Examining Identity

About This Lesson

In the previous lesson, students were introduced to the concept of democracy and the essential question of the unit, which focuses on the choices people made in Little Rock in 1957 and how those choices impacted democracy. In this lesson, students will think more broadly about what influences the choices each of us make in our lives, especially the influence of identity: how we define ourselves and are defined by others. 

Students’ understanding of identity will support their exploration of prejudice, race, and racism and will serve as a foundation for examining choices made by individuals and groups in the historical case study later in the unit.

Essential Questions

How do the choices people make, individually and collectively, strengthen or weaken democracy? 

Guiding Questions

How do our identities shape the way we see ourselves and others?

Learning Objectives

Students will identify social and cultural factors that help shape our identities by analyzing a firsthand reflection and creating their own personal identity charts.

See the Additional Context & Background section in the Google Doc version of this lesson plan for the essential background knowledge needed to teach this lesson.

Lesson Plan

Activity 1: Introduce Identity

Explain to students that in this unit, as the essential question suggests, they will be focusing on the choices people made in Little Rock in 1957 and how those choices impacted democracy there. But before looking at that history, we need to take some time to think more broadly about what influences the choices each of us make in our lives. One influence is our identities, or how we define ourselves and are defined by others. 

Instruct students to write a response to the question “Who am I?” in a quick journal entry. They might list, or write in complete sentences, the first five to seven ideas that come to mind when they think about this question.

Now 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 students understand the format. Make sure that students create their identity charts on a new page in their journals, because they will be adding to them throughout the lesson and later in the unit.

Activity 2: Explore the Complexity of Identity

Explain to students that in the next activity, they will read the perspective of another young person’s response to the question “Who are you?” 

Pass out the reading Names and Identity. Read it aloud as a class, and then ask students to discuss the following prompts with a partner: 

1. What experiences does Jennifer identify as important to who she is and how she sees herself? Which of those experiences do you think had the greatest impact on her identity? 
2. What does Jennifer mean when she asks, “Who or what determines when a person starts feeling American, and stops feeling Chinese?”
3. Based on your answer to the first question, create an identity chart for Jennifer Wang in your journal. 

Regroup as a class, and ask volunteers to share their responses aloud or list out words or phrases that describe Jennifer Wang from the identity chart they created. 

Activity 3: Journal Reflection

Ask students to return to their own identity charts and choose which questions they would like to respond to in their journals: 

• What parts of your identity do you choose for yourself? What parts of your identity do you think are determined by others, by society, or by chance?
• Whose opinions and beliefs have the greatest effect on the way you think about your own identity?
• What dilemmas arise when others view you differently than 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. Because students are writing about a personal topic in this reflection, it is important that they not be required to share.