Lesson 8

Lesson Goals

Texts

Core

• • “Here’s How the US Housing Market Has Been Impacted by the Crash,” Jonathan Garber, Trulia (reprinted at businessinsider.com), 2016
  • “Home Sweet Home. Still.,” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 2011

• • “Blacks and Hispanics Face Extra Challenges in Getting Home Loans,” Pew Research Center, Public Domain, 2017
  • “Then vs. Now: Changes in Key Metrics since the First State of the Nation’s Housing Report Was Released in 1988,” Harvard Joint Studies for Housing Studies, Harvard Joint Studies for Housing Studies, 2018

Materials

Question Sets

• The American Dream of Homeownership: Section 1 Question Set

Editable Google Docs

• The American Dream of Homeownership: Section 1 Question Set

Activity 1: Read – Discuss – Write

We will practice evaluating the credibility of an informational source by considering what we can learn about the Pew Research Center and the survey methodology behind the study “Home Sweet Home. Still.”

Click on the "About" tab at the top of the Pew Research Center article "Home Sweet Home. Still." Read the overview and synopsis of the Pew Research Center’s mission, research, methods, staff, and funding while considering the following questions:

1. How credible does the Pew Research Center seem to be as a "nonpartisan fact tank"?

2. What is Pew Research Center’s perspective? Cite evidence from the text to support your conclusion.

With a partner, discuss your responses and supporting evidence from the site.

Follow along as your teacher reads and interprets the "About the Survey" notes at the bottom of "Home Sweet Home. Still."

Discuss as a class what you have concluded about the reliability of the Pew Research Center and this survey-based study.

In your Learning Log, write a response to the following question:

3. How confident would you be using this study as supporting information for a claim about homeownership in the United States?

Activity 2: Read – Write – Discuss

We will work in reading teams to analyze the data presented in “Home Sweet Home. Still” in order to examine whether the subprime mortgage crisis eroded people’s belief in the value of owning a home.

Join a reading team to analyze the data and claims presented in the 2011 Pew Research Center article "Home Sweet Home. Still."

Individually, reread and annotate the first section of the article. Identify research you find to be interesting or significant and the data that supports the finding.

Share the finding with other members of your team.

Develop a claim that sums up the research concerning Americans’ attitudes about the economic value of homeownership.

Read the section The Bubble and its Aftereffects, searching for data regarding what people say about the affordability of homeownership for young adults in their twenties and thirties. Discuss the implications of this data for people in your generation.

Read the section Stock Market versus Housing Market. Summarize what the data presented suggests about the comparative value of these two investments.

Activity 3: Read – Discuss – Listen

In reading teams, we will divide up the demographic patterns section of “Home Sweet Home. Still,” identify the key findings and supporting data, and report back to the team in order to extend our understanding of peoples’ attitudes toward homeownership.

In a reading team, delegate a reader to each of the following five subsections of the Demographic Patterns section of "Home Sweet Home. Still":

• Income

• Region

• Age

• Race and Ethnicity

• Duration of Homeownership

For your subsection, identify one or more findings or analytical claims that seem to be interesting or significant. Summarize the data that supports each finding.

Share and compare the findings from your subsection with other members of your team.

Develop a summary claim concerning Americans’ attitudes about the value of homeownership in 2011.

Activity 4: Read

We will read and evaluate a short article from the home-buying site trulia titled “Here’s How The Us Housing Market Has Been Impacted By The Crash” in order to learn about the financial crisis’s longer-term impacts on homeownership in the United States.

Individually, read "Here's How the US Housing Market Has Been Impacted by the Crash," paying particular attention to the data displays and what they illustrate about the shift from owning to renting in the US. Consider the following questions:

1. What is one data-based finding about homeownership in the US since the 2008 financial crisis that you find significant or interesting?

2. What is the source for the data cited in the article? How reliable do you think the data might be? Cite evidence from the text to support your conclusion?

3. As a source, what is Trulia’s perspective on homeownership, and how might this affect the credibility of the findings it presents compared to a research organization like Pew?

Activity 5: Discuss

As a class, we will discuss the data presented in the trulia article summarizing shifts from owning to renting in the us following the 2008 financial crisis in order to better understand the reasons why renting might be more common than it used to be.

Participate in a class discussion of the Trulia article "Here's How the US Housing Market Has Been Impacted by the Crash," guided by the following questions:

1. What is one data-based finding about homeownership in the US since the 2008 financial crisis that you find significant or interesting?

2. What is the source for the data cited in the article? How reliable do you think the data might be?

3. As a source, what is Trulia’s perspective on homeownership, and how might this affect the reliability of the findings it presents relative to a research organization like Pew?

4. How does the article relate to the following question: What do recent trends in US society suggest about the viability of American homeownership? Cite evidence from the text to support your answer.

Activity 6: Read – Write

We will analyze data from recent Studies of homeownership patterns to prepare for the Section Diagnostic, in which we will write an evidence-based claim in response to a question.

Study the two Pew Research Center data displays regarding the comparative patterns of home mortgage rates for various ethnic groups.

Develop an analytical claim that presents a key finding presented in the displays.

Study the data displayed in a report by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, "Then vs. Now: Changes in Key Metrics since the First State of the Nation’s Housing Report Was Released in 1988." Pay particular attention to the display titled Homeownership Rates.

Develop an analytical i claim that describes a significant pattern in the data on homeownership rates by race and ethnicity or homeownership rates by age.

Write down your claims in your Learning Log.