Mapping Care Project: The History of Black Nurses in Chicago

Why Nursing? And What Can I Do With It?

Lesson Title: Why Nursing? And What Can I Do With It?
Subject(s): Health Sciences, Career Exploration, Advisory
Grade: 7-8
Keywords: careers, nursing, healthcare, health sciences, college readiness, career readiness, STEM, women in STEM, Black women in STEM
Time: 2-3 45 minute class periods
Jump Straight to Activity Plan
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Essential Questions:

Learning Objectives 

Introduction:

In this lesson, students will explore many reasons people go into nursing, as well as different career paths one could take with a nursing degree. The goal of the lesson is to expose students to the variety of ways that nursing might be a career that fits their interests or strengths. The lesson also aims to help students envision the different steps of how one progresses through a career.

The lesson mostly centers around a number of oral history interviews with currently practicing and retired Black nurses in the Chicago area and encourages students to engage in personal reflection to connect with the stories. Students explore a variety of excerpts of oral histories and then choose 1-2 oral histories for which they will create a “life road map.” Students then share these in a gallery walk. Lesson wraps up with students reflecting on at least one participant to whom they felt personally connected in some way. 

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Activity Plan:

1) Introductory activity: Word Association activity about "nurse." 

2) Why Nursing Quotes: students choose oral histories to focus on based on quotes about why individuals chose nursing.

3) Creating a Life Road Map (formative): students create a life road map of one oral history participant.

4) Gallery Walk of Classmates' Maps: students explore each other's life road maps and consider which journeys they connect with.

5) Journaling Reflection: students build personal connections to one oral history participant and consider that person's life journey.
 

Assessments 

Materials

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Introductory Activity

  1. Give students 60 seconds to list as many words as they can that connect to the word “nurse.”
  2. Record words on the board as students share them with class.
    Students will likely list words related to stereotypes about nurses  or basic ideas about nursing - “scrubs,” “hospital,” “shots,” etc. 
  3. Explain that today, students will have a chance to explore the wide variety of things one can do if you could go to school for nursing.
Optional game extension:

Why Nursing Quotes

Creating a Life Road Map

This teaching strategy is adapted from Facing History.
Once students have chosen their oral histories, explain that they will be reading and/or listening to longer stories about these nurses’ lives and drawing a map of their lives. 

Brainstorm with students things that you might encounter on a journey and create a list on the board that they can draw from. Items like: stop signs, speed bumps, traffic lights, dead ends, detours, highways, tolls, slippery roads, yield signs, and rest stops. Give students the opportunity to discuss what these items might represent when applied to the metaphor of “life as journey.” For example, a toll might represent the cost (in money, time, energy) to take a certain step in life. A green light might represent getting the support needed to move forward.

Sketch an example for students based on a small part of your life - perhaps your journey to becoming a teacher - to model how they might use this approach to show someone’s life journey.

Note to students that their map will have to include at least four stops on the journey and explanations of the factors that led people to that next stop (formative experiences, historical events, important relationships, goals, beliefs). Model this for students on your example. 

Example Road Map here.

Encourage students to think creatively; note that each step in the example road maps could have been represented differently and still convey a similar meaning.

Instruct students to read or listen to the first oral history twice:
  1. Listen/read the whole way through without stopping, except for unfamiliar vocabulary.
  2. Listen/read, pausing to take notes for the possible four steps they might put on their road map. Note that they will probably want to write down more than 4, so they can choose their favorites later on.
Oral Histories here.

Tell students that once they have listened to the oral history twice, they can grab a big piece of paper to start drawing the life road map. 

Encourage students to “cheat” from each other by walking around and getting design ideas from their classmates if they are feeling stuck. 
 

Gallery Walk of Classmates' Road Maps

Once students have completed their life road maps, students circulate and look at each other’s work, while completing the graphic organizer, that will help them gather information for their final reflective journaling question.

The graphic organizer includes space for students to examine four other stories. Teachers can modify this as needed for more or less instructional time.

Journaling Reflection

Direct students who have completed the Gallery Walk graphic organizer to return to their seats and complete the reflection on the second page of the graphic organizer, which asks them to think about one person whose story they personally relate to the most.

Alternative final reflective questions:

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