Considering your Positionality: Have you considered your own positionality (lens)? How have you considered bias and gaps in your knowledge? What are they and how will you address them before implementing this lesson? What gaps in understanding or information might you have related to the upcoming lesson? Use this space to reflect and self-examine.

Learning Objective(s) & Resources: State your objectives clearly, ensuring you have considered all aspects of the un/HUSH framework. What resources or materials do you need to implement the lesson?

Objectives

• Understand the basic historical events of the Lavender Scare (1940s-1970s).
• Put in conversation about the Lavender Scare and related social and political events.
  • Previous/ongoing: Japanese American incarceration (WWII), McCarthyism (1940s - 1950s), rise of antisemitism (1920s - 1940s), the declaration of Israel (1948)
  • Upcoming: the civil rights era (1960s, including Stonewall), HIV/AIDS pandemic (1980s - present)

Resources - Students

• Documentaries: The Lavender Scare and Before Stonewall
• Primary source: Gay History: U.S. Navy (Crittenden) Report 1957 
• Library of Congress Research Guide: 1969 - The Stonewall Uprising

Resources - Teachers

• Books: And They Were Wonderful Teachers and The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government
• Documentary: How to Survive a Plague

Alignment: State

• Public Act 101-0227 (2019): "The teaching of history shall include a study of the roles and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in the history of this country and this state." 

Anticipatory Set: How are you going to engage your students? Review prior knowledge? Introduce your topic? Organize your lesson for students? Help make content relevant?

Ask students to recall previous lessons about WWII and Japanese Americans' incarceration in the 1940s:

• How would you describe WWII to someone who had not yet heard of it?
• How would you explain the incarceration of Japanese Americans to someone today?
• Who else was impacted by state and federal policies during and after WWII?
• What connections might exist between these past events and current-day events?

This lesson  elevates histories, herstories and theirstories from gender and sexually diverse Americans during WWII and building up toward the civil rights era.

Evidence shows that learning about gender and sexual diversity has positive impacts on all learners. In fact, research shows that incorporating LGBTQ+ content in schools reduces bullying and more “nuanced forms of violence.” More specifically, students will have the opportunities to engage with another form of human diversity in this content, perhaps allowing them to feel more connected with themselves and/or their peers. In our facilitated conversations and planned activities (i.e., journaling), students will have opportunities to collaboratively or privately share their perspectives.

Engagement: How does the the lesson provide multiple pathways for students to learn the material? For example, will you offer opportunities for small-group learning, discussion, focused practice with precise feedback, or independent work?

Yes! While it is important to understand these historical events in U.S. history, it is crucial that students do not feel compelled to “out” themselves or others. As such, there must be multiple forms of engagement with these materials. Students will have opportunities to share their perspectives privately via journaling (written or recorded). Cost-effective e-technologies will be used (i.e., Plickers) so students can anonymously share their un/learnings about these events. Small- and large-group discussions will also take place, encouraging—but not forcing—them to synthesize their un/learnings with their peers.

Expression: How will students demonstrate what they have learned? The creation of many paths is important, as is creativity. Tiered assignments, oral exams, building a model, making a video and using portfolio assessment are examples of the varied demonstration of learning.

Students will demonstrate their learning in several ways. Informally (but collectively), they will use Plickers to identify key historical events. Students will also submit a journal entry (written or recorded) as if they were explaining the Lavender Scare to someone who had little to no knowledge of these historical events. .

At the end of the unit, students will build on these efforts to create a synthesis project about the WWII era. In a medium of their choosing (i.e., a video, creative project, or written document), students will explain two of the major historical events that occurred during, or as a result of, WWII, as if they were teaching the lesson to someone with little-to-no knowledge about these histories, herstories and theirstories. Students can select from covered topics (Japanese Americans’ incarceration, the Lavender Scare, the rise of antisemitism, the declaration of Israel) or propose another event from the era.