Quebec Competencies Chart - Scapegoating and Othering

Author: Jeff Gagnon, Media Education Specialist, MediaSmarts
Level: Grades 8 to 10
Lesson Length: 4 hours
Subject Area: Medias, Internet, Hate/Othering, Diversity, Civic life
Lesson Link: http://mediasmarts.ca/lessonplan/scapegoating-and-othering-lesson

Description: In this lesson, students develop a deeper understanding of scapegoating and othering and how these factors may contribute to the promotion of hatred and intolerance. Through group and class discussions of various scenarios and a survey of articles on news websites students will develop the necessary critical thinking skills to recognize and respond to such incidents when they are encountered.

Cross-curricular Competencies

Broad Areas of Learning

  • To use information
  • To solve problems
  • To exercise critical judgement
  • To adopt effective work methods
  • To use information and communication technologies (ICT)
  • To construct his/her identity
  • To cooperate with others
  • To communicate appropriately
  • Media Literacy
  • Health and Well-Being
  • Citizenship and Community Life

 

This lesson satisfies the following Competencies from the Quebec Education Program:

English Language Arts

Uses language/talk to communicate and learn

Establishes a repertoire of resources for communicating and learning in specific contexts

  • Investigates the affordances of spoken language as a mode of communication
  • Examines some of the aesthetic qualities of spoken language
  • Develops rhetorical strategies to achieve specific purposes
  • Examines the affordances of genres
  • Extends the range of strategies for collecting the data needed for use in specific genres

Participates in the social practices of the classroom and community in specific contexts

  • Investigates the uses of spoken language in the school and community
  • Plans and carries out independent units of study
  • Conducts exploratory ethnographic research
  • Organizes and maintains an integrated profile of work over the cycle
  • Engages in a process of self-evaluation and reflection
  • Confers with the teacher in regular and ongoing evaluation conferences

Interacts with peers and teacher in specific contexts

  • Collaborates with peers to construct knowledge about how things are done
  • Participates in collaborative action research groups using an inquiry process
  • Applies procedural and meaningmaking strategies to achieve a purpose
  • Contributes to team efforts as an interactive and critical listener

Reads and listens to written, spoken and media texts

Integrates reading profile, stance and strategies to make sense of a text in a specific context

  • Reads for pleasure and to learn
  • Draws on prior experience and the features of a genre to make sense of a text
  • Adjusts reading strategies and stance to the context
  • Develops research and organizational strategies for working with information

Talks about own response to a text within a classroom community

  • Deepens own meaning(s) of a text in discussions with other readers
  • Situates meanings within own experiences and the world of the text, in order to transform initial readings into more conscious interpretations
  • Considers possible reasons for own responses and the responses of others to clarify and reshape the relationship between self as reader and the text
  • Shares Integrated Profile in teacher-student conferences

Interprets the relationship(s) between reader, text and context in light of own response(s)

  • Explains the impact of a text on self as reader by returning to its social functions, as well as the way meanings and messages are constructed
  • Draws on own reading profile, including knowledge of textual structures and features, to locate textual details that support own interpretations
  • Constructs interpretations that embody both own world and the world of the text

Produces texts for personal and social purposes

Extends repertoire of resources for producing texts

  • Immerses self in texts to learn how they are constructed
  • Investigates the codes and conventions of various genres
  • Creates criteria for what makes text(s) effective
  • Examines the affordances of different modes and genres to make production decisions
  • Uses models of different texts to apply chosen features in own work
  • Applies codes and conventions of written and media language
  • Compares own style in relation to other writers/producers
  • Develops standards for using language responsibly to represent people, events and ideas

Constructs a relationship between writer/producer, text and context

  • Understands that all texts are constructed in specific contexts for specific audiences and purposes
  • Researches as a writer/producer to become more informed, to create authentic contexts and to characterize an audience
  • Assumes various roles in own productions
  • Analyzes the elements of the context and shapes the text accordingly
  • Examines the differences between producing texts for public and private spaces.

Adapts a process to produce texts in specific contexts

  • Participates both individually and collaboratively in different recursive phases of the production process
  • Confers regularly with peers and teacher throughout the production process
  • Uses feedback strategies to improve own productions and support peers
  • Reflects on own development as a writer/producer over time
  • Monitors own learning
  • Cultivates a variety of media and writerly practices
  • Explores a variety of avenues for wider publication

Ethics and Religious Culture

Reflects on ethical questions

Analyzes a situation from an ethical point of view

  • Describes a situation and puts it into context
  • Formulates a related ethical question
  • Compares points of view
  • Explains tensions or conflicting values
  • Compares the situation with similar situations
  • Compares his/her analysis of the situation with that of his/her classmates

Examines a variety of cultural, moral, religious, scientific or social references

  • Finds the main references present in different points of view
  • Looks for the role and the meaning of these references
  • Considers other references
  • Compares the meaning of the main references in different contexts

Evaluates options or possible actions

  • Suggests options or possible actions
  • Studies the effects of these options or actions on oneself, others or the situation
  • Chooses options or actions that foster community life
  • Reflects on the factors that influenced these choices

Engages in dialogue

Organizes his/her thinking

  • Identifies the subject of dialogue
  • Makes connections between prior knowledge and new knowledge
  • Distinguishes between what is essential and what is secondary in the different points of view expressed
  • Takes stock of his/her reflections

Develops a substantiated point of view

  • Uses his/her resources and looks for information about the subject of dialogue
  • Develops further his/her understanding of different points of view
  • Imagines various hypotheses
  • Fleshes out a point of view
  • Anticipates objections and necessary clarifications
  • Validates his/her point of view
  • Reflects on his/her process

Interacts with others

  • Develops an awareness of his/her reaction to the subject of dialogue
  • Looks for conditions that foster dialogue
  • Expresses his/her point of view and pays attention to others' views
  • Explains different points of view, using relevant and coherent arguments
  • Asks for clarification
  • Implements means to overcome obstacles to dialogue