Lesson: Unpacking Stereotypes: Corn Pops Cover
Slide Deck to Share with Students HERE
Lesson Objectives:
Students will be able to
Detect, reflect upon, and reject stereotypes that are present in our everyday lives
Learning Standards:
LfJ 11. Students will recognize stereotypes and relate to people as individuals rather than as representatives of groups
LfJ 12. Students will recognize unfairness at the individual level (e.g. biased speech) and injustice at the institutional or systemic level (e.g. discrimination)
LfJ 13. Students will analyze the harmful impact of bias and injustice on the world, historically and today.
Learning Activities (If you have 15 minutes…)
Greeting (Slide 4)
Which chihuahua are you today?
Reading (Slides 6-7):
Define a stereotype for your students (Slide 6) prior to sharing the reading below (Slide 7)
“Whenever we’re in a situation where a bad stereotype about one of our identities could be applied– such as being old, poor, rich, or female– we know it. And this means that it follows members of that stereotyped group into situations like a balloon over their heads.”
–Claude Steele
What does this quotation get you thinking about?
Initiative
Question for students: What do you notice about this Corn Pops box? (Slide 9)
(If students are having trouble seeing the box, you can share with them Slide 10 and Slide 11)
Students should notice that all the Corn Pops featured in the scene seem to be the same yellow cover except for one brown corn pop, who seems to be the one Corn Pop engaging in manual labor (cleaning the floor)
Information for teacher: This Corn Pops box appeared in 2017
Learning Activities (if you have 45 minutes….)
Initiative (continued):
Invite students to apply Patricia Devine’s Detect, Reflect, Reject framework to this cereal box cover. (Slide 12)
1) Detect-- What is the problem here?
2) Reflect-- Why is this stereotype showing up here? Who is it harming?
3) Reject-- What can we do to challenge this problematic stereotype?
Learning Activities (if you have 2 hours….)
Share with students the way one individual, Saladin Ahmed, called out this stereotyping on Twitter (Slide 13)
Share with students the way Kellog’s responded (Slide 14)
Question for students: How does this example from 2017 influence your thinking about stereotypes and challenging stereotypes?