March 25, 2002

SHEDDING LIGHT ON AN "INVISIBLE" PROBLEM
Advocating Awareness of Issues of Homelessness

Grades:  6-8,9-12

Subjects:  Civics, Language Arts, Social Studies

Related New York Times Article
"To Be Young and Homeless, By JENNIFER EGAN", March 25, 2002

Overview of Lesson Plan:: In this lesson, students explore the lives of homeless people, focusing particularly on children. They develop ideas to increase awareness about this issue and create campaigns that educate their peers about the large number of homeless children and families that live in cities across their country.

SUGGESTED TIME ALLOWANCE:   1 hour minimum

OBJECTIVES:
Students will:

  1. Consider, in groups, the issue of homelessness and how it affects the lives of children by responding in writing to excerpts from the article "To Be Young and Homeless" and to their group members' ideas.
  2. Examine the lives of homeless children and the problems that exist in breaking the cycle of homelessness by reading and discussing "To Be Young and Homeless."
  3. Act as advocacy groups for the homeless, developing campaigns to publicize the importance of and the need for help for the homeless.
  4. Complete and present their campaigns.

RESOURCES / MATERIALS:

ACTIVITIES / PROCEDURES:

  1. WARM-UP/DO-NOW: Prior to class, arrange desks into six groups. Give each group a large sheet of paper with a different excerpt from the article "To Be Young and Homeless." Explain that one student in the group will begin this exercise by reading the excerpt, responding to it on the paper beneath the excerpt with no more than three sentences, and then passing it to the student to his or her right. That student will then read the excerpt and the student's response to it, and respond to one or both. Continue this exercise for about 10-15 minutes so that students will be continuously responding in writing to the ideas of the others in their group. After the exercise is over, allow groups to share the information that they read as well as their reactions to it, and discuss the excerpts as a class.
  2. Read and discuss the article "To Be Young and Homeless," focusing on the following questions:
    1. What is the Emergency Assistant Unit (E.A.U.)?
    2. What does the E.A.U. look and sound like?
    3. What social service is unique to New York City?
    4. What is conditional shelter?
    5. What percentage of families in New York City is homeless? How many children are included in this number?
    6. What is the difference between chronic homelessness and typical homelessness?
    7. What types of problems do homeless children face?
    8. Why is homelessness considered to be an invisible problem?
    9. What difficulties do parents of homeless children face?
    10. What is the ratio of extremely low-income housing to the number of families who needs it? Has this ratio increased or decreased over the years?
    11. Why is housing particularly problematic in New York City?
    12. Does the United States government provide housing for everyone? How does the government go about funding low-income housing?
    13. What are some of the problems with the way the New York's Department of Homeless Services functions?
    14. How much money does the federal government spend on homeless services? How does this compare to monies spent on the state and local levels?
    15. How much does it cost city taxpayers to support a homeless family per year? What does Patrick Markee think about this cost?
    16. How and when will homelessness become less of an issue, according to this article?
  3. With this introduction to the issue of homelessness, particularly focusing on the lives of homeless children, explain that each group will now act as an advocacy group for the homeless. Each group will create a community campaign using three media of their choice by which to inform their peers of issues surrounding homelessness in their community, state or country. First, as a class, brainstorm on the board a list of different ways in which advocacy groups send out their messages. (Students might include letters to the public, posters, magazine or newspaper advertisements, billboards and three-dimensional displays in public areas.) Then, each group should respond to the following questions (written on the board for easier student access):
    • Will your campaign focus on issues of homelessness on a community, state or national level?
    • On what specific issue or issues related to homelessness do you wish to focus your campaign?
    • What statistics are offered in your group's article excerpt that you can incorporate into your campaign? What other statistics should you locate in order to give your campaign factual support?
    • This campaign's audience is an audience of your peers. How can your message be reflected in a voice to which your peers can relate?
    • Look at the list on the board of possible media for your campaign. Which three methods do you think would be most effective to send your message to this audience, and why?
    • What images and words do you want to incorporate into each of these three campaign pieces to best send your message?
    Students may wish to investigate what some organizations are already doing about homelessness and other social issues before creating their campaigns. Suggested sites include http://www.worldadvocacy.com/human_rights.html, http://www.thetruth.com and http://www.actupny.org. In addition, students might get ideas from advertisements that are anti-drug, anti-smoking or pro-communication between children and parents.
  4. WRAP-UP/HOMEWORK: Students work on developing their campaigns in a future class period and at home. Campaigns will be presented in a future class. Students might also seek permission to display, publish or distribute some of their campaign materials throughout their school.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

EVALUATION / ASSESSMENT:
Students will be evaluated based on initial group read and respond activity, participation in class and group discussions, and thoughtful completion and presentation of campaigns promoting awareness about homelessness.

VOCABULARY:
portal, lucrative, peddle, audit, ebullient, penchant, predicament, machinate, din, notorious, arduous, ruminated, impinge, odyssey, resolute, chronic, constitute, precarious, stagnant, provoke, harangue, beleaguered, retracted, stricken, diminutive, slew, saga

EXTENSION ACTIVITIES:

  1. Research homelessness within your own community, exploring statistics, local advocacy groups, ways in which homeless people in your community can get help, and opportunities for people in your community to help the homeless. Prepare a report showing how your community compares to national statistics on homelessness. Then, plan a project for your class or grade in which you participate in helping the homeless in your community.
  2. Choose a child depicted in the article and write a "day in the life" article or series of diary entries. Include things that you see, hear and experience as this child.
  3. Research one of the organizations mentioned in the article: the Bureau of Child Welfare, Emergency Assistance Unit, New York Department of Homelessness Services or Coalition for the Homeless. How does this organization obtain its funding? What is its goal, and what does it do to attain this goal? What services does the organization provide to the homeless or children? How does the organization enable stability in the lives of the people that it helps? Write a newspaper article "covering" this organization and its practices.
  4. Propose a bill to Congress that would solve our nation's homeless crisis. Support your ideas with statistics and findings from the New York Times article read in class and other data that you find.

INTERDISCIPLINARY CONNECTIONS:
Fine Arts- Create a collage expressing the emotions of the people featured in the article.

Geography- Select five countries from different regions or continents. Gather statistics on homelessness in those locations, and create a map showing where these countries are and what percentage of the population is homeless. You might also further break down statistics by age, gender and other demographic information. Be sure to create a map key that accurately depicts your percentages.

Mathematics- According to the article, "An average of nearly 32,000 people slept in shelters each night last month, up by 23% from a year ago." Based on this statistic, what was the average number of people who slept in shelters each night in the year 2001? What is the difference between those two averages? How does the 2001 average compare to 1987's average of 28,737? Create a chart to illustrate your findings. Create a similar math problem and share it with your peers.

Copyright 2002
The New York Times Company

Unterricht konkret