1 TABLE OF CONTENTS 03 OVERVIEW 05 ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS 05 ENDURING UNDERSTANDINGS 06 LIST OF CHARACTERS 07 FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS 10 LESSON #1: UNDERSTANDING PERSPECTIVES 12 LESSON #2: CHARACTERIZING COURTNEY 14 LESSON #3: WAS COURTNEY “SOMEBODY” OR “SOME BODY?” 17 LESSON #4: TRUST 19 LESSON #5: THE POWER OF MEDIA 22 LESSON #6: THE TALK 24 LESSON #7: WALKING BACK ASSUMPTIONS 26 LESSON #8: SHAPEARL’S MISSION 28 LESSON #9: THE ROLE OF THE POLICE 30 LESSON #10: THE TIMELINE 33 ASSESSMENT: WRITE A PODCAST REVIEW 35 ASSESSMENT: WRITE A SCOOP AND RUN OP-ED 37 APPENDIX A: TEACHING STRATEGIES 39 APPENDIX B: ALIGNED STANDARDS 44 APPENDIX C: HANDOUTS 81 APPENDIX D: TRANSCRIPTS: EPISODES 1-7 2 ━━━━━━ OVERVIEW by Griffin Muckley “I didn’t read,” Fantasia admitted to me, “but I did listen to the audiobook. Is that okay?” Five years ago, as I circulated the English classroom where I taught on Chicago’s West Side, I didn’t have time to weigh the act of reading vs. listening. But later, I couldn’t shake the question: Was it okay to listen instead of read? Did it engage as much of the brain? Did it allow for students to practice critical thinking? These days, I don’t just allow critical listening, I actively encourage it. The first time I played a podcast in class, it seemed beyond students’ ability levels: “What does that word mean?” “They talk too fast!” “I get what he’s talking about...but I don’t remember what he said.” That experience got me thinking: What would it be like to teach a podcast in place of a text? I landed on the first season of the hit show Serial. I figured, “Teenagers? Love? Murder? Students will get behind this.” After just one episode, students, some of whom were silent all year, were making predictions, wondering aloud about information they thought was missing, drawing conclusions, and backing them up with details. All this conversation was unguided; I let it unfurl naturally. It became clear that literary analysis comes naturally to teenagers, provided they have an interesting story in a relatable format. Serial became a perennial unit and year after year students listened at home, then came to school to discuss what they noticed. They relistened closely to excerpts from the podcast, and adjusted their perceptions of the story. On my first listen of the Somebody podcast, I knew it was going to take my experiment with critical listening to the next level. On Chicago’s West Side, my students have been predominantly African American, and I knew that they would relate to losing a loved one to gun violence, experiencing negative interactions with police, and feeling the impact of stereotypes. I could imagine the looks in students’ eyes as they, like Shapearl, peeled back the idea of who is and who isn’t somebody. I saw this teaching guide as an opportunity to bring conversations going on at home and on the national stage into the classroom. The killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless others have brought the relationship between police and communities of color underneath a microscope; listening to Shapearl’s story reveals how a breakdown in the relationship between the police and the community leads to distrust, assumptions, and mistakes. This curriculum pushes students to analyze how experiences can shape our personal biases, no matter what community you may teach in. Open any podcast app and you have instant access to thousands of short, digestible stories told through relatable voices in modern context. Teachers know that emotion and relatability are the 3 greatest gateway to engaged, meaningful learning. Whether it’s a crash course in American diplomacy in The Other Latif podcast, or an exploration of human biology on Science Vs, podcasts simplify complex ideas and create narratives that make information memorable. What better teaching tool could we ask for? When I started teaching critical listening, I thought it would be a break from strict academics. Over time, I’ve found that teaching students to listen is as important as teaching them how to read. It’s made me rethink my responsibilities as an educator and the tools I use to teach critical thinking. The Somebody podcast is an ideal vehicle for critical listening, analysis, and social justice. I hope this teaching guide helps you to experiment with critical listening in your own classroom. Griffin Muckley taught English at Christ the King College Prep on Chicago's West Side. He recently moved to Boston where he is pursuing a career in education advocacy. 4 ━━━━━━━━━━━━ ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS ⇨ LITERARY ANALYSIS: How can listening closely to word choice and tone reveal complex motivations? ⇨ LITERACY: How can distinguishing between facts and assumptions help us to understand an event? ⇨ LANGUAGE: How can research and interviews be combined to tell a cohesive story? ⇨ LIFE: How can listening to someone’s story change our perspectives? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ENDURING UNDERSTANDINGS ⇨ Our civic structures, such as police and fire departments, rely on trust. When that trust breaks down, they do not work effectively. ⇨ Individuals are shaped by the experiences that they have had personally. To understand alternative perspectives, we must listen to others’ experiences. ⇨ As citizens, we have the right to demand information from public institutions. This keeps us informed and holds institutions accountable. ⇨ Facts can be difficult to define because we often color them with our own biases and assumptions. **NOTE: All time codes are based on the episodes posted on the Somebody website without commercials. 5 ━━━━━━━━━━━━ LIST OF CHARACTERS ● Courtney Copeland - a 22-year-old from suburban Chicago who was a senior sales rep at World Ventures travel agency. He was shot on March 4, 2016. ● Shapearl Wells - Courtney’s mother and host of the Somebody podcast. ● Alison Flowers - a journalist who helps with the investigation and occasionally serves as co-host of the podcast. ● Brent Wells - Courtneys’ stepfather. ● Renee Faulkner - Shapearls mother, Courtney’s grandmother. ● Claressa Hawkins - a nurse on duty when Courtney was brought into the hospital. She is a key witness, particularly around the question of whether or not Courtney was handcuffed. ● Alma - Courtney’s “secret” girlfriend who worked with him at World Ventures. Courtney was on his way to see her the night he was shot. ● Elena - a resident of Chicago’s Belmont-Cragin neighborhood. She and her child were walking from their car to their house the night Courtney was shot. They heard gunshots and witnessed a car driving down their alley. ● Edgar - Elena’s husband. He also saw a car in his alley the night Courtney was shot and was able to provide descriptions of the vehicle and the men inside. ● Randall - another witness. Randall was returning home from the gym late at night when he saw three men in a car who appeared to throw a gun underneath a vehicle. ● Rocio - Courtney’s long-time girlfriend. They were not together at the time of the murder. ● Santita Jackson - a friend of Shapearl, and the daughter of Reverend Jesse Jackson. She tells Shapearl to write down her account of the investigation so that no details are lost over time. ● Chance the Rapper - a high school friend of Courtney’s. ● Chicago Police Department - includes officers on the scene outside the police station the night Courtney was shot as well as detectives assigned to investigate the case. 6 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ➔ My students don’t have the ability to listen on their own! ◆ If you can’t assign listening as homework, listen as a class. Students can follow along with the transcripts and guided questions. You can ask the questions or you can ask students to turn-and-talk or think-pair-share to answer them. ➔ I don’t have time to listen in class and still complete all of the lessons! ◆ Using the transcripts with the guided questions can still be an enriching experience, especially for students new to critical listening. Try listening to just the first few episodes and completing the corresponding lessons. Or complete all the listening and choose the lessons you find most important, engaging, or relevant. ➔ This curriculum appears to be VERY discussion-based. My students need movement and constant engagement! ◆ This curriculum consists of close-listening excerpts and guided questions meant to help students strengthen their critical listening abilities, like close-reading a text. It is meant to be adaptable. If you engage students with movement and active learning, apply your strategies to the lines of questioning provided. ➔ You don’t include any time for students to debrief their own thoughts and feelings after listening! ◆ Each lesson is meant to immediately engage students in the central questions and understandings. If you want to encourage more organic discussion, try working it in after the first step of each lesson. After this “hook,” you can encourage students to share their thoughts for 5-10 minutes before moving on with the lesson. ➔ What about distance learning? ◆ We are facing the very real possibility that schools will look different in the future, with students doing much of their learning online. Podcasts are easily adapted to distance learning as they are web-based. Students can make copies of all handouts, and the guided listening packets are easily shared. ➔ Why doesn’t this curriculum include more writing? 7 ◆ I find that students write best when I dedicate time just for that task rather than trying to jam it in at the end of a full lesson. Teachers can definitely use the extensions at the end of each lesson to create writing prompts for students. 8 9 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ LESSON 1: UNDERSTANDING PERSPECTIVES In Preparation This unit is meant to generate discussions that are personal for students.