1. SocioEconomic Inequality
Plainwell High – 12th Grade English

2. SocioEconomic Inequality Senior Awareness project
This project will take place during the final semester of Senior English.
At the end of the unit focused on socioeconomic inequality, students will collaborate on a project designed to raise awareness about socio- economic inequalities within the school.

3. Week One – Poverty: Cause/Effect
The unit will begin by focusing on poverty, with the objective of coming up with a class definition of what poverty actually is, through a review of data and articles designed to prompt reflective response and address misconceptions.
Student groups will be assigned character from Abramsky’s book and write”a day in the life” from their perspective.
Essential Questions :What is the extent of poverty in the US?
What does poverty look like?
How do people born into poverty find their way out?
Why is there not a visible, ongoing grassroots effort for change?

4. Sasha Abramsky Key takeaways from Abramsky book
Education – become literate on what poverty really is
Causes / Interactions
Fixes – Grassroots Efforts

6. Week 2 – Economic Inequality
Is Getting Ahead Possible?
Essential Questions
What are the 1%, and how much wealth do they really control?
Wealth vs Income
SES Stratification
Difficulties moving up through strata
How do you define privilege?
What influences helped provide students with upward mobility?

7. Beth Zasloff Key Takeaways from Zasloff:
Realistic depiction of why meritocracy is a myth
Details the numerous challenges of upward mobility
Perspective of individual who has directly guided students from poverty to college admission

8. Week 3/4 - Awareness
Student Expert Groups will pick a topic from one of the book excerpts and produce an informational report on one of the topics, culminating in an op/ed piece to contribute to the local paper.
Co-operative effort with the Journalism class/teacher
Project Objectives
Students will become engaged in the process of increasing the awareness of an important issue in discussed in the 2 texts.
Students will participate in the power of grass-roots advocacy.