The Garvey Classroom · Lesson plan for grades 9 and 10
Media Literacy in the Age of AI
AI in education is a foregone conclusion. What is becoming equally clear is that the widespread use of AI will make strong thinking and writing skills more necessary, not less. Students must develop the human capacity for discernment: the ability to question, evaluate, compare, and make informed judgments about what AI produces.
A seven-session, no-prep media literacy unit for grades 9 and 10. Students learn seven habits of mind for deciding what to believe, what to share, and what to make.
- Grades 9 and 10
- Seven 50-minute sessions
- No student accounts
A look inside
Questions teachers and families ask
The machine can write the answer. The judgment stays yours.
- Why Marcus Garvey?
- Is AI biased against Black students?
- Does it teach AI skills or prompting?
- Does it cover racism in AI, environmental cost, or AI agents?
- How are sources and quotations handled?
- Is it political? Does it blame anyone?
- Who is it for, and how long does it take?
- What do I get?
- Do students need devices or accounts? What about privacy?
- How is it graded, and what standards does it match?
- Can I print it, edit it, and share it?
- What should families do?
Why Marcus Garvey?
Marcus Garvey has been misquoted and vilified for a century. W. E. B. Du Bois pressed the charge of mismanagement against the Black Star Line in 1920 and 1921, and it is still repeated. The record adds a captain’s secret kickback on the Yarmouth, an officer convicted of stealing, government spies, sabotage, and a collapsing shipping market. The unit sorts the Liberia, Firestone, and Black Star Line evidence into the record, Garvey’s claim, a later interpretation, and what remains uncertain. It opens with a famous line no authenticated Garvey source contains. Students study him critically.
Sources
Student text pp. 37 and 48. Teacher Guide rule 3, p. 13. Seifert, Charles C., The Negro’s or Ethiopian’s Contribution to Art, 1938, p. 5. Context the unit does not teach: Du Bois, W. E. B. “Marcus Garvey.” The Crisis, vol. 21, no. 2, Dec. 1920, pp. 58 to 60, www.marxists.org/history/usa/workers/civil-rights/crisis/1200-crisis-v21n02-w122.pdf. Part two, vol. 21, no. 3, Jan. 1921, was read in a transcript. Hansford, Justin. “Jailing a Rainbow: The Marcus Garvey Case.” 76 King Street: Journal of Liberty Hall, vol. 2, p. 102 (the kickback, the officer convicted of larceny, and the shipping market). Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind. American Experience, PBS, 2001, transcript, www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/garvey/ (the informant, the kickback, the spies and sabotage that Winston James describes, and the narrator’s line on mismanagement). Martin, Tony. Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association, the source of James’s account of spies and sabotage.
Is AI biased against Black students?
In documented cases, yes, and scholars including Ruha Benjamin and Safiya Noble have shown it for years. Three commercial gender classifiers erred up to 34.7 percent on darker-skinned women, against at most 0.8 percent on lighter-skinned men (Buolamwini and Gebru, 2018). Language models in these tests more often linked African American English to less prestigious jobs and convictions, in hypothetical cases (Hofmann et al., 2024). Common Sense Media found that 20 percent of Black teens said a teacher flagged their work as AI-made when it was not, against 7 percent of White teens. The cause is unknown.
Sources
Benjamin, Ruha. Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. Polity, 2019. Noble, Safiya Umoja. Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. NYU Press, 2018. Buolamwini, Joy, and Timnit Gebru. “Gender Shades: Intersectional Accuracy Disparities in Commercial Gender Classification.” Proceedings of Machine Learning Research, vol. 81, 2018, pp. 1 to 15, abstract and p. 1, proceedings.mlr.press/v81/buolamwini18a/buolamwini18a.pdf. Hofmann, Valentin, et al. “Dialect Prejudice Predicts AI Decisions about People’s Character, Employability, and Criminality.” arXiv, 1 Mar. 2024, arxiv.org/abs/2403.00742, abstract and pp. 3, 8, and 15. Madden, Mary, et al. The Dawn of the AI Era: Teens, Parents, and the Adoption of Generative AI at Home and School. Common Sense Media, 2024, p. 10 (text and chart) and p. 47, www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/research/report/2024-the-dawn-of-the-ai-era_final-release-for-web.pdf. The survey figures are self-reported by teens.
Does it teach AI skills or prompting?
No, on purpose. AI can write a document in seconds, so making text is no longer the hard part. Judging it is. AI can synthesize, but only a human with domain knowledge and a moral code can judge. When an AI says “add sugar to sweeten,” it does not know sweetness. It knows the word and has never tasted it. An AI answer is a map. Students check it against the territory: the record, and what they see for themselves. They ask what an answer is standing on, who made the record, and what it leaves out. Students never prompt a chatbot. AI removes the struggle that makes learning stick. It follows rules someone else wrote. It has no conscience, and it does not know what matters to a student, or why. Children must be taught from an early age to trust their own experience, and to never cede their mental sovereignty to a machine.
Sources
Teacher Guide pp. 8 to 9. Student text: Session 2, “What an answer stands on” and “Who made this?”, p. 40. Session 7, pocket question 5, “Whose work does this leave out?”, p. 54. Handout Key H8, p. 35. Korzybski, Alfred. Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. 1933, p. 58. The line “A map is not the territory it represents” first appeared in his 1931 paper. European Broadcasting Union and BBC. News Integrity in AI Assistants. Oct. 2025, www.ebu.ch/files/live/sites/ebu/files/Publications/MIS/open/EBU-MIS-BBC_News_Integrity_in_AI_Assistants_Report_2025.pdf. The sweetness example, the lines on synthesis, struggle, and conscience, and the sentences around them are the Garvey Classroom’s position, not a finding. “In seconds” is a premise and carries no source. Teacher Guide, “The goal,” p. 5 (a student who judges what machines and people tell them and decides for themselves). Student text: Session 5, “Do I trust it enough to act?”, p. 48. Session 7, question 4, “Am I getting better at judging what machines and people tell me, or only better at accepting it?”, p. 53.
Does it cover racism in AI, environmental cost, or AI agents?
No. These are real questions, and they are not in this unit. It has no lesson on bias in AI systems, on what AI costs the environment, or on AI agents. Its subject is narrower: how to decide what to believe, what to share, and what to make. The nearest it comes is a sample chatbot answer about Marcus Garvey that sounds polished and rests on weak premises, and a sample that credits a quotation to the wrong person. Students check both against the record.
Sources
Student text, Sessions 1 to 7, pp. 37 to 55, read in full on 2026-09-30. Handout Key: H2 (sample chatbot answer), p. 28, and H7 (polished answer), p. 33.
How are sources and quotations handled?
Every Garvey quotation is checked against Message to the People, The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, or his magazine The Black Man, with page numbers where the printed edition gives them. The history is checked against Robert A. Hill’s The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers. The photographs and the 1919 newspaper story come from the Library of Congress. Made-up items are labeled, and the Handout Key says which items are real. The full Works Cited, in MLA 9, is included.
Sources
Complete Unit, Works Cited: Teacher Guide, pp. 35 to 36, and student text, pp. 56 to 57. Handout Key and Sources, pp. 27 to 34. Garvey, Marcus. Message to the People: The Course of African Philosophy. Garvey, Marcus. The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, edited by Amy Jacques Garvey. The Black Man. Hill, Robert A., editor. The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers. Library of Congress: “[Actors’ strike, New York, New York],” [1919], www.loc.gov/item/97519064/. “Negroes on the Sea,” The Birmingham Age-Herald, 18 Dec. 1919, p. 4, www.loc.gov/resource/sn85038485/1919-12-18/ed-1/?sp=4. “The Black Star Line Company,” Phoenix Tribune, 17 Jan. 1920, p. 4, www.loc.gov/resource/sn96060881/1920-01-17/ed-1/?sp=4.
Is it political? Does it blame anyone?
It takes no side on any party, candidate, or policy. Students practice on made-up posts with fictional people and brands. The real cases come from the historical record and published studies. The unit names no villain. Where Garvey blamed others, such as Firestone, the unit labels it his claim and asks what would confirm or challenge it. Garvey’s strongest words are weighed against the 1937 world he wrote in. Either side of a question can earn full marks, because the rubric scores reasoning.
Sources
Complete Unit, Teacher Guide: “Facilitation Notes,” rule 3, p. 13, and the Session 2 note on Garvey’s 1937 statement, p. 15. Student text: Session 2, Evidence card 3 and the Context card, p. 42. Session 3, p. 43. Session 6 safety rules, p. 51. Rubric, p. 54.
Who is it for, and how long does it take?
The unit is for grades 9 and 10. It fits English, social studies, advisory, or a media literacy elective, and one parent can run it with one student at home. The unit has seven 50-minute sessions, plus a 45-minute path that says what to shorten. For block schedules, pair Sessions 1 and 2, 3 and 4, and 5 and 6, then run Session 7 alone. That takes four blocks. Plan about 30 minutes to prepare before Session 1, and about 10 before each later session.
Sources
Media Literacy in the Age of AI, Complete Unit, Teacher Guide: “How to Use This Unit” (who it is for), pp. 5 to 6. “Preparation time,” p. 9. “Pacing: 50-Minute Sessions, the 45-Minute Path, and Block Schedules,” pp. 10 to 12.
What do I get?
You get one ZIP file with three PDFs: Start Here, the Complete Unit, and the Student Edition. It also holds the photograph for the Session 4 reverse image search. The Complete Unit is 101 pages for you: the Teacher Guide, the student text, the Student Packet, and every handout. The Student Edition is 64 pages to copy for students, with no answers or scoring notes. A link to an editable Google Doc copy of the Student Packet comes with it.
Sources
Start Here, p. 1. Complete Unit, 101 pages, and Student Edition, 64 pages, counted from the files on 2026-09-30. Start Here, p. 2, for the Google Doc copy.
Do students need devices or accounts? What about privacy?
Students need no devices and no accounts for any task. You need one device with internet for the reverse image search and, if you choose, the chatbot task. The editable Google Doc needs a free Google account, and the printed packet works without it. Students never have to share anything personal. A made-up example, a class example, or a news example earns the same credit. In Session 6, everything stays on paper, and nothing is posted, texted, or photographed.
Sources
Complete Unit, Teacher Guide: “Materials and Preparation,” p. 8, and “About the chatbot,” pp. 8 to 9. Student text, “How to Answer the Think It Through Questions,” p. 38 (privacy). Session 6 safety rules, p. 51. Start Here, p. 2 (Google account).
How is it graded, and what standards does it match?
The rubric scores every written answer on five rows, each worth 0 to 3 points, for a top score of 15. The rows are claim, evidence, how I know, what I am unsure about, and care for others. Strong is 13 to 15, Developing is 9 to 12, and Beginning is 5 to 8. It scores reasoning, so two students can reach opposite answers and both earn 15. The unit is tagged to CCSS RI.9-10.8, RH.9-10.8, SL.9-10.2, and W.9-10.1. We claim nothing beyond those tags.
Sources
Complete Unit, Teacher Guide: “The Rubric, With Points” and scoring rules, pp. 20 to 21. “Standards and Skill Map,” p. 18. Standards: Common Core State Standards Initiative, English Language Arts Standards, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.8, RH.9-10.8, SL.9-10.2, and W.9-10.1, wording checked at thecorestandards.org on 2026-09-28 (Teacher Guide, p. 18).
Can I print it, edit it, and share it?
Print from the Student Edition: the student text, the Student Packet, and the handouts. Keep the Complete Unit for yourself, because it holds the answers. The Google Doc copy of the Student Packet is yours to edit and to share with your own students. One license covers one teacher and that teacher’s own students. Each additional teacher needs a separate license, available on the TPT listing. Please do not resell the files or upload them anywhere, including AI training datasets.
Sources
Start Here, “Terms of Use,” p. 3. Complete Unit, “Terms of Use and Credits,” p. 84, and “The two files,” p. 6. Start Here, p. 2 (the Google Doc copy is yours to edit and to share with your own students).
What should families do?
Run it together, or borrow its questions. Anyone who can ask good questions and listen can run this unit. The one-page parent guide says what to listen for. Did they say what they think? Did they show where it came from? Can they explain what it rests on? Do they name what they are still unsure about? Do they consider other people? What your child has seen and lived counts as evidence, when they choose to share it. Then ask: What would change your mind? You never have to agree with your child’s answer. Judge the reasons.
Sources
Complete Unit, Teacher Guide: “Parent Guide (One Page),” p. 26. Student text, “How to Answer the Think It Through Questions,” p. 38 (evidence “from your own life,” and a made-up example counts the same).
The Garvey Classroom promise
The Garvey Classroom prepares Black children for the AI era.
Future-ready Black education for students, families, and educators. Future-ready Black education for readers, writers, thinkers, builders, and leaders.
Confidence is your birthright.