming-of-age novel I knew I would write about gentrification. Like many I have my preconceived notions of how gentrification occurs. You see new buildings being erected, millions of dollars being funneled to rebuild parks, or a new police station sets up shop on a once abandoned lot and you think gentrification is here. It happened in Brooklyn. The same happened in the lower east side and Harlem. Detroit. New Orleans. What seems so sudden is actually an economic system placed to improve an urban neighborhood at the cost of the families living there.
Gentrification and the Criminalization of Neighborhoods - The Atlantic
Below, I'm sharing books that might help readers understand the history of gentrification as well as young adult novels that dig deep on how this can shape a young person's life.

The following nonfiction books can give any reader a starting point in to the sordid history that pits the economic growth of a city on the shoulders of working class and poor families.
CDC - Healthy Places - Health Effects of Gentrification
How to Kill a City: Gentrification, Inequality, and the Fight for the Neighborhood by Peter Moskowitz

Moskowitz breaks down the history of gentrification in Detroit, San Francisco, New York and New Orleans. The author writes: "What Gentrification is not about individual acts; it's about systemic violence based on decades of racist housing policy in the United States that has denied people of color, especially black people, access to the same."

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

Rothstein argues that federal, state, and local governments create and reinforce neighborhood segregation. "To prevent lower-income African Americans from living in neighborhoods where middle-class whites resided, local and federal officials began in the 1910s to promote zoning ordinances to reserve middle-class neighborhoods for single-family homes..."

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Desmond follows families in Milwaukee as they try to keep shelter. "After a few weeks, the city found Arleen's favorite place 'unfit for human habitation,' removed her, nailed green boards over the windows and doors, and issued a fine to her landlord."

As proven every day, young people are at the forefront of change. The following young adult and middle grade books tackle gentrification in a nuanced and intelligent manner:

The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora by Pablo Cartaya

Set in Miami, this Pura Belpré Honor book is full of humor and love as a young boy fights against a land developer encroaching on his family's restaurant.

Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older

An urban fantasy, Older creates a city that is not only under attack by dark forces but can only be saved by a young Afro-Latina Sierra Santiago in a changing Brooklyn.

The Education of Margot Sanchez by Lilliam Rivera

While stuck working at her father's supermarket, Margot Sanchez witnesses first hand how gentrification is blanketing the Bronx with the help of the young activist Moises.

The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano by Sonia Manzano

Set in 1969 New York, Manzano's novel depicts the rise of the Puerto Rican activist group The Young Lords and one girl's own political awakening.
Realistic Teen Fiction: Racism and Gentrification
This Side of Home by Renee Watson

Watson takes on gentrification in a Portland neighborhood as twin sisters try to carve a space in their slowly unrecognizable home.

Also, don't forget to add the following forthcoming young adult book to your TBR pile:

Pride by Ibi Ziboi

Zuri Benitez has pride. Brooklyn pride, family pride, and pride in her Afro-Latino roots. But pride might not be enough to save her rapidly gentrifying neighborhood from becoming unrecognizable.

When the wealthy Darcy family moves in across the street, Zuri wants nothing to do with their two teenage sons, even as her older sister, Janae, starts to fall for the charming Ainsley. She especially can't stand the judgmental and arrogant Darius. Yet as Zuri and Darius are forced to find common ground, their initial dislike shifts into an unexpected understanding.

But with four wild sisters pulling her in different directions, cute boy Warren vying for her attention, and college applications hovering on the horizon, Zuri fights to find her place in Bushwick's changing landscape, or lose it all.

Meet Lilliam Rivera

Lilliam Rivera is the author of The Education of Margot Sanchez, a contemporary young adult novel from Simon & Schuster available now in bookstores everywhere. Named a "2017 Face to Watch" by the Los Angeles Times, her work has appeared in Lenny Letter, Tin House, and USA Today, to name a few. Originally from the Bronx, New York, Lilliam currently lives in Los Angeles where she's working on her second young adult novel, Dealing in Dreams, forthcoming from Simon & Schuster in March 2019.

About THE EDUCATION OF MARGOT SANCHEZ

Pretty in Pink comes to the South Bronx in this bold and romantic coming-of-age novel about dysfunctional families, good and bad choices, and finding the courage to question everything you ever thought you wanted-from debut author Lilliam Rivera. THINGS/PEOPLE MARGOT HATES:Mami, for destroying my social life
Papi, for allowing Junior to become a Neanderthal
Junior, for becoming a Neanderthal
This supermarket
Everyone else

After "borrowing" her father's credit card to finance a more stylish wardrobe, Margot
Sánchez suddenly finds herself grounded. And by grounded, she means working as an indentured servant in her family's struggling grocery store to pay off her debts.

With each order of deli meat she slices, Margot can feel her carefully cultivated prep school reputation slipping through her fingers, and she's willing to do anything to get out of this punishment. Lie, cheat, and maybe even steal...

Margot's invitation to the ultimate beach party is within reach and she has no intention of letting her family's drama or Moisés-the admittedly good looking but outspoken boy from the neighborhood-keep her from her goal.

See Also:
4 YA Books That Deal With Gentrification - Book Riot 3 On A YA Theme: Social Justice in YA Fiction - Book Riot The 5 Books You Need to Read to Understand Gentrification | The Nation

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YA A to Z: The Long Road to Gentrification, a guest post by author Lilliam Rivera

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Today we are honored to have YA author Lilliam Rivera join us for YA A to Z to discuss gentrification. Lilliam Rivera is the author of The Education of Margot Sanchez. When the Lyft driver veers the car to the first right on to Willis Avenue, I notice the large billboard sign.

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Announcing the Pulitzer Center Poetry Contest!

How can poetry be an effective response to conflict and current events? How can we use poetry to connect global issues to our local and personal contexts? Students are invited to explore these questions in their entries to the Fighting Words Poetry Contest.
Prizes:
Eligibility: Any current K-12 student in the United States or internationally may submit.

Deadline: Friday, May 18, 2018 11:59 PM

Submission guidelines: Go to the Pulitzer Center website and select a story (see workshop guide below for suggestions). Write a poem of any form and length that includes lines from the story. Use " With lines from "STORY TITLE" by JOURNALIST NAME, a Pulitzer Center reporting project" as your epigraph.

The poem should be on the theme of peace and conflict, but you are welcome to interpret that theme creatively and to make connections between international reporting and your own life/community.

Send poem(s) to hberk@pulitzercenter.org as a Word document, PDF, GoogleDoc, audio file, or video. If you choose to submit an audio or video file, please include a transcript of your poem as well. Do not include your name in the document.

In the body of your email, please include your full name, school, grade, state and/or country, and phone number.

Judging criteria: Poems will be judged by the following criteria:

Success of the poem on its own terms (craft, linguistic style, emotion, etc.)

Successful inclusion of lines quoted from a Pulitzer Center story

Success in addressing the theme of peace and conflict

Schedule a Workshop to Prepare: Teachers and after-school activity leaders who would like to prepare their students to craft poems for this contest can contact hberk@pulitzercenter.org to schedule a workshop for their students facilitated by a Pulitzer Center education team member, or may use the workshop guide outlined below.

Workshop Description:

In this workshop, students will examine the intersections of poetry and journalism. They will have the opportunity to explore multimedia international news stories about conflict, analyze poems that respond to those stories, and write their own poems using a pressing story that speaks to them.

Poems produced in this workshop can be revised and submitted to the Fighting Words Poetry Contest for the chance to win cash prizes, publication, and an invitation to perform at the Pulitzer Center's Beyond War: Causes of Conflict, Prospects for Peace conference in June.

Objectives:

Students will be able to...

explain the connection between journalism and poetry

analyze the connection between a poem and the news story by which it was inspired

make a personal/local connection to an international story about conflict

write a poem about peace and conflict that includes lines from an international news story

Discussion Questions:

1. What is conflict?

What conflicts are you aware of in other parts of the world right now?

What conflicts are present in your community?

2. What are effective responses to conflict?

3. What is journalism's role in responding to conflict?

4. What is art's role in responding to conflict? What can poetry contribute, specifically?

5. How would you compare the job of a journalist and the job of a poet?

6. How would you compare journalism and poetry?

Reading/Listening/Watching:

1. Read and listen to the audio (1:55) of "Permission" by Noel Quiñones

2. Watch 0:00-5:05 of the New York Times documentary " Inside a Suicide Prevention Center in Puerto Rico." While you listen, highlight the lines in Quiñones's poem that are taken from the documentary.

3. Discuss the poem:

What lines jump out at you as important, interesting, beautiful?

What is the subject of this poem? How could it be interpreted as a poem about conflict?

What does "119 syllables" refer to?

From whose perspective is the poem written?

How does the speaker of the poem express personal connection to the subject?

In what ways is the poem similar to the documentary? In what ways is it different?

4. Read Quiñones's commentary on the poem:

"In the aftermath of Hurricane María, Puerto Rico has been struggling to rebuild and been denied federal grants to do so. While reporters and news stations have focused on people's access to food, water, and electricity we are seeing a new crisis develop. The New York Times published a mini documentary entitled ' Inside a Suicide Prevention Center in Puerto Rico ' at the beginning of January highlighting the mental health crisis now taking hold. As a third generation Puerto Rican, I have never been able to shake the pain of being from a place that is not quite a country and not quite a state. We have always lived in a precarious identity and while many state Hurricane María as the beginning of our traumas, we have suffered since America's invasion 119 years ago."

Discuss:

Exploring Your Story:

Now you will have the chance to choose a story of peace and conflict that speaks to you.

1. Take a few minutes to explore the headlines/images/article summaries for the articles listed below. Select the one that most interests you.

2. In the next 10 minutes, read the corresponding article. While you read, highlight phrases that jump out at you as important, interesting, or beautiful.

3. Find a conversation partner with a different article and discuss:

What is your story about?

How does it relate to peace and conflict?

What local and/or personal connection can you make?

What is one phrase that you highlighted, and why?

Writing:

1. Take 5 minutes to create a cento from the lines you highlighted and other language in your article. A cento is a poem comprised entirely of quotes from other texts. (Find example centos here.)

2. Take another 15 minutes to write a poem that includes lines from your cento and your own original writing.

Sharing:

1. Share your poem with the class and receive your peers' feedback. See if they can guess what your story was about.

2. Here are some suggestions for how to give good feedback to your peers:

Mention lines or words you thought were especially powerful or beautiful.

When you say that you "liked" or "didn't like" different aspects of the poem, say why.

Consider the question: How did the poem address the subject of peace and conflict?

Suggested Stories:
Text and photo stories: Video stories:

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Fighting Words: Poetry as a Response to Conflict [Contest and Workshop]

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How can poetry be an effective response to conflict and current events? How can we use poetry to connect global issues to our local and personal contexts? Students are invited to explore these questions in their entries to the Fighting Words Poetry Contest. Prizes: Eligibility: Any current K-12 student in the United States or internationally may submit.

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Teaching Tolerance

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Skip to main content

A Framework for Anti-Bias Education

The Social Justice Standards are a road map for anti-bias education at every stage of K-12 instruction. Comprised of anchor standards and age-appropriate learning outcomes, the standards provide a common language and organizational structure educators can use to guide curriculum development and make schools more just and equitable.

Divided into four domains-identity, diversity, justice and action (IDJA)-the standards recognize that, in today's diverse classrooms, students need knowledge and skills related to both prejudice-reduction and collective action. Together, these domains represent a continuum of engagement in anti-bias, multicultural and social justice education. The IDJA domains are based on Louise Derman-Sparks' four goals for anti-bias education in early childhood.

Each of the IDJA domains has learning outcomes and school-based scenarios organized by grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12.

Download the Standards

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The Social Justice Standards are a road map for anti-bias education at every stage of K-12 instruction, providing a common language and organizational structure educators can use to guide curriculum development and make schools more just and equitable.

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Resource

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Multicultural and Social Justice Books - Social Justice Books

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Curated Booklists Carefully selected multicultural and social justice books for children, young adults, and educators on 90+ topics. Reviews of Children's Literature Critical reviews of children's and young adult books from a variety of vetted sources, consolidated here for easy access. Articles & News Articles about selecting children's literature and news about Kid Lit.

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A principal's perspective

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For almost a decade, teachers and administrators at the Bowman Elementary School in Lexington, Massachusetts, have been working to increase staff diversity and become a more inclusive, culturally proficient community. But about a year ago, says Principal Mary Anton, they realized that teaching children the language to recognize and understand race and bias is an important part of the work of dismantling racism through education.

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Design Principle 2: Start with yourself 

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Design Principle 2: Start with yourself 

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Confronting My Own White Privilege

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How am I supposed to confront white supremacy and racism on the first day of school?

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In less than one week, my new groups of 5th graders will be heading through our classroom door. I love the start of the school year. It is filled with such anticipation, mixed with anxiousness, mixed with uncertainty, mixed with excitement. I love the possibility of a new school year, I love the way we,...

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Design Principle 1: Design at the Margins

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Design Principle 1: Design at the Margins

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Sankofa Storytime - Denver

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We are a country founded on the genocide of one people and the enslavement of another. We have yet to reconcile the impact of this inheritance on us all.

The experiment of America is 240 years old. In these 240 years, systems were designed that isolate and separate us, that empower a chosen few with the privilege of invention, innovation, and creativity, that lay the groundwork for misunderstanding, fear, and ultimately hate.

Racism and inequity are products of design. They can be redesigned.

We believe that in community, with thoughtful and deliberate action, we can design the obsolescence of those systems. We offer equityXdesign, a practice that organizations, teams, and individuals can use to mitigate the impact of racism and inequity in design practices.

As a collaborative, this work is our voice - an offering to the legacy of liberation, truth, and democracy. We collectively leverage the magic of relationships across difference to design right-fit solutions. Christine empowers people to reimagine themselves as school designers and founders. Michelle helps people find their own voices as anti racist leaders for equity. Caroline activates the voices of the marginalized to strengthen relationships, particularly those across lines of difference. Given who we are and what we know, we feel uniquely positioned to contribute to this fight, in this way - at the intersection of equity and design. We know it is not the only thing that needs to be done. It is no silver bullet, but it is where we think our energy has the greatest return.

As leaders from the racial equity and design and innovation spaces, we offer equityXdesign - a new way to think about and approach achieving equity. equityXdesign creates the conditions and relationships for inclusive innovation. A process for anti-racist and equitable design, it is guided by three central beliefs: innovation's need for inclusion and intentional design, the indistinguishable relationship between the past and the present, and our moral imperative to live in the future we desire to create.

equityXdesign is a practice that merges the consciousness of racial equity work with the methodology of design thinking. We believe that designing for the most affected and marginalized, letting their voices and experiences lead, and acknowledging the barriers to engagement are critical for this new process. Most importantly, we believe this design work must happen across racial difference. All people have the capacity for innovation. We believe it is this multiplicity of entry points that will create the conditions for new invention and innovations for equity. This practice is for teams of educators, designers, advocates, and agitators committed to building internal capacity and confidence designing for equity. It is reserved for those who believe we are stronger together and have the bold imagination to cultivate new ideas, invent equitable institutions, and reform biased policies.

American history has created a segregated world where white people are rarely in community with others. The isolation creates myths, stories, and beliefs that go unchallenged, and people of color are not immune. The work of acknowledgement, the telling of truths, and the opportunities for community and reflection are necessary before we can move forward. If we remain unwilling to do serious individual, institutional, and structural work as a people, our path toward a truly equitable future will stagnate.
Helping us see and understand our history, bringing us in community with one another in ways that allow us to hear each other, the raising of voices traditionally lost in the white noise of hegemonic discourse - this is the power of equity work.
From large government agencies to schools, tech startups, nonprofits, and philanthropic groups, the education ecosystem has a very narrow definition of inequity and how it manifests, often focusing only on explicit and intentional racism. But racism today looks different than it did in our Jim Crow past. Overwhelmingly, individuals no longer believe in the biological inferiority of black and brown people; however, while we may all claim egalitarian values, and while it is no longer socially acceptable to treat others differently because of the color of their skin, most of us hold implicit biases that impact our behavior and allow for structural and systemic inequity to remain.

We are living in a "colorblind" society that often recognizes racism as anomalous, individual acts of aggression or the mere acknowledgment of difference, not the silent structures that continue to divide. The victories of the civil rights movement, and now the Obama presidency, have reinforced the notion that we are a post-racial society. However, the lived experiences of millions of people of color reveal otherwise. Racism and other forms of discrimination have simply shifted from explicit and interpersonal to structural and less overt manifestations. The rise of identity-based aggression cannot distract us from recognizing anchoring systems of oppression and how they manifest in the lives of people.

Most of us hold implicit biases that impact our behavior and allow for structural and systemic inequity to remain.
Our individual actions can cumulatively serve to maintain existing forms of inequity - or they can serve to dismantle systems of oppression.
Historically, we have put the expectations of this change entirely on individuals, requiring each of us to maintain a fully developed relationship with our own racial identity, an intimate knowledge of the history of oppression and current manifestations of inequity, and the personal comfort and initiative to see, call out, and actively fight hegemonic systems. The focus of equity work for most organizations leans toward the having of courageous conversations about race and power and on individual racial identity development work. While this approach is necessary, it will not, alone, end individual, institutional, and systemic inequity.

Identity development work takes time and is never complete. Individuals can engage in such work without ever taking action to dismantle systems of oppression - particularly those that benefit from status quo systems or from being seen having such courageous conversations. Additionally, personal work can only progress when individuals first understand and then commit to doing deeper and often painful work. For many this personal work is often seen as unnecessary.
We must start with individuals, but we cannot stop there.
Institutions are the sum of the people within them, and they create the systems and structures we live in. The work of racial equity is to create safe spaces for people, to connect them, and then to move from merely understanding the role of the individual to understanding the role individuals play in institutions and systems. Only then can we move to action.

Our current paradigms and tools for truth, reconciliation, and anti-racist action are insufficient for the magnitude of the challenge we face. Racial equity work engages people in meaningful and authentic conversation, sparking individual transformation but not preparing people to create long-term systemic change. Organizations that engage in racial equity work may create space for individuals to find themselves personally awakened to their role and identity in society, ready to change their institutions for the better, but without the tools to take such action. Consultancies and protocols are not equipped for the complexities of racism's manifestations within individuals, institutions, and societal structures.

Some say talk is cheap. We disagree. Talk is deeply important, but it is simply not enough. We need to move toward new designs. For many, talking about racism and our long history of oppression feels paralyzing. The complexity of racism on individual, institutional, and structural levels feels insurmountable. Equity work helps us understand where we are and how we got here, but it is missing the tools for building a different reality. It is here that design thinking can lead the way.

In recent years, design thinking has left its roots as a tool used for product design and emerged as a powerful problem-solving methodology across fields and sectors. This shift in how design thinking is used has come in concert with a societal shift in the way we identify problems and understand solutions.

Our current charge is to solve problems where there is no one solution, where more data and information doesn't necessarily make things more clear, where the problem is hard to even define. For instance, we know that solving issues of terrorism is less about building better weapons and more about interrupting radical group recruitment strategies. We know that issues of environmental degradation are no longer about technologies for clean energy; they are about incentivizing corporate and consumer behavior changes. We know how the brain learns, but we can't figure out how to create school environments that are socioeconomically and racially integrated.

Problem-solving is no longer about inventing things; it is about recreating systems. And in a world that continues to increase in complexity and technology, design thinking can simplify, humanize, and order this chaos.

Traditional Design Thinking Process

This shift in the way we define problems necessitates a shift in the tools and mindsets we use to solve them. Design thinking provides a framework for complex, iterative, and targeted solutions: It emphasizes the need to define the problem well and build sooner to get better feedback, and it has fundamentally changed the relationship between designers and those they are designing for. This focus on the end user is so central that design thinking is often simply referred to as user- or human-centered design.

While elevating the user in the design process has been the key to its success, it is also the reason why our current approach to design thinking needs to be retrofitted. If we believe design thinking is the right tool to use to redesign products, systems, and institutions to be more equitable, then we must redesign the design thinking process, mindsets and tools themselves to ensure they mitigate for the causes of inequity - the prejudices of the human designers in the process, both their explicit and implicit personal biases, and the power of mostly invisible status quo systems of oppression.

The role of implicit bias is particularly distressing as we consider the design thinking process. In its current state, it may be doing as much harm as it is good. While engaging with end users, many forms of design thinking still see the designer as separate from the user and grant the designer the power in the relationship - the power to decide with whom to do empathy work, the power to interpret the results, the power to decide the framing of the problem, and the power to pick the best solution.

It stands to reason that any problem definition or solution created by biased individuals - which we all are - will perpetuate inequity if the process does not actively acknowledge and combat bias. A process that is itself colorblind will be blind to the effects of color in both problem and solution.

We see this regularly in our work facilitating design challenges with organizations. An example: The well-intentioned, usually white, educated, and middle- to upper-middle-class designers working with low-income urban (code for black and brown) schools to help design new programs know it is important to engage in empathy work, so they ask the principal to give them access to some parents to interview. The principal emails the PTA for volunteers, who are often not representative of the general student body. After a few interviews, the designers go back to their conference room to decide what the parents and students need. They brainstorm options, narrowing to those that fit within the existing structure of the school. In the best-case scenario, the program is something the school community can in fact benefit from - but it is unlikely to be designed to serve students and families most in need or to question status quo systems or structures. But these are essential when designing for equity.

There are many failings in this illustration, some of which can be attributed to a lack of rigor in using true design methodologies. However, even when pure design is applied, issues of power and bias have powerful sway. We can do better.

Two of the greatest hindrances to fighting inequity are literally hiding in plain sight: our implicit biases and the prevalent narrative of "colorblindness." If we don't even know we're doing something wrong, how can we be expected to change it?

We can enhance the design thinking process with tools frameworks that account for and make visible our individual biases; push us past the individual to the institutional, systemic, and historic inequity at play; and fight against hegemonic ideologies.

Instead of asking individuals to think their way into a new way of behaving, relying on their individual levels of awareness around issues of inequity, we can provide them with a framework that embeds that awareness. We can make design thinking, an already widely accepted and valued process for innovation and problem-solving, into a process that provides individuals with experiences that elevate their understanding of inequity while also providing tools to dismantle systems of inequity.

This is equityXdesign: an additional layer of checks, tools, and activities that, when laid on top of traditional design thinking methodologies, will illuminate racism and inequity - individual, structural, and institutional - that exists in the individuals involved in the design team and potentially shapes the way problems are framed and solutions are proposed.

Design thinking is an ideal starting point. When merged with the power of equity work, we believe it can be used to tackle our most urgent equity-based problems.

equityXdesign intentionally convenes people across difference and builds a common language for system-wide change. It is a framework that reimagines all of us as designers, adjusts for our implicit biases, and minimizes the scale and amplification of a dominant identity throughout. It creates guardrails and checkpoints that nudge design teams to identify problems through a lens of equity, brainstorm transformative possibilities, and prototype and test these possibilities in low-cost, low-resolution, inclusive, and participatory environments.

Pastored by the spirit of inclusive invention, the process engages designers in their own identities and the identities and experiences of their co-designers to seed collaborative, inclusive innovation and invention. The centering ethos - see, be seen, and foresee - overlays the three beliefs we believe are preconditions for equitable design. These beliefs lead us to the five design principles that guide our actions.

BELIEF #1

LEARNING TO SEE: HISTORICAL CONTEXT MATTERS

Evolutionary science tells us that the most beneficial traits survive; we are the recipients of the genetic legacy of our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. And social inheritance mimics this genetic inheritance: We inherit the traits and characteristics of legacies of privilege and oppression. We must see both who we were (our historical selves) and who we are (our current selves). To understand the present time and space we occupy, we must understand the inherited legacy surrounding the thing we are designing, the place we are designing in, and the community we are designing with.

BELIEF #2

BE SEEN: RADICAL INCLUSION

equityXdesign is intentional about bringing diverse stakeholders together across race, role, gender, and socioeconomic status to build relationships and lay the groundwork for community. Inclusion is not merely the absence of exclusion: Radical inclusion requires going further - identifying barriers that exclude and eliminating them; welcoming different people, stories, and experiences to the innovation conversation; creating spaces where everyone can bring their full selves and be equally valued. Radical inclusion is not simply about reducing hate or respecting difference; it is about truly loving others.

BELIEF # 3

FORESEE: PROCESS AS PRODUCT

Process dictates product. To design for equity, we must design equitably. The practice of equitable design requires that we are mindful how we achieve equity. Inclusive design practices raise the voices of the marginalized, strengthen relationships across difference, shift positions, and recharge our democracy. Because exclusion feeds inequity, we can no longer argue that there is not enough time to include the community. We must make time for the magic of human connection, especially across difference.
These core beliefs, and the manifestations thereof, lead us to the following design principles:
DESIGN PRINCIPLE 1: DESIGN AT THE MARGINS

Our current innovation conversation is exclusive, accessible only to the powerful and privileged. This erodes the innate creative agency and leadership in the marginalized, reduces the experience of incredibly complex people, and often leads to the allocation of resources to symptoms while neglecting the existence, permanence, and resilience of root causes.

The current social order blames the marginalized for their experience without acknowledging or attempting to redesign oppressive historical structures. equityXdesign expects the privileged to trust and listen to the voices on the margins to identify the root causes of inequity and the ways they manifest. It positions the marginalized as leaders in the design process and experts in their experience, arming them with a process to solve their own problems.

Designing at the margin means that those in privileged positions do not solve for those experiencing oppression; rather, in true community, both the privileged and marginalized build collective responsibility and innovative solutions for our most intractable problems. Even the use of the word marginalized linguistically parallels the exclusion of individuals. The definition of a group simply by their relationship to the dominant culture is a problem that continues to persist.

DESIGN PRINCIPLE 2: START WITH YOUR SELF

Our identities (race, gender, upbringing, social status, home language, etc.) create our lens for the world and how we make sense of it. We must be aware of this lens when engaging in design. When we design for people without understanding the impact of their historical stories, our understanding slips into paternalism. When we design for people without accounting for our own biases, our understanding slips into stereotypes. We must raise our awareness of our own identities and how bias impacts our thoughts, choices, conclusions, and assumptions to truly co-create with others.

DESIGN PRINCIPLE 3: CEDE POWER

Equity requires a nonviolent, action-oriented spirit of co-creation and co-invention, necessitating an inversion of legacy power structures. Expertise cannot be quantified in degrees, and the designer/end-user dichotomy is no longer useful. We must acknowledge the power dynamics that allow some votes to count more than others. Equitable design demands that practices change and evolve - that we redefine roles, revalue ways of knowing, and reassess the ways we reach decision. We recognize the potential for cede power to reinforce the hegemonic view of power as a zero-sum game - more for you must mean less for me. This is not the case. We believe that shared power is in the interest of everyone and does not require a growth in the ranks of the powerless. And yet, this work still requires each of us, who hold power in some ways, to deeply question its inheritance and its locus and to cede it when necessary.

DESIGN PRINCIPLE 4: MAKE THE INVISIBLE VISIBLE

The relationships between people and problems are often governed by sets of heuristics - techniques that allow problems to be solved with speed, agility, and economy. However, these preexisting schemas can perpetuate exclusionary assumptions and biased practices, manifesting as implicit bias, power dynamics, and hegemonic practices that govern relationships with people in our organizations, schools, and governments. By making them visible, we can assess their impact and create a space for reflection and repair.

DESIGN PRINCIPLE 5 : SPEAK TO THE FUTURE

Because an equitable reality has never existed, we cannot look to our past to learn how to create an equitable future. With no guide, we must speak this reality into existence. In order to write a different story, we have to use different language. We must replace our current discourse.

Eugene Eubanks, Ralph Parish and Dianne Smith, in "Changing the Discourse in Schools" in Race, Ethnicity, and Multiculturalism: Policy and Practice introduced a framework (Discourse 1 vs Discourse 2) we use to guide our work. Discourse 1 is our current and hegemonic, discourse - the language typically used to talk about, question, and plan the work of reform. This dialogue supports and maintains the status quo without appearing unresponsive to outside demands for improvement. Discourse 2, the discourse of transformation, is the language that tends to be about uncomfortable, unequal, ineffective, prejudicial conditions and relationships. This discourse creates space for ambiguity, change, and the opportunity to be a part of a purposeful structure.

There is an often-overlooked power in language and discourse to influence and control ideas, beliefs, actions, and ultimately culture. When we notice how hegemony dominates our conceptual understanding of problems and how they impact others who are different, we have a powerful opportunity to see the end-users' historical selves and how those selves manifests in the present.

When we take control of our language, when we speak to the future, we lay the groundwork to create something new - together.

We believe change will come from the intersection of equity, design, and collaboration. We harbor no false beliefs that any exclusive group of individuals is capable of creating the tools society needs to dismantle systemic inequity. Our hope is to create a network of collaborators, inventors, and designers who prioritize equity. At the connections, nodes of opportunity create space where radical inclusion strengthens our individual and collective humanities.

The following modes and adaptations to the design process represent some of the latest retrofits for the stages of the invention practice. They are currently in the pilot phase of development.

Transformational Empathy

Mode 1: Meta-Empathy Maps

The design thinking process begins with empathy to build an understanding of another's experience. equityXdesign transforms empathy into a tool that helps people recognize how implicit bias and identity can impact their understanding of others. At the center of transformative empathy is listening to understand while also understanding how we listen. Through the use of a modified empathy map and three essential empathy questions, we facilitate this awareness and support the synthesis of the empathy experience.

* Individual: How does my identity impact how I understand my user's experiences?

* Institutional: What are the important customs and practices at play in my user's experience?

* Structural: What are the ways customs and practices work together to include or exclude my user?

Mode 2: Notice and Reflect

Adding additional modes to the design thinking process revealed more ways of connecting with others during the empathy stage - notice and reflect. The essence of these modes is captured in a pre-empathy identity reflection activity, which asks individuals to start by articulating some of their core values, emanating from their heart, followed by how they define their own identities. They then reflect on how they are feeling in that moment, biases that might be at play, and finally, any observations the reflection process created about the empathy work that is about to be done.

This adaptation was created by David Clifford, Senior Learning Experience Designer at the Stanford d.School K12 Lab. A veteran educator, master craftsman, and longtime practitioner of equity and design, David is working with the K12 Lab at Stanford to explore the intersection between equity consciousness and design consciousness with both us and the National Equity Project.

Equity Pauses

A sense of urgency can mask hegemonic strategy. Our common discourse of urgency and business-as-usual creates little time for reflection; our pace of life eclipses our awareness. Strategic equity pauses stop the clock to reflect on our language, ideas, and hunches in the context of a discourse of transformation. Without this moment to think, our brains default to the familiar and the known, making a repeat of past practice likely. Incorporating these discourse checks and pauses after each stage ensures that our ideas remain on the path of achieving equity.

Brainstorming and Transformation Cards

One of the fundamental rules of brainstorming is to build on the ideas of others. Alex Osborn, considered as the originator of classical brainstorming, created a checklist that can help transform existing ideas by prompting users to modify, rearrange, substitute, and magnify. We have built on those core prompts with a suite of equity transformations, asking users to move more to the margin, adjust their discourse, and invert power.

Defining and Solving the Right Problems in the Right Way

Adopting others' perspectives through a lens of equity requires acknowledgement of the ways privilege and oppression work to include some and exclude others. The following form positions the needs of a person opposite societal obstructions and institutional inhibitors:
A person needs a way to (insert the needs of another) because (insert the values, beliefs, and morals of the person). Surprisingly, (state a fact that demonstrates the intent to meet the need) but (insert an institutional inhibitor or societal obstruction).
Invention with an equity lens requires teams to identify and test the riskiest assumptions about how we understand and know other people. Risky assumptions without an equity lens are racist assumptions. This is especially true when we are designing at the margins. Because our implicit biases frame our assumptions about ourselves and other people, their experiences, and the best ways to solve their problems, awareness of our biases at this stage is necessary to reverse hegemonic invention.

As a culture, we currently have limited courage, will, and skill to talk candidly about race and inequity. The current discourse around equity exists in one of two opposing extremes: morality and linear reasoning and logic.

Morality: Driven by our emotions, we talk and evaluate the degree of goodness. We talk about good people and bad people. We learn about microaggressions and reflect on our moral responsibility to be better. This inspires the motivated and engaged to remain critical of relationships, language, and assumed cultural norms, alienating those without the skill or will for engagement.

Linear reasoning and logic: This technical discourse prefers to quantify equity and reduces it to numbers, strategy, and only outcomes. This conversation leaves little room for the real experience of people - the meaning, magic, surprise, and possibility.
Our current equity discourse is either a moral conversation or a technical conversation. It is not often both.
The complex work of achieving equity requires a dialogue bold and sophisticated enough to hold both moral and technical ways of thinking, acting, and designing. This integration requires tools that can marry the head and heart while allowing a diverse set of thinkers - technologists, freedom fighters, and everyone between - to create and design in service of reconciliation.

Equity - the integral sum of inclusive practices that obstruct, threaten, and dismantle systems of oppression and amplify, privilege, and promote the voices of the most marginalized and most affected - is the work of our time. It demands enhancements, retrofits, and retooling of our current toolkits to meet this pressing need. In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., work across difference that privileges the voices and perspectives of the most affected "bends the moral arc of universe towards justice."

We do not have the answers, but we are committed to solving this problem. We do believe that disciplined processes that support the transformation of all of us and our inventions keeps us moving toward realizing the American dream for all people.
Join us to solve it.

If you found this intriguing, stay in touch by joining our mailing lists. Also − feel free to give us some claps to your left and/or leave a comment down below − it helps others find this piece too!

The equityXdesign process is a labor of love created by Caroline Hill from 228 Accelerator, Michelle Molitor from The Equity Lab, & Christine Ortiz from Equity Meets Design.

If you are interested in designing for, accelerating and scaling equity in your schools and organizations, please connect with Caroline at caroline@228accelerator.com. If you're doing work at the intersection of equity and design, need additional capacity around equity and design in your program or organization, and/or want to apply equityXdesign to a project, please write to Christine Ortiz, founder of Equity Meets Design, at If you're interested in working to take on our most intractable race, equity, diversity, and inclusion (REDI) problems for your organization or sector, accelerating our transition toward a more liberatory, community-centered society that values the gifts and potential of all its members, contact The Equity Lab at https://www.theequitylab.org/contact/. sayhello@equitymeetsdesign.com.

Wait, one more thing! Equity Meets Design has launched a series of online courses specifically designed to help you build your capacity as an equityXdesigner. That means you can learn how to do this at your pace, in your pajamas! Sign up for (and instantly begin) our free "Intro to equityXdesign" online course here!

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Racism and inequity are products of design. They can be redesigned.

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We are a country founded on the genocide of one people and the enslavement of another. We have yet to reconcile the impact of this inheritance on us all. The experiment of America is 240 years old.

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Poetry Out Loud

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Allan Monga, a junior at Deering High School in Portland, Maine, traveled to Washington, D.C. to compete in the Poetry Out Loud contest on Monday. It's a national competition in which students recite great works of poetry, and it's run by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation.

But Monga, who says he fled violence in his home country of Zambia, was initially barred from the national final because of his immigration status: He's an asylum seeker and does not yet have U.S. citizenship.

Poetry Out Loud's official rules require permanent residence, so Monga filed a lawsuit against the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. A judge granted a motion allowing him to compete, and he went on to represent the state of Maine in the competition. He read two poems but did not advance to the finals.

Monga says fighting to compete in Poetry Out Loud was important to him - and others.

"I am not the only kid who's an immigrant, like the Portland public schools [themselves] have a huge body of kids from all over the world who are definitely in my situation," Monga says. "So, I wanted to create a way that kind of opened the door for everyone."

Interview Highlights
On what poetry means to Monga
Poetry is like a whole new world to me. Back in my country, I did not have anything about poetry, but poetry is something that I got to learn once I got here. You know, I did research. It's just something like - I developed feelings for it. It's like I'm in a relationship with poetry.
On the teacher that introduced him to poetry
Ms. Callaghan. I mean, I was just sitting one of the days in our class, and she was like, "Do you wanna try this?" I was like, "Um, maybe, nah." But I did [some] research, and it was just like magic. It happened, and I will tell you, it is addictive. Your feelings, or passion for it, grows everyday. And honestly, I will not let anyone stand in between the relationship I have, I've grown for poetry.

It talks about the good and the bad of America. And me, as an immigrant, I can come across a challenge. Example: what's going on right now with the NEA trying to say I cannot compete. To me, I consider it as a challenge. But the good? They said I can compete. I had people, the entire Portland public schools, everyone has just gone above and beyond to make sure that I'm here today. And I don't know, that poem to me is just like music to my ears.
Matt Ozug and Bridget Kelley produced and edited the audio story. Sydnee Monday and Petra Mayer adapted it for the Web.

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Asylum-Seeking Student Says Nothing Can Stand Between Him and Poetry

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Allan Monga, a junior at Deering High School in Portland, Maine, traveled to Washington, D.C. to compete in the Poetry Out Loud contest on Monday. It's a national competition in which students recite great works of poetry, and it's run by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation.

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Empowering Learners through Media Inquiry

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Empowering Learners through Media Inquiry

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Building the habit of understanding media messages.

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Five Key Questions Form Foundation for Media Inquiry

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In the MediaLit Kit ™, the Center for Media Literacy identifies Five Key Questions as the core of our inquiry-based media literacy pedagogy. Where do they come from? Like so many good ideas that evolve slowly over time, they are simply an innovative recasting of the Five Core Concepts which the early media literacy field adapted, in turn, from traditional categories of rhetorical and literary analysis.

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Create. Design. Share

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Storybird - Read, write, discover, and share the books you'll always remember.

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Become a better writer with Storybird's creativity tools. Online courses, challenges, and reader feedback will help you improve your writing.

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Share a tool that you love to use with your students.

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Corkulous™ is the incredible new way to collect, organize, and share your ideas. Access your ideas anywhere on your iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch with built-in iCloud support. Share your ideas with your friends and family by storing your cork boards in Dropbox.

Corkulous is a multi-purpose app containing cork boards where you can place notes, labels, photos, contacts, shapes, emojis, bookmarks sketches and tasks. Group your ideas visually on one board or spread ideas out across multiple boards (sub-boards also supported). Each cork board has plenty of real estate to capture your best ideas and plans.

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Corkulous™ is the incredible new way to collect, organize, and share your ideas. Access your ideas anywhere on your iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch with built-in iCloud support. Share your ideas with your friends and family by storing your cork boards in Dropbox.

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Youth Radio

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YR Media is a national network of young journalists and artists who create multimedia content for this generation.

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Connect-Share-Empower

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This is "Redefining Destinee Ziemke" by on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

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National Memorial for Peach and Justice Belief