Using Twitter to Teach about Power, Race, and Privilege

Two weeks ago, I gave the students in one of the African American History classes a two-day project titled “Power and the Media.” On day 1, students were expected to find three articles related to power and privilege. It could be about anything, just as long as it related to either of the two aforementioned topics. On day 2, I played three media clips and students live tweeted as we also discussed the content and concepts of the clips.

I’ll just present directions for day 1/ part 1 to give a bit more clarification:

Before beginning: Mr. B will post all of the twitter accounts for members of the classroom. You will follow the twitter accounts of everyone in the classroom.

Part 1: Exploring the Media

Find three online articles that reflects either power dynamics or privilege.

1. Tweet the link of the article.

2. Write three tweets explaining how your article reflects power dynamics and/or privilege. 

3. If necessary, respond to tweet mentions/ responses that you receive.

4. Read at least 3 other articles posted by your classmates. For each article, respond with one question that you have about the article and how it relates to power/privilege.

5. Continuously tweet and respond to classmates. Do not delete your account or tweets.  Your TL (timeline) will be assessed by Mr. B.  Doing the minimum will earn each student a C/ B. Being continuously engaged and doing more than what is asked will result in engaging classroom dialgoue and will likely result in a higher mark.

I have to say, I think this project went incredibly well. Nearly all of the students posted topical articles and there was frequent communication and debate via twitter. The students handled the assignment very maturely. I scaffolded this project with a one-day student/group led lesson on respect and bullying. I hope to use twitter in the future to direct lessons and to encourage participation among students, for example, who do not normally participate out loud in class.

I think the project allowed students to explore topics that they were interested in, with regards to race. My hope was that if students could explore the concept of power and privilege within a topic of interest, that they would gain a greater conceptual understanding of both ideas and be able to consider them when talking about race. Day 2 seemed to be indicative of my goal becoming a reality, as many of the students tweeted very complex, nuanced and advanced tweets on what was very difficult material (I played clips from Bamboozled and American History X (edited) for them. In the end, it seems as if twitter was effective in carrying out my goals for this lesson and ultimately, this unit.