Description:
This lesson will allow the students in my class to analyze an event where a person or groups of people were singled out because of their race, religion, nationality or sexuality. Students will interpret the song "Scarecrow" by Melissa Etheridge and apply the lyrics to the events they have read about.

Subjects:
U.S. History, Civil Rights, Health, Hate Crime Prevention/Tolerance

Grade Levels:
This lesson is adaptable to a wide range of ages because as you research the hate crime attacks the histories can be written age appropriate for your students.

Audience:
This lesson is useful in all venues.

Rationale:
My overall goal for this lesson is to demonstrate to the students that intolerance can be found everywhere, directed towards almost every type of person or group. My learning outcome is to demonstrate to students that intolerance towards any group is intolerance towards all groups.

Objectives:
Over the course of this lesson the students will:
1. Understand that hate crimes are a universal problem
2. Explore their own thoughts and feelings about hate crimes
3. Learn, through group discussion and listening to music, about Matthew Shepard and numerous other hate crime victims
4. Draw independent conclusions about hate crimes and tolerance
5. Learn to look for the meaning in a song

Time Frame:
One class period

Materials:
Melissa Etheridge's CD Breakdown
CD player
Copies of "Scarecrow" song lyrics
A small amount of research is necessary to provide students with written histories of other hate crime attacks. These copy written materials are cited under Resources.

Background:
No prior knowledge is necessary.

Procedures:
In preparation for this lesson you must research and write histories of other hate crime attacks. These copy written materials are cited under Resources. This part of the lesson allows dynamic flexibility in not only the selection of hate crime attacks studied but also the reading level they are written for.

The class is divided into heterogeneous groups of 3 or 4 students. Each group will be given a folder that contains a reading that chronicles the death of a person or persecution of a group based on religion, race, nationality, or sexual orientation. Students are to work as a group taking turns reading aloud the information in the folder. Spread the groups out as far as possible to allow them to discuss their topic without being disturbed by the other groups. The folder also contains the lyrics to the song "Scarecrow." (Teachers note: I do NOT tell the class that they are all working with the same song.)

The groups are to analyze the lyrics and the story and demonstrate how the song applies to their particular situation. Stanza by stanza students should identify specific correlations between the story they have read and the lyrics of "Scarecrow." You should create a chart dividing the song stanza by stanza for the comparison part of this exercise.

Follow-up questions for discussion:
What are some of the emotions or feelings you had as you read the lyrics to the song?

In the song one of verses states, "This was someone's child, with pain unreconciled, filled up with fathers hate, mothers neglect, I can forgive but I can not forget." Who is the writer speaking about?

Closure:
After the student groups have presented their interpretations of the song for each of their biographies I then play the song "Scarecrow" by Melissa Etheridge and explain her reasons for writing the song. (Melissa Etheridge's reasons for writing this song revolve around the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard.) I reinforce to the students that these acts of intolerance they have studied today occurred in the United States over the last four hundred years and are just a sampling of what continues to happen in our society today. As a teacher I want to make my students uncomfortable with the memory of these lives cut short by prejudice and intolerance. Hopefully through this uncomfortable memory the lesson they can teach will live on.

People and Groups the Students will Research:
Emmett Till 1955 Young black boy from Chicago who was visiting his grandfather in Money, Mississippi. Murdered after he said "Bye baby" to a white shop owner's wife.

Medgar Evers 1963 First NAACP Field Secretary for Mississippi. Murdered outside his home in 1963.

Mary Dyer 1660 Mary Dyer a Puritan who because of the strict Puritan intolerant spirit becomes a Quaker. She is arrested in Boston and eventually hung as she seeks the separation of church and state for the colony of Massachusetts.

Leo Frank 1913 In Georgia a Jewish man (Leo Frank) is convicted of the murder of a 13 year old girl. The Governor opens the case and finds the real murderer, but before he can be released a mob of townspeople break into the jail and hang Leo Frank.

Matthew Shepard 1998 Young Laramie, Wyoming gay man beaten and left to die by two young men who didn't like the way he was looking at them.

Michael Donald 1981 A young black man murdered by the Klu Klux Klan in Alabama. Mother will file suit against the Klan.

Mexican-Americans in Texas 1917 Texas Rangers along with other community members of Presidio County Texas kill 15 Mexican men and boys. For decades the violence against Mexican Americans by Rangers went unchecked.

The Kataoka Family 1942 After the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 President Roosevelt will issue an executive order restricting the movement of Japanese Americans. They will be forced to move into internment camps located in the "interior of the United States."

Death of Chinese Labor's 1885 Rock Springs Wyoming. White towns people because of a labor dispute killed twenty-five Chinese miners in a race riot.

Balbir Singh Sodhi 2001 A gas station owner killed in Mesa, Arizona because he looked Middle Eastern according to family members. This murder occurred in the wake of the September 11 bombings of the World Trade Center and Pentagon in New York and Washington D.C.

Content:
The song "Scarecrow" was written by Grammy award winner Melissa Etheridge about a twenty-one year old college student named Matthew Shepard who was beaten and left to die by two young men in Laramie, Wyoming because he was gay.

Evaluation:
As each group presents their biography and analysis of the lyrics to the class it is revealed that they all worked with the same song, and applied it to different situation. It is the intention that they will now see that intolerance anywhere, towards any group is intolerance to all groups.

Resources:
Matthew Shepard - News articles from New York Times and Washington Post. Via Online Resources

Balbir Singh Sodhi - News articles from The Arizona Republic and the Washington Post. Via Online Resources

Emmett Till and Medgar Evers - Free at Last Free at Last, A History of the Civil Rights Movement and Those Who Died in the Struggle. Published by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Copyright 1990.

Mary Dyer, Leo Frank, Michael Donald, Mexican-Americans in Texas, The Kataoka Family, and Death of Chinese Labor's - Us and Them by Jim Carnes. Published by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Copyright 1995

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