Hangman

S O C I A L    J U S T I C E

Play a round of hangman with the phrase ‘social justice’. Then, ask your class what they think this expression includes.

Four corners

Before class, place the following definitions of social justice in the four corners of the classroom on the wall. Put students into pairs or groups and ask them to read the formulations by moving from corner to corner and discuss them. They can compare their initial ideas about social justice with the definitions.

“Social Justice” encompasses the hope for a world free from barriers of race, class, gender, religion, culture, sexuality or otherwise.

http://days.tigweb.org/world-day-of-social-justice

Social justice is an underlying principle for peaceful and prosperous coexistence within and among nations. We uphold the principles of social justice when we promote gender equality or the rights of indigenous peoples and migrants. We advance social justice when we remove barriers that people face because of gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion, culture or disability.

http://www.un.org/en/events/socialjusticeday/index.shtml

Social justice is defined as “… promoting a just society by challenging injustice and valuing diversity.” It exists when “all people share a common humanity and therefore have a right to equitable treatment, support for their human rights, and a fair allocation of community resources.”

http://gjs.appstate.edu/social-justice-and-human-rights/what-social-justice

Social justice is the equal distribution of resources and opportunities, in which outside factors that categorize people are irrelevant.

https://www.pachamama.org/social-justice/what-is-social-justice

Word cloud

After reading the definitions and discussing the ideas, ask students to sum up what they have read and talked about. What is social justice for them? You might ask them to come up with their own definition or create a word cloud about social justice. If your learners can use technology in class, this should be easy – they can create one on the Internet. Should you (or the students) be in favour of more traditional ways of poster-making, they can make one on paper. One possible word cloud looks like this:

Imagine -1

Students are now going to work with the song Imagine by John Lennon. Give them a small piece of paper of John Lennon and ask them if they know who he is. After eliciting the name and some information about the singer and his famous songs, tell students to look at the other side of the paper where you included a gapped verse from the song. Ask students to guess the missing words.

Imagine no po_________
I wonder if you can
No need for gr_____ or hunger
A br__________ of man
Imagine all the people
Sh_________ all the world…

Key: possessions / greed / brotherhood / sharing

Ask some students to tell the class their ideas and see if the solutions are similar or different. Then, play this part of the song for them and clarify any problematic vocabulary.

Imagine -2

Now, give students a gapped version of the whole lyrics, play the song, and have students complete the text with the missing words. Lead a whole-class discussion on the content of the song.

Imagine
by John Lennon

Imagine there’s no ________
It’s easy if you try
No ____ below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today…

Imagine there’s no ________
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no ________ too
Imagine all the people
Living life in ________…

You may say I’m a _________
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as ______

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world…

http://sojust.net/songs/imagine.html

A new verse

Since social justice encompasses a myriad of things, put students into small groups and ask them to have a look at the word cloud and the lyrics again and come up with an additional verse. When they have finished, they can pass the new verses around so that everybody can read each other’s new endings.

Send a card

Ask students to write their names on a ‘social justice card’ like the one below. Collect and redistribute them while paying attention that nobody draws their own names. Tell them to formulate a message to the person they got on the occasion of social justice day. Finally, put the cards in the middle of the classroom, have students look for their own cards, and finish the class on a hopefully happy and optimistic note.