Time Magazine's 2011 Person of the Year: The Protestor. Author: Jennie Spiegler, Teachable Moment.

This lesson uses Time magazine's Person of the Year 2011 article to create discussion and exploration of "The Protestor" through analysis of the article and discussion. Possible discussions on protesting, democracy, social media, and other cross curricular topics, but the main langauge arts/English activity includes analyzing photographs of protestors and creating captions for them. This lesson can be used in a literature class alone or in a cross curricular lesson with a government, contemporary issues, or history class. This lesson provides opportunities for analyzing current informational text and graphics that complement the article. Creation of captions allows students a higher level of analysis. In order to take this lesson one step further with writing skills, a teacher may have students nominate a person of the year and write an essay or magazine article in support of that nomination.

Weblink address (URL):

Standards & Objectives

Learning objectives:

Objectives:

To help students understand why Time magazine chose The Protester as their 2011 Person of the Year
To help students understand how and why the worldwide protests took place during 2011, and their interconnectedness and distinctiveness
To help students understand the role of social media in the protests
To help students reflect on who "has done the most to influence the events of the year"
To help students reflect on the meaning of democracy

Lesson Variations

Blooms taxonomy level:

Understanding

References

Contributors:

Julie Lewis

Originator:

Ayers Institute for Learning & Innovation