Lesson 4: “Black Americans and the Racist Architecture of Homeownership”

• Say: In the previous lesson, students started tracing how redlining, restrictive covenants, and blockbusting shaped who could own a home and build wealth. Today, students push that thinking further by looking closely at the article’s language and by gathering evidence that explains why homeownership became harder for Black families. This work matters because students will later need to explain, with evidence, how systems and barriers shape dreams in both A Raisin in the Sun and in their own research.

Students should work with the partner seated nearest them and have their article and KWL chart open.

Think-Pair-Share

Say these Directions: Take out the article from Lesson 3 and your KWL chart. First, compare what you added to your KWL charts. Then be ready to name one detail that helped you understand the article better. Turn to your partner and share briefly. Then, write a response to this question:

• Ask: Which detail from last night’s reading felt most important?

  • The detail that felt most important was the part explaining that Black families were often blocked from buying homes in certain neighborhoods. I noted it because it showed that the problem was not only money. The system itself kept families out of certain neighborhoods.

Connection to Today's Learning

• Say: Today, you will track how the article uses powerful phrases and repeated housing terms to show that the American Dream did not work the same way for every American.

Language Study

• Say: Note these phrases from the article:

  • predatory inclusion

  • the poor-pay-more fee

  • Black tax

• Say: We should do two things at once with phrases like these: figure out what the phrase means in this article, and ask why the author chose this phrase instead of a neutral one. Today, we are practicing both moves to understand not just the facts, but the author’s argument.

Teach: Understanding Key Phrases

• Say: First, you need to understand the individual words in each phrase and then the phrase’s impact. Write predatory and inclusion in your Personal Dictionaries.

On the board, write each word along with a related word that may be more familiar, such as:

inclusion: include

predatory: predator

• Ask: What does it mean to include someone or something?

  • It means to allow someone to come in and stay, not to leave them out of something.

• Ask: What is the literal meaning of predatory?

  • A predator is a hunter, like an animal that hunts other animals as food, killing them and eating them. So, being predatory would be acting like a hunter.

• Ask: What is the connotative meaning of predatory?

  • Being predatory could be stealing, robbing, or exploiting others, maybe to get their money.

• Say: So, predatory inclusion combines the ideas of hunting or exploiting and including. Write a definition in your own words of what you think the phrase means.

• Ask: What does predatory inclusion mean in the article?

  • In this article, predatory inclusion means that Black families were sometimes allowed to buy homes, but the system still targeted them with unfair costs or risky deals. .

• Ask: What does the phrase add to the meaning of this article? How is this phrase different than a phrase like unfair access?

  • The phrase makes the reader see that being included was not the same as being treated fairly. It is stronger than a neutral phrase like unfair access because it shows that the system could look open on the surface while still doing damage.

• Ask: What does “the poor-pay-more fee” mean in this article? What is the effect of the author’s choice to use that phrase?

  • The poor-pay-more fee means that people with less money often had to pay extra because the system gave them worse choices. The phrase shows the unfairness very directly, which helps readers notice how poverty itself got turned into another cost.

• Ask: What does Black tax mean in this article, and what is the effect of the author’s choice to use that phrase?

  • Black tax means that Black families faced extra costs because of racism, not because they made worse decisions. The phrase is powerful because people can’t avoid actual taxes, which makes the extra costs sound like a built-in penalty attached to race.

• Ask: What can we learn about the author’s point of view when we pay attention to these phrases?

  • When the author uses these phrases instead of more neutral language, we can infer that the author wants us to feel something; the language brings out emotion in the reader when they think about predators, or a tax just for being Black, or charging more money from the people who have the least.

Connection to Today's Learning

• Say: Now you will return to the article and track how repeated housing terms build the author’s larger argument about opportunity and exclusion

Part A: Restrictive Covenants and Hidden Barriers (RI.7.1) (14 minutes)

Partner Reading & Discussion

Teach: Identifying Meaning in Phrasing

• Say: When an author repeats a term in an informational text, we can see that the term must be very important. You are taking note of each sentence with the repeated term and the nearby sentence that helps us answer, “What did this policy do, and who was affected?”

Say these Directions: With a partner, read the section about Sugar Hill, from “Our story begins with one Los Angeles neighborhood, known as Sugar Hill…” to “...razing Berkeley Square completely and splitting Sugar Hill in two.” In the section about Sugar Hill, underline every sentence that contains the term restrictive covenant. If the very next sentence helps explain cause or effect, underline that too. Then add at least one new learning and one new question to your KWL chart.

Allow students enough time to complete the reading. Then reconvene the class for a brief, whole-group discussion.

• Ask: Which sentence best explains a restrictive covenant, and what does it show about who had access to housing?

  • The best sentence was the one explaining that a restrictive covenant was a rule written into property agreements to keep Black families out of certain neighborhoods. This shows that access to housing was controlled on purpose, not by accident.

• Ask: What will you add to your KWL chart after rereading this section?

  • In the Learned section, I would add that written housing agreements were used to block Black buyers from some neighborhoods. In the Wonder section, I would add a question about how families tried to fight those rules.

Guide student discussion to include naming and evaluating claims.

• Ask: What is the central claim in this section, expressed in one sentence?

  • The claim is that, although restrictive covenants were deemed unlawful, racist pressures of various kinds caused Black families to have less access to good housing.

• Ask: How does the author develop the claim? What structure and type of details does the author use? Does the author address possible counterclaims?

  • The author uses chronological order and a blend of historical details and personal stories, gradually building support for the claim. The author seems to present an objective viewpoint, mentioning the social and legal objections to restrictive covenants, not just saying how bad they were.

• Ask: How well does the evidence support the claim? What details provide the strongest support?

  • The evidence supports the claim well. After explaining the historical details about restrictive covenants, the evidence is strongest regarding the misperceptions about property values and the construction of a freeway through the Sugar Hill neighborhood.

Part B: Blockbusting and Writing with Evidence (RI.7.4) (15 minutes)

Quick Write

Provide a second organizer in addition to the KWL chart. Have students label a three-column chart for tracing and evaluating arguments. Guide them to describe the claim/thesis in the first column, cite details/evidence in the second column, and evaluate the argument/reasoning in the third column.

Have students create this chart in their journal:

Say these Directions: Read the section about blockbusting, from the heading “Blockbusting: How a predatory real estate practice changed the face of Compton” through the paragraph ending, “...Johnson realized he didn't want to raise his own son in his beloved city.” Underline every sentence that contains the word blockbusting. Add at least one new idea to your KWL chart. Then, write a short reflection that responds to the following prompt:

• Ask: In the article, the author writes, “Owning a home is an undeniable part of the American dream—and of American citizenship. It is also the key to building intergenerational wealth. But Norrington’s homeownership success story is an increasingly rare one for Black Americans.." What have you learned from the article’s section on blockbusting that helps you understand this argument better? How well does the article develop the author’s argument about blockbusting? Evaluate whether the author's reasoning is sound and whether the evidence is relevant and sufficient to support the claim, or whether something is missing. Cite at least two pieces of evidence in your response.

• Owning a home may be part of the American Dream, but today's reading shows that Black families were pushed away from that dream in specific ways. The article explains that restrictive covenants were used to keep Black families out of certain neighborhoods. Later, in the section on blockbusting, the author shows that real estate agents used fear and profit to reshape neighborhoods and charge Black buyers more. This means Black families were excluded first and then exploited when they finally got access. Together, these details help explain why the author says Black homeownership success stories became increasingly rare. The argument is well developed and the reasoning is sound — if families are blocked from neighborhoods and then overcharged when they finally get in, building wealth through homeownership becomes much harder. The evidence is relevant and mostly sufficient; however, the argument could be even stronger with data showing exactly how much more Black buyers paid compared to white buyers, since the article relies mostly on individual stories rather than broader statistics.

Guide students to summarize their responses about the argument in their argument-tracing organizer.

Provide students with a confidence continuum (i.e., 1–5). As needed, model how to demonstrate a level of confidence using the continuum.

Quick Write

Say these Directions: Before we end, take one minute to think about your own reading process today. Then write a short response to this question:

• Ask: How did you figure out the meaning of one important phrase or term today? Name the phrase or term and cite two specific clues or details from the text that helped you.

  • I figured out blockbusting by looking at the sentences that explained how real estate agents used fear and profit to change neighborhoods. I also used the section title, which called it a predatory practice. Those clues helped me understand that blockbusting was not normal selling, but rather a harmful way of making money based on race.

• Say: Today, you practiced a move you will need for the unit Performance Task: noticing how an author’s language builds an argument and then explaining it with evidence. Later, when you research a modern system or barrier that shapes opportunity, you will need to read other sources closely and write about what their language and evidence reveal. The stronger you get at this move now, the stronger your final argument will be.

Instruct students to read the dedication on page 1 of A Raisin in the Sun: “To Mama: in gratitude for the dream.”

Ask students to complete the following tasks in their Journal:

• Make one or two predictions about the play based on the dedication.

• Explain which word or phrase in the dedication led to each prediction.

  • One prediction is that a mother figure will be important because Hansberry writes “To Mama.” Another prediction is that the play will be about a dream that mattered deeply to a family, because “in gratitude for the dream” makes it sound like that dream shaped their lives.