Content Warning: This lesson contains content that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether the resources are suitable for their class and provide a sensitive content warning to their students at the beginning of each day of the lesson. Teachers may wish to consult An Introduction to Content Warnings and Triggers from the University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/equitable-teaching/an-introduction-to-content-warnings-and-trigger-warnings/

Step 1 - Introduction to Material

• Establish content advisory, group norms and expectations
  • Some of the work examined may be triggering for different students in different ways as they deal with issues such as race, citizenship, gender and sexuality, class, religion, traumatic events, and other identities and sociopolitical dilemmas. 
  • Establish collective group norms with students to hold everyone accountable to the agreed upon expectations that respect the differences of opinions, emotional reactions, experiences, and engagement with the materials in order to have productive, critical discussions.

Step 2 - Warmup

• Ask students to share what they know about Cambodian American history or notable Cambodian Americans.
• Ask students: Was this a difficult question? Why or why not?
  • Encourage students to consider Cambodian American representation in popular culture.

Step 3 - Shared Learning 

• Students will be placed into groups of three and will be assigned a member of the Cambodian American community to learn about.
  • Link: https://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/cambodia/voices.html 
  • Student 1: Prach Ly
  • Student 2: Sophiline Cheam Shapiro
  • Student 3: Chanrithy Him
• As they read, they will note the following:
  • Individual’s name
  • Individual’s experience/connection to the war
  • Identity traits (i.e: rapper, dancer, or storyteller)
  • What is this person’s legacy, or message to the future generation of Cambodian Americans? 
• Once each student has read about their assigned individual, they will take turns sharing their profile to their other group members.
  • Optional: Have students include information about their peers' research to their individual notes. This will better help with the following lesson activities and assessment. 
• Ask student groups to answer these two questions based on their collective information and research. Have groups co-construct a response to each question and nominate a spokesperson on behalf of their group to share to the whole class.
  • How do Cambodian American cultural producers remember/reimagine the legacies of the genocide and diaspora? 
  • How is cultural memory work at once, a site for political resistance, trauma healing, and cultural revitalization? 
• Have a class discussion about the two culminating questions and identify common themes. 
  • Optional: Teacher can write common themes or keywords on the board from student responses (i.e: storytelling through dance and song lyrics, traditional music elements, visual representations of culture and history). 

Step 4 - Cultural Production: Engaging as Cultural Makers

• Because this lesson focuses on making culture, the activity to demonstrate their understanding and engagement with the materials should also be interactive. This project allows students to visualize themselves as culture producers as well.
• This can also be an opportunity to introduce The Stilt House zines https://www.calaalowell.org/introduction-1 to also showcase Cambodian American literary and artistic storytelling, remembering, and witnessing. 
• Task: As a final assessment, students will create a digital or physical zine about the Cambodian genocide and diaspora through the lens of Cambodian American creators.For example, cultural materials are a site for political resistance, trauma healing, and cultural revitalization Each product will include the following: an introduction or editor’s letter explaining to readers the content of their zine, at least three quotes from sources shared during this unit, at least three visuals shared during this unit, at least two advertisements related to zine content, at least two articles related to zine content, and a description as well as an explanation of each visual and quote. 
• The zines can be created digitally or using physical materials
• Once all zines are created, provide opportunities for sharing and presentation of projects to peers.
  • Presentations can be in the form of: class or small group presentations, Give One, Get One, Gallery Walk, etc.