1. facinghistory.org

2. Note to Teachers: Getting Started
This PowerPoint presentation accompanies Lesson 8: Blending In and Standing Out from the Standing Up for Democracy scheme of work. It is important to read the lesson plan in order to understand its rationale, the procedure, and activity ideas in the Notes to Teachers section.
This presentation includes verbal instructions for the activities in the Notes beneath each slide. Accessing hyperlinks in PowerPoint involves extra steps: select View - Notes Page - right click on the hyperlink - and select Open Hyperlink. Alternatively, you can access the hyperlinks from Lesson 8: Blending In and Standing Out or by viewing the presentation in Google Slides.
While you may need to modify this presentation to meet the needs of your students, please note that Facing History and Ourselves is not accountable for any changes that alter the presentation's content or original layout.
Information about Standing Up for Democracy PowerPoint Slides
Each PowerPoint accompanies a corresponding lesson plan that includes more detailed instructions about the activities and should be read in advance of teaching the lesson.
Wherever possible, we have used images in lieu of writing to encourage the verbal delivery of instructions as a means of boosting focus and to promote active listening skills.
The same image is used for each recurring teaching strategy throughout the scheme of work to facilitate recall and promote student independence.

3. Blending In and Standing Out

4. Guiding Question
How is our identity and sense of belonging shaped by the people and circumstances we encounter in our lives?
Blending In and Standing Out: Learning Objective
To review the factors that make up our identities and then explore the ways in which individuals, groups, and society can shape our identities and sense of belonging.

5. Describe a time when you wanted to blend into the background.
What happened to make you feel this way?
How did this experience affect the way you felt about yourself and those individuals and groups around you?
To prepare students to read an excerpt from Sarfraz Manzoor’s memoir, ask them to respond to the two questions in a journal response. Let them know that they will be sharing their responses anonymously and not in a pair share.
To debrief, pass out one index card to each student and instruct students that they should not put their names on the cards.
Then ask the students to write a phrase or sentence on one side of the index card in response to the following question:
Why did you want to blend into the background rather than be seen and known?
And then write a phrase or sentence on the other side of the index card in response to the question:
How did this experience affect the way you felt about yourself and those individuals and groups around you?

6. Collect the index cards, shuffle, and redistribute them to the class.
Do two wraparounds where students share the phrase or sentence on side one of the card in the first round and the information on side two in the second round.
Lead a class discussion to explore any patterns that the students noticed in the two rounds of sharing.

7. Greetings from Bury Park
Tell students that they will now read an excerpt from British journalist and filmmaker Sarfraz Manzoor’s memoir, Greetings from Bury Park.
Before reading, ask students to create a blank identity chart for Manzoor in their journals and explain that, as they read, they will be adding information about how Manzoor describes himself, as well as the labels others use to describe him.
Choose a Read Aloud strategy and read Identity and Belonging. Pause after each paragraph or story (for example, the exchange with the teacher Manzoor believed to be racist) so students can work alone or with a partner to add to their identity charts. You might ask them to share their ideas and discuss which factors shaped his identity as you read along, or you might save this step until after you have finished reading the text.
Discuss Manzoor’s identity chart. Ask students to make observations about the ways in which Manzoor describes himself and the way others label him. You might also prompt students to draw connections between Manzoor’s identity, Adichie’s The Danger of a Single Story, Berry’s What Do We Do with a Variation?, and the identity charts they created for themselves earlier in this scheme of work.

8. Divide the class into groups of 3–4 students and assign each group one of the Connection Questions on the reading (2–5) to discuss and then present to the class. (Questions are on the next slide).
Encourage students to use examples from the text to support their answers.
Ask each group to write a follow-up question that their discussion sparked.
You might also ask them to include one other text from this scheme of work in their discussion.
Debrief by asking 1–2 members from each group to briefly summarise their ideas about their question. Then a third student can pose the group’s follow-up question, which the class should try to answer using the text, other texts from this scheme of work, and their own experiences. Repeat this process until every group has presented.

9. How do you explain the differences in the way Manzoor and his father thought about their relationship to Britain? How is the way they think about British identity similar and different from the thoughts of others you have read in this collection?
Experiences at school often have a lasting impact on the way people think about their identities. After describing two painful memories from his school days, Manzoor writes, ‘It is not easy to convey the impact of such incidents.’ What does he mean? What are the different ways such experiences might shape the way people think about themselves, others, and the choices they make?
How do you explain the fact that none of Manzoor’s fellow students defended either him or the Asian maths teacher when they were teased? What choices did his classmates have in the different situations? What might you have done to help?
As a young man Mazoor remembers: “If I could have summoned a genie who could have rubbed my brownness off, the shameful truth is that I would have been elated I wanted to be invisible and anonymous so that no one could point at me and say: ‘You are different and you do not belong.’ What does he mean when he says he wanted to be ‘invisible’?”
Project the questions on the board and/or print and distribute them to your students.

10. Connect Extend Challenge
How do the ideas and information in this reading connect to what you already know about identity and belonging?
How does this reading extend or broaden your thinking about identity and belonging?
Does this reading challenge or complicate your understanding of identity and belonging? What new questions does it raise for you?
Ask students to complete a Connect, Extend, Challenge Chart as a final reflection on identity and belonging.
They might work independently or with a partner to answer the questions.
Challenge

11. Extension Activity

12. Coming to America, Finding Your Voice
To further explore the relationship between identity, power, and voice, read Coming to America, Finding Your Voice with your class.
You can have students underline places where Hinojosa and her mother experienced a lack of power and and then put an exclamation point by places where they felt empowered.
Then ask students to discuss the relationship between how we view ourselves, how others view us, power, and voice. You might also ask students how this reading connects to, extends, or challenges Manzoor’s ideas about invisibility and voice.
AP Photo / Jon Elswick

13. What made you feel this way?
Write about a time you came to a new place (a new country, city or town, school, classroom, religious institution, etc.) and felt voiceless or powerless.
What made you feel this way?
What did you do to try and find your voice?
Finally, students can write their own “Coming to ” stories in their journals about a time they came to a new place—maybe a new country, city or town, school, classroom, religious institution—where they felt voiceless or powerless. What made them feel this way? What did they do to try and find their voice?

14. @facinghistory | facinghistory.org