Stereotypes and “Single Stories”

About This Lesson

In the previous lesson, students began the first stage of the Facing History scope and sequence, “Individual & Society,” by considering the complexity of answering the question, “Who am I?” In this lesson, students will continue to explore the relationship between individual and society by examining how we so often believe “single stories” and stereotypes about groups of people. The activities that follow ask students to reflect on the basic human behavior of applying categories to the people and things we meet and to think about the circumstances in which “single stories” about others can be harmful or even dangerous.

Course Essential Question

How can learning about the choices people made during past episodes of injustice, mass violence, or genocide help guide our choices today?

Guiding Question

In what ways do “single stories” impact our own identities, how we view others, and the choices we make? 

Learning Objectives

• Students will recognize that it is a natural and common human behavior to group the people and things we encounter in the world into categories, but that sometimes these categories become “single stories” that give us incomplete and simplistic understandings of the identities of others.
• Students will explore how having a limited story about an individual or group of people can lead to stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination.

Lesson Plan

Activity 1: Journal Response: Responding to Assumptions

Begin the lesson by giving students a few minutes to write in their journals in response to the following question:

• Has someone else ever made an assumption about you because of some aspect of your identity? Was it a positive assumption or a negative one? How did you find out about the assumption? How did you respond?

Activity 2: Watch a Video that Explains the Danger of “Single Stories”

Introduce students to the idea that stereotypes are a type of story that we tell about individuals based on our beliefs (erroneous or accurate) about a group to which those people belong. Tell students that today they will be exploring the relationship between storytelling and stereotyping, as well as what it means to have a “single story” of a person or group of people.

Pass out the handout The Danger of a Single Story Viewing/Reading Guide. Then show the video of Chimamanda Adichie’s TED Talk The Danger of a Single Story (18:43) or pass out and read aloud the reading The Danger of a Single Story. While viewing or reading, students should record their thoughts about the three questions posed in the guide. 

Ask students to work with a partner to create an identity chart for Adichie. If your class watched the video, you might consider passing out the reading version for students to reference during this activity. Students can refer to the identity charts they created in the previous lesson and the three viewing/reading questions to guide their thinking.

Activity 3: Discuss “Single Stories” in Concentric Circles

To debrief Adichie’s TED Talk, have students stand in two Concentric Circles, facing a partner in the opposite circle, and use the prompts below to begin the discussion. Rotate to a new partner for each new prompt. 

• What does Adichie mean by a “single story”? What examples does she give?
• How did Adichie learn single stories about others? How did these stories impact her understanding of herself and of others? How did these single stories impact the choices she made at home and in her travels?
• What enabled Adichie to change her single story? What are other ways for these types of stories to change?
• According to Adichie, why can “single stories” be dangerous? What is the relationship between “single stories” and stereotypes?
• Why is it that people sometimes make the same mistakes that they so easily see others making?

Activity 4: Write about the Connection between “Single Stories” and Stereotypes

After the Concentric Circles discussion, use the quotation below or one or more of the subsequent questions as a prompt to allow for individual student reflections in their journals. Encourage students to use their resources, such as their concept maps, working definitions, notes from today’s lesson, and identity charts, to help them make connections between “single stories” and stereotyping.

“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” (Adichie)

• What single stories have you noticed that others have about you? What dilemmas have you experienced when others view you differently than you view yourself? 
• What single stories have you noticed that you hold about others? What dilemmas have you seen arise when we view others differently than they view themselves? 
• What steps can you take, or have you taken, to challenge these single stories?

Lead the class in a discussion that allows students to share their ideas about the concentric circle questions and journal responses with the whole group.

Activity 5: Close the Discussion with a Wraparound Activity

If time allows, tell the class that they will be sharing a concluding idea in a Wraparound activity. As you go around the room, students can share a memorable word or short phrase from the lesson. It could be something they wrote or something they heard from a classmate (or from “The Danger of a Single Story”).