How to Be an Antiracist Lesson Plan

Danger of a Single Story

Kind of Activity:

Individual Writing

Objective:

Students will craft their own arguments and assertions about race.

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.2, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.9-10.4

Structure:

To begin this activity, show students Chimamanda Adiche’s TED talk “The Danger of a Single Story” (https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en). It is about 20 minutes long. In it, Adiche uses various narratives to talk about the dangers of stereotypes. She asserts that the problem with stereotypes is not that they are complete lies, it is that they are incomplete. Representation is one important...