LGBTQ+ Studies Unit

Description

Authors:

Meesh Vecchio, K–12 Educator

Oliver Miska, K–12 Educator

Unit Overview: 

This unit is a survey of LGBTQ Ethnic studies. It offers students the opportunity to explore each element of our ethnic studies framework, each taking from 3-5 class periods, depending on how you, as an educator, see best to adapt this within your classroom context. Each lesson in the unit has its own teacher preparation section with advice, family email templates, suggested strategies, and various resources customized for teaching this unit. 

This unit will begin with two lessons on Identity and Agency. In these lessons, we will give students another opportunity to investigate how their identities and agency are shaped by the LGBTQ+ community. These lessons will include an overview of LGBTQ terminologies, as well as space to understand one’s personal relationship to LGBTQ identities. Students will write an autobiography looking into their families, history, media, social life, regions, language, and other aspects of life that might be shaped by LGBTQ identities. 

Second, students will inquire about Origins and Indigeneity, by exploring the complex conceptions of gender within Indigenous populations. Students will research and present on indigenous geography and cultural conceptions of gender and sexuality. In their research, they will practice analyzing the bias in sources, particularly how colonialism, the master narratives of history, and the misrepresentations of indigenous peoples shape our modern conceptions of gender in the past. 

For Power and Oppression, students will look into the ways that the LGBTQ community have been subjected to state sanctioned violence, stigmatization, and oppression. These mini lessons will lead students into thinking about Resistance and Liberation. Students, in the final part of this unit, will engage in a panel discussion sharing their research on different strategies of liberation that LGBTQ populations have taken historically in their movement work. This panel will include self-reflection as well as encourage students to design projects of liberation in their own communities. 

In addition to consistently taking Action and Reflection throughout the unit, students will culminate this unit with a community action project proposal that will position students to take action in their communities. Students will have the opportunity to identify an LGBTQ issue in their community and develop a strategy of taking liberatory actions.