Housing

Created by ANNIE TICKELL

Oakland teachers have voluntarily shared their creative and intellectual work with our ethnic studies teaching community. Please respect the library agreements for all materials on this site.

Topics & Concepts: Gentrification, Chavez Ravine & Dodger's Stadium, Community Issue & Assets, Segregation, Redlining, Housing Discrimination, Eviction, Eminent Domain, Colonization

Guiding Questions:

  • How has housing been used to divide and unite communities in the U.S.?

  • What is the history of segregation in Oakland and is Oakland still segregated today?

  • Which histories have been written and which have been erased by recent changes in the Bay Area?

  • What are the people, places and stories from our communities that we want to lift up?

Unit Sequence:

  • The first three weeks of this unit introduce housing issues through an exploration of neighborhood and belonging in Los Angeles. Students create character profiles after reading The Madonnas of Echo Park, then study the displacement of the Chavez Ravine community by Dodger's stadium. In a Collaborative Controversy (similar to a Structured Academic Controversy), students answer the question: "Did the Dodgers Stadium do more to divide or unite the Chávez Ravine community?

  • In Weeks 4 and 5, students learn about the history of housing discrimination in the U.S. Students take notes during lectures, watch “The House You Live In" from “RACE - The Power of an Illusion," and analyze maps to compare and contrast discriminatory policies and segregation in Oakland historically and today.

  • During Weeks 6, 7 and 8, students work on their culminating assessment - a Chapbook of three Persona Poems and a cover illustration about the past, present and future of their neighborhood. Their Chapbook must focus on a specific community issue or asset that they explore the root causes of through in-class activities and conducting an interview with a neighborhood resident. In the final week of instruction, students create digital recordings of their poems and upload their neighborhood poems onto a shared class Google map.

Notes on Materials Included:

  • Detailed weekly lesson plans and slides are included for all eight weeks of learning, as well as all necessary worksheets and readings.

  • Task cards and scaffolds are provided for all group, presentation and creative activities.