Lesson 3

Lesson Goals

Texts

Core

• • The Book of Unknown Americans, Cristina Henríquez, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2015

• • “Fair Housing Act,” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, 2019
  • “Mapping Segregation,” Matthew Bloch, Amanda Cox, and Tom Giratikanon, The New York Times Company, 2015

• • Excerpt from “Chicago Housing Speech,” Martin Luther King Jr., The Heirs to the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr., c/o Writers House as agent for the proprietor, 1966

Optional

• • “Obama Unveils Stricter Rules about Segregation in Housing,” Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Binyamin Appelbaum, The New York Times Company, 2015
  • “Trump Administration Postpones an Obama Fair-Housing Rule,” Emily Badger and John Eligon, The New York Times Company, 2018

Materials

Tools

• Attending to Details Tool

• Vocabulary Journal

• Vocabulary in Context Tool

• Word Map

• Word Sort - Closed

• Word Sort - Open

Reference Guides

• Academic Discussion Reference Guide
• Claims Reference Guide

Question Sets

• The American Dream of Homeownership: Section 2 Question Set

Editable Google Docs

• Attending to Details Tool

• The American Dream of Homeownership: Section 2 Question Set

• Vocabulary Journal

• Vocabulary in Context Tool

• Word Map

• Word Sort - Closed

• Word Sort - Open

Activity 1: Discuss – Write

We will interact with the words we wrote down for homework in our Vocabulary Journal to cement our understanding of their meaning. We will identify text evidence that illuminates literary elements.

Join your small group and compare the words you wrote down in your Vocabulary Journal. Select one word from each group’s Vocabulary Journal and respond to the vocabulary exercises as directed by your teacher.

Activity 2: Read – Discuss

We will use text-specific questions to identify, analyze, and discuss historical details in an encyclopedia article about the fair housing act.

Read the historical overview "Fair Housing Act" from the Encyclopedia Britannica, using the questions below to locate key details about the passage and the intent of this law:

1. What events and influences led to the eventual passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968?

2. What protections does the law provide for buyers and renters?

3. In what ways might the law have been a response to the history of discrimination and exploitation we have been examining in other texts?

As a class, discuss the law, using the above text-specific questions as a guide.

Activity 3: Write – Discuss

We will compare and discuss text-based observations about a 2018 article from wttw chicago and its presentation of Martin Luther King’s role with the chicago freedom movement, which led to the passage of the fair housing act of 1968.

Write a summary paragraph about "Martin Luther King and Fair Housing in Chicago" using your responses to the following questions from your homework reading:

1. What details about discriminatory housing practices presented in Paragraph 3 reinforce what you have already learned from other texts and videos?

2. What did Dr. King and his wife Coretta do to bring attention to housing issues in Chicago and across the country?

3. What actions did Dr. King and the Chicago Freedom Movement take to bring attention to housing issues? How did people in Chicago respond?

4. Which of the two provisions of the Fair Housing Act has not ever really been enforced?

5. What is the recent partisan history of attempts to address segregation in American housing?

Compare your summary of the article with a discussion partner.

As a class, discuss the article, Martin Luther King Jr.’s involvement in the crusade for fair housing, and the passage of the Fair Housing Act.

Activity 4: Listen – Read – Discuss

We will examine the ideas expressed and rhetorical devices used in a short excerpt from Dr. King’s address at the 1966 chicago freedom festival.

Listen and follow along while your teacher reads aloud a closing excerpt from Martin Luther King Jr.’s address.

As a class, discuss the ideas and images in the speech, as well as Dr. King’s use of rhetorical devices. Consider the following questions:

1. What does Dr. King mean when he says, "Let us, therefore, resolve to be engaged in a sort of divine dissatisfaction until the American Dream is a reality"?

2. How does Dr. King use the idea of dissatisfaction and the rhetorical devices repetition and parallel structure to organize this part of his speech?

3. What is one dissatisfaction that stands out to you, especially in relation to what you learned so far about the "dream deferred" for Black Americans forced to live in what Dr. King characterizes as ghettos and slums?

4. Considering what you know about Dr. King’s personal history and the country’s recent political history, what seems ironic about the last three paragraphs of the speech?

Activity 5: Read – Discuss – Write

In a jigsaw, we will examine the recent history of the fair housing act by reading and comparing two newspaper articles about opposing efforts by the Obama and trump administrations regarding enforcement of the act.

In this jigsaw, you will first work with an expert group to read and analyze one of the assigned articles about the recent history of the Fair Housing Act. You will then form home groups, where you will share your analysis of the article from your expert group in a jigsaw discussion.

Form an expert group and read and analyze one of the two following articles about the recent history of the Fair Housing Act:

• "Obama Unveils Stricter Rules About Segregation in Housing," The New York Times, 2015

• "Trump Administration Postpones an Obama Fair-Housing Rule," The New York Times, 2018

Both articles can be accessed in the Unit Reader.

Use a copy of the Attending to Details Tool to write down key information from the article and to develop a text-based observation that can be shared with students who have read the other article. Consider the following question:

1. What appears to be the perspective of the administration mentioned in the article toward the provision in the Fair Housing Act that expects communities to desegregate?

Form a home group of four students, with two members from expert groups that read the first article and two members from expert groups that read the second article. Using the previous question as your guide, engage in a jigsaw discussion, summarizing what your expert group discovered about the article you read and sharing the text-based observation you developed on your Attending to Details Tool.

Compare what your home group members have learned from the articles. Develop a summary claim about the various perspectives toward enforcing the act, and share it with the rest of the class.

Activity 6: Read

For homework, we will examine the census-based display from “Mapping Segregation” for one us city and develop some evidence-based observations and claims about the housing patterns displayed on the map.

On the "Mapping Segregation" webpage at The New York Times, you should find a map with colored dots that indicate various census groups. Read the key to the right to understand what each color and dot represents. From the choices at the bottom of the page, select a city that is of interest to you. Alternatively, you can navigate the map to locate almost any city or community in the US.

Study the patterns you see on the map, and form a set of data-based observations about where the various census groups are concentrated on the map.

For homework, form an interpretive claim in response to the following questions:

1. To what extent has the city you have examined been able to respond to the Fair Housing Act’s expectation that communities will move toward desegregation?

2. What might be the challenges in doing so for this city?