Exploring Identity (UK)

What does learning about the choices people made during the Weimar Republic, the rise of the Nazi Party, and the Holocaust teach us about the power and impact of our choices today?

• What factors shape your identity?
• What parts of your identity do you choose for yourself?
• What parts of your identity are determined for you by other people or by society?

Students will consider the factors that shape our identities, which parts we choose for ourselves, and which are determined by other people, by society or by chance.

This lesson is designed to fit into one 50-min class period and includes:

• 3 activities
• 1 video
• 1 reading 
• 1 PowerPoint
• 1 extension activity

Each lesson in this unit includes a PowerPoint of student-facing slides.

The PowerPoints are intended to be used alongside, and not instead of, the lesson plans because the latter include important rationales, context, and detailed activity instructions that teachers should familiarise themselves with before teaching the lesson.

The PowerPoints include basic content and student-facing prompts from the lesson plans but are minimally designed because we expect teachers to adapt them to fit the needs of their students and class.

• Explain to students that today they will be thinking about what makes up their identities and reading a story in which the main character deals with the different ways he defines himself and is defined by others.
• Ask students to write a response to the following questions in a journal entry: Who am I? What words or labels would you use to describe yourself? They might list, or write in complete sentences, the first 5–7 ideas that come to mind when they think about these questions.
• Next, ask students to use the information from their journals to create an identity chart. You might start an identity chart for yourself on the board to help your students understand the format. Make sure that the students create their identity charts on a new page in their journals because they will be adding to them throughout the lesson and in later lessons.
• Then ask students to respond to the following question in their journals:
  What words might others use to describe you that you might or might not use to describe yourself?
• After students have written 5–7 ideas, have them return to their identity charts and add this new information. You might invite them to use a different colour pen for words and phrases that others might use to describe them that they do not consider to be part of their own identity. Time allowing, a few students might volunteer to share their identity charts with the class. They could also represent this idea by drawing an arrow that points towards the centre, indicating that the idea comes from outside of themselves rather than from within.
• Next, have students think, pair, share their identity charts with a partner and invite them to add any new ideas to their charts that arise during their discussions. Let students know that if they don’t feel comfortable showing their charts to their partners or talking about some aspects of their identities, they can talk about some of the things they listed that they feel comfortable sharing.
• Once students have shared their charts, invite them to discuss the following questions briefly in their pairs: 

1. What parts of your identity do you choose for yourself?
2. What parts of your identity are determined for you by other people or by society?

• Next, play the video The Bear That Wasn’t (5:32) for your students and then pass out copies of the text so they can refer to them for the discussion. Alternatively, you might choose a read aloud strategy and read The Bear That Wasn’t.
• Then ask students to work with a partner to create an identity chart for the Bear, thinking about which labels on the chart represent how he sees his own identity, and which ones represent how others in the story see him.
• Give students a few minutes to share their identity charts for the Bear with another pair and encourage them to add words and phrases from the other pair’s charts to their own.
• Next, divide the class into small groups so they can discuss the following questions: 

1.  Why do you think Frank Tashlin titled this story ‘The Bear That Wasn’t’? 
   • Why didn’t the factory officials recognise the Bear for what he was? 
   • Why did it become harder and harder for the Bear to maintain his identity as he moved through the bureaucracy of the factory?
2. What were the consequences for the Bear of the way others defined his identity?
3. Whose opinions and beliefs have the greatest effect on how you think about your own identity?
4. How does our need to be part of a group affect our actions? 
   • Why is it so difficult for a person to go against the group?

• Finally, debrief the activity by leading a short class discussion and inviting students to share how ‘The Bear That Wasn’t’ has challenged or confirmed their understanding of the factors that can influence identity (which parts we choose for ourselves and which parts are determined by others or society).

Ask students to reflect on their own identity charts by responding to two or more of the following questions in their journals:

• What parts of your identity do you choose for yourself? What parts of your identity do you feel are determined by others, by society, or by chance?
• Whose opinions and beliefs have the greatest effect on how you think about your own identity?
• What dilemmas arise when others view you differently than how you view yourself?
• What aspects of your identity do you keep private in order to be accepted? What aspects of your identity are you willing to change to fit in?

You might ask a few students to volunteer to share from their responses. However, since students are writing about a personal topic in this reflection, it is important that they are not required to share.