Support or refute affirmative action in persuasive essays. This lesson plan focuses on issues related to race. Because the topic of race is often incendiary, teachers should be particularly mindful in guiding the lesson. Additionally, teachers should be prepared for students coming across extremely derogatory racial terms in the article that may be upsetting or confusing. Write down a situation in which equal would not be fair, and a situation in which what is fair would not be equal.
Students then share their responses.
Affirmative action was undertaken by the government to remedy the effects of past discrimination against such groups. It consists of policies, programs, and procedures that give preferences to minorities and women in job hiring, admission to institutions of higher education, the awarding of government contracts, and other allocations of social benefits. Label the upper middle block Advantages and the upper right block Disadvantages. This will create a grid with Advantages and Disadvantages as column titles and Employment, University Admissions, Government Contracts, and Military as row titles. Groups should fill out their grids based on their discussion.