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Social Work Lesson Plan

by Paige Drews, Susquehana University.

Jane Addams is considered the mother of social work.In order to learn about the multiple perspectives at the beginnings of social work,this lesson utilizes resources from the Jane Addams Papers Project Digital Edition to allow students to analyze the sources and draw conclusions on their own. In this lesson plan, students will analyze different articles and compare and contrast the perspectives presented in each article.Students will later write a persuasive essay on social work. This lesson should take three class periods to complete.

For an overview of Jane Addams' social work, check out this article! (Jane Addams: the activist who set the foundation for modern social work, the Guardian Labs, 2018).

Purpose/Central Focus: To compare and contrast two different perspectives held in Jane Addams’s time regarding social work.

New Jersey Standards:

  1. Social Studies:
    1. NJSLS 6.2.12.D.3.a. Explain how individuals and groups promoted revolutionary actions and brought about change during this time period.
  2. ELA:
    1. RL.9-10.1. Cite strong and thorough textual evidence and  make relevant connections to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferentially, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
    2. NJSLSA.R8. Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.

Student Objectives:

  1. Students will identify different social workers and their policies.  
  2. Students will compare and contrast viewpoints towards social work in the late 1800’s.
  3. Students will advocate for one perspective over the other in an essay.   

Key Terms:

  1. Social Work
  2. Philanthropy or philanthropic  
  3. Settlement Home
  4. Immigrant
  5. Anti-immigrantism
  6. Social policy
  7. Social casework (person-centered care)
  8. Tennant
  9. Tenement
  10. Enclave

Key Questions:

  1. What is social work?
  2. Who benefits from social work?
  3. Who performed social work throughout history?
  4. Prior to Addams, what were some common views of charity and social work?
  5. What components make up Jane Addams perspective of charity and social work?
  6. How does government play a role in social work?

Prior Knowledge:

As the focus of the lesson is how social work was viewed in the late 1800’s, prior knowledge of the time period (including urbanization, labor conditions, living conditions, etc.) should have already been mastered.  That way, the class can be introduced to the concept of social work and then apply two different philosophies to this background knowledge.

Misconceptions:

  1. Social workers are scary and take children away from their families.
    1. A social worker’s goal is boost people up, using their natural talents and strengths, along with a realistic picture of their situation in order to help people become re-adjusted to society.  They will only split up a family if they determine that the location or environment is unsafe for the child, but they do so much more. They find people jobs, connect them to support agencies and can even act as a court witness on a child’s behalf.  
  2. That the government was always involved with the social welfare of citizens.
    1. The U.S. government was not always involved in the social welfare of citizens. The care of the poor or homeless was originally the job of the church or charitable organizations.
  3. Social workers only work with the poorest citizens.
    1. Social workers with people of all differents socio-economic classes, races, religions and backgrounds.  For example, they might help a family with a parent who was recently laid-off or had a work related accident.  While this family could be of a lower economic class, they could easily be a middle class family put on the brink by the problem.  

Instructional Materials:

  1. iPad, Chromebook, etc. to access online resources
  2. Speakers to show video
  3. Physical copies of readings for students who prefer them.
  4. Media Resources:
    1. West Side Story: Gee Officer Krupke! 
    2. Trading Places Clip 
    3. Overview of Social Work Video
  5. Jane Addams’s Perspective: The Call of the Social Field(1911)
  6. Opposing Perspective Article: Systematic Charity by D. A. O'Sullivan (1885)
  7. KWL, Video Questions, and T-Chart Worksheets
  8. Additional Papers by Jane Addams: 
    1. The Humanitarian Value of Civil Service(1912)
    2. Democracy and Social Ethics(1914)

Procedures:

Day 1: Exploring the beginnings of social work

  1. Do Now: Start with a KWL to determine student’s prior knowledge of social work.  (10 minutes)
  2. Begin by showing students this West Side Story Video: The video clip shows how a social worker can work in an example case. In this scenario, the main character, Riff, gets bounced around to so many different places and no one really wants to deal with him or provides a real solution to his problem. A similar problem occurred with the pre-Addams generation of charity workers: no one wants to help unless they can prove the person is worth helping. To be even more specific, since Riff demonstrates a disdain for working and refuses to change, by pre-Addams standards, he would receive no charity or help. This is a good segway to the next day and to show how the antiquated view of charity can apply to the video.  (5 minutes)
  3. Break the class into groups of three or four. Each group will be given a worksheet with a t-chart, with one side serving as notes for a pre-Addams article and the other to be used in the next lesson, on Addams’ perspective. Have the class read the pre-Addams article and take group notes on their thoughts. (25 minutes)  
  4. To review the article, have each group share something from their list, and if something important was missed, the teacher can add it on at the end.  (10 minutes)
  5. Close: Watch Trading Places clip: Today’s article concludes with a list of some gimmicks that people would use to trick agencies into providing charity. Some of these include faking blindness, walking with canes and making artificial wounds.  The clip from Trading Places shows that the idea of faking poverty continues today, but with a more light-hearted approach. (5 minutes).

Day 2: Addams’s perspective on social work

  1. Do Now: How does the perspective on social work from yesterday’s lesson limit who receives help?
  2. Students will return to their groups of the previous day.  They will then read an article of Jane Addams’ efforts in social work and take group notes on this her views (25 minutes)
  3. To review the article, have each group share something from their list, and if something important was missed, the teacher can add it on at the end.  (10 minutes)
  4. Close: Students will fill out the “L” side of their KWL’s.  If the KWL’s are collected, they can serve as a check for classwide understanding.  (5 minutes)
  5. Extension: Students will then be introduced to the assignment, which consists of writing a persuasive essay that defends one perspective over another.  It will cite evidence from the two articles and anything additional supporting evidence that the student finds on their own. A rubric for this assignment has been included in this document (5 minutes)
    1. Leave class time to begin brainstorming or writing introductory paragraphs to their essays (remaining time, if any)

Assessments:

  1. Objective: Students will compare and contrast viewpoints towards social work in the late 1800’s.
    1. Assessment: Each group’s perspectives t-chart will be handed in for a grade. 
    2. Assessment: Each student’s KWL will be handed in for a completion grade.
  2. Objective:  Students will advocate for one perspective over the other in an essay.   
  1. Assessment: Students will write persuasive essays in which they will advocate for one perspective over the other and support their views with primary source documents. An essay rubric has been included with this plan.  

Extensions:

  1. Either one of the suggested videos (West Side Story or Trading Places) can be added or removed to improve timing in the lesson. They are fun modern connections that can help the students make modern connections to social work, but are not essential to the success of the lesson. 
  2. A way to extend Day 2’s plan (or Day 1’s if a teacher had excess time that day) is to use this overview video.  The first six minutes are centered mostly around Addams and her contemporaries, though the second half of the video provides more modern examples. In total, it’s about 12 minutes long, which can fill up a lot of time if previous activities were completed quicker than anticipated.  
  3. A final way to extend this lesson could be with a project. Now that students know both sides to the charity/social work issues, it would be an interesting idea to put them in the shoes of a nineteenth or twentieth century social worker. They could design their own charitable agency (either in groups or independently) and draw up a list of policies and rules for those receiving charity.  The information could be presented on a poster listing the policies, along with a logo for the agency. A class-wide presentation of these posters could also take place. 

Follow-up:

  1. There are a few directions that could be taken after this lesson is completed.  You could jump into muckrakers, especially Upton Sinclair and The Jungle, as the scientific approach that Addams took towards poverty was copied over and over again by the muckrakers.  
  2. You could also make a connection to our Women’s Suffrage plan by stating how Addams took a stand and welcomed whoever wanted to be a part of Hull House, just as thousands of women in the U.S. took a stand for their right to vote.  She could also be seen as one of the many new, radical women who were making changes for their rights. 

Supporting Diverse Learners:

  1. As some students have difficulty with paper materials, all documents can also be accessed in a digital format, either as a computer file or an audio file.  
  2. Graphic organizers such as the KWL can be used for students who find it difficult to organize their ideas. 
  3. When essays enter the rough draft phase, a scheduled meeting with the teacher will take place.  In this meeting, the teacher can approve the student’s primary source documents and check on the progress of the essay.  Students can ask the teacher for help directly instead of trying to catch them after class. However, if this is uncomfortable for a student, peer review with another classmate can also be offered.

Picture: Beggar-peddler on Broadway, ca.1909, Library of Congress.

Social Work Lesson Plan