We Will Ride Lesson by Pop Culture Classroom
Colorful History Issue #31 – We Will Ride by Pop Culture Classroom
*This lesson was developed by Pop Culture Classroom and links to an external source.
Summary:
In this lesson students will read a 2-page graphic novel format story about the Gang of 19 and “We Will Ride” action, and how they fought for equal rights for the disabled.
Our suggestions when teaching this lesson:
We don’t recommend having conversations with disabled students first, but also definitely don’t ask personal questions of anyone, minorities….
The lesson recommends a few things we discourage you from including:
There is a teacher note we discourage you from using that says “Speak privately with your students who have disabilities before teaching this comic so they aren’t taken by surprise at becoming a point of focus during your discussions and lessons. Always respect the feelings and wishes of students—don’t single them out if they are not comfortable being put on the spot or being asked to speak for a particular group or community.”
We must discourage you from making any student a focus of a lesson unless they have come to you on their own asking to discuss something.
Question for all grades we discourage using it as it has an inaccurate framing around what disability is.
“What do you think “disability” means? People often use it to describe something that someone can’t do. According to that definition, we all have disabilities. What are some of yours?”
Lesson idea we discourage using as it unfairly puts responsibility and attention on individual disabled students in your school. This can be accomplished by researching already published thoughts on this topic.
“Have students investigate accommodations that enable students with disabilities to navigate and participate on your campus (assistive technology, accessibility, Braille, hearing aides, wheelchairs, etc.). They could interview willing students who use accommodations and accessibility services to find out how well their needs are being met and how they feel about their access and treatment on campus.
Suggestion:
You can find some ideas on how to introduce the idea of celebrating differences all year long in the beginning of the year on our page titled “Setting Up Your Classroom to Celebrate Difference”
Additional resources to expand the conversation:
Wade Blank was a Presbyterian minister and civil rights activist who co-founded the Atlantis Community, was a leader in the We Will Ride protest and founded ADAPT These are a few resources related to him we encourage you to explore on your own and with your classes about him:
There is a film from 1990 called “When You Remember Me” that is inspired by Wade Blank. “When You Remember Me” is available on YouTube.
Additional information about Wade Blank written about him when he died in 1993: https://abilitychicagoinfo.blogspot.com/2017/07/wade-blank-1940-1993-disability-rights.html
A short video series about the history of ADAPT which includes:
Subject and topic:
Art, English Language Arts (ELA), Accessibility, Diversity and Equity, Social and Emotional Learning, Disability History
Grade level:
3rd to 12th grades
Duration:
60 minutes
Links to download lessons:
Get the lesson plan on the Pop Culture Classroom website: https://popcultureclassroom.org/product/educational-comics/colorful-history/issue-31-we-will-ride/
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