​PARTICIPATION IN GOVERNMENT 
             CLASS SEQUENCE

UNIT 3: Income Inequality
  • Defining Class in America
  • Identifying How Class Affects Us
  • Using Data to Research Inequality

CLASS

1

TODAY'S CLASS FOCUS

Class in America: A Film Review​
  • Have you ever been conscious about "class"? 
  • After watching this film, I think that ____.
  • How class breaks down.

HW DUE TODAY

Film Reflection: Watch the film "Inequality For All" and write a reflection to the film.
2 
What Does "Class" Look Like in New York City?
  • Have you ever been conscious about "class"? 
  • What does class look like in different areas of New York?
  • How can we use census data to help us learn about our neighborhoods?
Defining Class Writing Prompt: How do we define class in the U.S., what components/factors determine class, and what else (if anything) was missing as a factor or component of class? Write no more than a page.
  • ​Please label your doc with: Lesson 1_Defining Class
Read: Read the following article before coming to class: http://www.citylab.com/housing/2013/01/class-divided-cities-new-york-edition/3819/ 
  • There will be a short quiz on the article during class.
3
Education and Class - How does education affect class mobility? 
  • How successful are educational establishments in promoting economic mobility?
  1. Read: Read the following article before coming to class: ​http://nyti.ms/2iD9Wlb
  2. ​Research: Go to the following link and enter a college that you are interested in.  Look over the statistics regarding it and use this data for the next step.
  3. Write: Answer the following questions about your selected college from the previous step:
    • What is the median family income of students at this school?  
    • What % of students at this school are from the top 20%?
    • What % of students moved up two or more income quintiles? 
    • What % of students moved from the bottom to top income quintile? 
    • Opinion - Do you think that this school is effective at promoting economic mobility?  What evidence do you have to support your claim? 
4
How Effective are Government Programs Designed to Help With Inequality? 
  • ​​What does "welfare" mean in America?
  • What are the origins of various welfare programs?
  • ​​Answer: Answer the following question in no more than one page - "Elite universities provide excellent education, but don't accept many students from lower-income brackets.  Do "elite" universities have a responsibility to go out of their way to help these students?"
    1. ​To earn full credit, you must use evidence from the articles or in-class notes to support your argument.
  1. Read: Read the following article, there will be a quiz on it in class.    https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/welfare-queen-myth/501470/​
5 
​​Socratic Seminar: What have we learned about income inequality in the United States? 
  • ​​Socratic Seminar Discussion - Using the Homework Assignment from the break to prepare.
Break Homework: Due February 24th (before the end of break!)
FEBRUARY HIGH SCHOOL BREAK EXTRA CREDIT:
  • Read ONE of the following books in it's entirety.
  • Write a 2-3 page response that reveals how the text connects to broader themes of class that we've discussed in this unit.
  • Due Monday Feb. 27, 2017 at 8 am in your google drive. Please put in a separate doc labeled Winter Extra Credit
  • There are NO late assignments accepted.

The book options are:

1. Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich 
  • Summary: Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job -- any job -- can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered.
  • Reading Level: BASIC
2. Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
  • Summary:From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, a powerful account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America’s white working class
  • Reading Level: Medium/Challenge
3. The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace by Jeff Hobbs
  • Summary: An account of a young African-American man who escaped Newark, NJ, to attend Yale, but still faced the dangers of the streets when he returned. A compelling and honest portrait of Robert’s relationships—with his struggling mother, with his incarcerated father, with his teachers and friends--The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace encompasses the most enduring conflicts in America: race, class, drugs, community, imprisonment, education, family, friendship, and love. It’s about the collision of two fiercely insular worlds—the ivy-covered campus of Yale University and the slums of Newark, New Jersey, and the difficulty of going from one to the other and then back again. 
  • Reading Level: Medium
​4. Where We Stand by bell hooks 
  • Summary: Drawing on both her roots in Kentucky and her adventures with Manhattan Coop boards, Where We Stand is a successful black woman's reflection--personal, straight forward, and rigorously honest--on how our dilemmas of class and race are intertwined, and how we can find ways to think beyond them.
  • Reading Level: Medium (ideas are challenging)

You will earn 30 homework credit points for completing this WELL. If your response does not reveal that you read and understand your text than you will not earn the full points.