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The Wire
In this month’s News Break, we offer lesson ideas that build on a commentary Youth Radio’s Orlando Campbell produced to memorialize the hit HBO program, The Wire, which aired its final episode in spring of 2008. Are you a fan of The Wire? This News Break integrates the show’s themes into classroom work. But we’ve been careful to develop lesson ideas that do not require prior familiarity with the show. The commentator, Orlando Campbell, and other young folks at Youth Radio have convinced us that the topics explored in The Wire, as well as its distinctive storytelling style, will inspire profound discussion, and creative work among youth who do and do not watch the show, and for those who live within and outside cities like Baltimore, the show’s home base. This News Break has been co-developed with Orlando and other young people who’ve been watching The Wire season after season, and who feel deeply invested in the themes and characters the show explores.
About This Commentary
HBO’s The Wire has received critical acclaim for its realistic portrayal of urban life and uncommonly deep exploration of sociological themes, and has been named the best show on television by several magazines and newspapers. Youth Radio’s Orlando Campbell explains why the Baltimore-based drama, whose series finale aired on March 9, 2008, has relevance to his childhood in San Francisco.
“When I saw The Wire for the first time, I thought 'finally, a show about us.' HBO’s groundbreaking series brought me to a place I knew all too well. The show is about the inner workings and struggles of people in a city on the decline and how the police and government respond to these realities.”
While Orlando’s commentary highlights the show’s positive impact, other viewers have raised serious concerns. Some from within Baltimore say The Wire creates a sensationalized view of the violence in their own city and glorifies the drug trade, gang involvement, and corruption for youth around the country. What do your students think about how to tell stories that involve violence and crime without demonizing whole communities of people? Take up this and other provocative questions using this News Break as a point of departure.
Click here to find the full script and audio for this story.
Teach Youth Radio
For this month's feature, you will be able to view these strategies and resources:
1. How teachers can align this Youth Radio story to National Standards in the classroom.
2. Suggestions for lesson plans that link the story's content to your classroom's themes and subject areas.
3. Suggestions for lesson plans that explore media literacy, using the story to re-read mainstream media.
4. Bios of the Youth Radio reporters who produced the story.
5. A list of resources and further research related to the story's themes.
6. Links to Youth Radio’s media production techniques as guides and inspiration for your students’ creative media-making projects.
1. NATIONAL STANDARDS: Standards Alignment
Subject: LANGUAGE ARTS
NL-ENG.K-12.1 READING FOR PERSPECTIVE
NL-ENG.K-12.2 UNDERSTANDING THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE
NL-ENG.K-12.3 EVALUATION STRATEGIES
NL-ENG.K-12.6 APPLYING KNOWLEDGE
NL-ENG.K-12.7 EVALUATING DATA
NL-ENG.K-12.8 DEVELOPING RESEARCH SKILLS
NL-ENG.K-12.9 MULTICULTURAL UNDERSTANDING
NL-ENG.K-12.11 PARTICIPATING IN SOCIETY
Subject: LIFE SCIENCE
NS.9-12.6 PERSONAL AND SOCIAL PERSPECTIVES
Subject: SOCIAL STUDIES AND CIVICS
NSS-C.9-12.5 ROLES OF THE CITIZEN
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2. NEWS YOU CAN USE: Story content in your classroom, Suggestions for lesson plans
Language Arts:
Beyond stereotypes:
In Orlando’s commentary, he talks about a 16 year old character named Mike, who would likely be seen as a “menace to society” from an outside perspective. Orlando credits the show for refusing to portray this character as “some lost child stereotype.” The writers fill in details from Mike’s background and family in order to make him multidimensional and compelling. If you have access to a DVD player and clips from the show, you might start by showing students a series of scenes involving Mike, who appeared on The Wire for all five seasons. Then break students into groups and hand out slips of paper with a label you’ve created—e.g., “Menace to society,” “Computer geek,” “Teen mom,” “Teacher’s pet.” Have students work in small groups to create a profile that fills in a personal and social background for that character, defying assumptions about young people who acquire those labels. Have students read their character profiles aloud and discuss. A next step might be to have two groups work together to imagine a storyline involving both of their characters.
Fish Out of Water: Some analysts of dramatic fiction argue that there are a finite number of storylines available to authors, and a prominent one is the narrative about the “fish out of water.” Encourage your students to experiment with this trope by focusing on the character of Mike, whom Orlando describes in his commentary, watching some key scenes where Mike appears in the show. Then have students write a treatment for an episode (or short story) in which Mike moves away from Baltimore and into your students’ neighborhood. What circumstances would bring him to move to your city or town? Where would he live? Who would he hang out with? How would he do in school? How would people respond to him? What impact would he have on others? Use this exercise to encourage students to explore the relationship between people and place, and as a way to think deeply about their own social worlds as they relate to the fictionalized environments depicted in The Wire.
Window into a World: Speaking of social worlds… Orlando closes his commentary lamenting the fact that he’ll no longer get to be a part of the characters’ lives now that the show is over. “But more importantly,” Orlando says, “I’m angry that when the show comes to a close, so will viewers’ window into a world many Americans would never dare to understand.” Ask your students: what worlds to they inhabit, that others don’t dare to see or enter? How would your students construct a story that opens a window into that world and draws people in? Why is it important to use writing to engage people in unfamiliar worlds? What works of popular culture, non-fiction, and/or literature have helped your students understand worlds they might not dare come to know in real life?
Social Studies and Civics:
Stoop Kids and Corner Kids: Season Four of The Wire centers on public school. One storyline follows an experiment to create two different classes inside the school for two groups of kids: the “Stoop Kids,” who seem to be doing okay, and the “Corner Kids,” who face the toughest situations at home and are getting in the most trouble. There’s actually a strong tradition of social science research that follows this same logic of dividing youth into two categories, one that conforms and the other that rebels. Check out, for example, Paul Willis’s canonical book, Learning to Labour, or Jay MacLeod’s more recent Aint No Makin’ It. You could assign your students excerpts from these provocative (and controversial) texts, and compare the academic analysis presented there with the dramatized narrative centered on Stoop Kids and Corner Kids in The Wire.
Categories Continued: Another option here would be to build on the Stoop Kids/Corner Kids season on The Wire to examine how tracking operates within your students’ own high school. What categories are separated out by class (e.g., honors, AP, and remedial classes)? What are students’ views on the advisability of tracking? Does it contribute to the “achievement gap” or allow for individualized instruction? (Jeannie Oakes’ book, Keeping Track is a useful reference here, see references below). What determines who gets placed in which track? How are students’ high school experiences different, depending on track? You might break the class into two groups and stage a debate where students present arguments for and against tracking, drawing on data they’ve collected from fellow students and teachers (e.g., student surveys, observations of remedial and AP classes, their own first-person experiences and interviews with parents about how their children have been tracked). Students could create a briefing out of their debate to present to the school administration and student council—perhaps opening their presentation with a clip from The Wire.
Glorifying violence? While critics and audiences have raved about The Wire, some viewers argue that the show glorifies violence and criminalizes low-income communities of color. Have your students imagine that they are a production company, dreaming up a new show about their community. As the show’s creators, what would be the narrative “code of ethics” they’d define to guide their efforts to tell real stories without promoting stereotypes or romanticizing violence? What standards would they hold themselves to, as producers and citizens? What stories would they and wouldn’t they tell? How would their approach differ from the accounts they read in the newspaper or see on television?
Snitching: One major dramatic storyline in The Wire explores the phenomena of “snitching” and informant intimidation. A bright foster kid named Randy tries to avoid getting expelled from school by offering to tell administrators about an unsolved murder. Law enforcement gets involved. Word spreads that Randy is talking to the police. He gets beaten up and can’t return to school. A police officer promises to protect him, and the cops assign a car to guard Randy’s house. But when the car is called away, as an act of retaliation, Randy’s house is burned down and his foster mother suffers third degree burns. “You gonna help, huh?,” Randy yells down the hospital corridor at the cop who failed to keep his family safe, “You gonna look out for me?” Share this episode with your students. Then have them do research on Baltimore and their own community, investigating local law enforcement policies and incentives designed to encourage witnesses to share crime information with the police. What do your students know about “snitching” in youth communities—perceptions and consequences? What would need to change in their communities to create cooperation between young people and law enforcement? (Check out a story by Youth Radio’s King Anyi Howell for more on this issue: http://www.youthradio.org/society/npr060714_blackexp.shtml).
Education: The Wire writer and producer, Ed Burns, is a former Baltimore police detective and public school teacher. In an interview (see below for link), Burns says the show’s creators tried to look at every aspect of the city: “…to find out where these drug dealers and drug addicts are coming from. And where they're coming from is a failed education process. A system which, in this town is abominable.” In coming up with lesson ideas building on his commentary, Orlando was interested in having students think about how students who all start “in the same place” follow such different paths. One of the ways that The Wire explores those paths is to examine different institutions within the city: the underground economy, the dock, law enforcement, school, the press, etc. Have students identify the most important institutions within their community. Break them into small groups and ask them to create diagrams showing how these different institutions connect and disconnect, and how young people move through these various contexts in ways that outsiders might not understand. Share diagrams and discuss.
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3. CRITICAL MEDIA LITERACY: Putting This Story in Context
Making Headlines: The Wire’s creator, David Simon, is a former Baltimore Sun reporter, and one of the institutions he takes on through the show is the newspaper business and mainstream press coverage of crime. Bring in a series of local and national papers, and have students read, analyze, and compare articles about crime, noticing similarities, differences, and assumptions or implications evident in the accounts they find. Then have them break into small groups and imagine that they are the editorial staff for their local paper. Give the groups time to come up with five or six headlines for stories that would appear on their paper’s front page. Then bring the groups together to compare what they’ve defined as lead articles, as well as what stories don’t appear.
A Matter of Perspective: Something that stands out about The Wire is the fact that many of its producers have direct experience with the environments they depict in the show. The creator is a former print reporter; a producer/writer was a police officer and classroom teacher. The creators’ first-hand knowledge of these settings probably helps explain the show’s power and its nuances in plot and character. But commentator Orlando Campbell pointed out that the creators occupied positions of authority in Baltimore. What if one of the Corner Kids grew up and wrote his version of The Wire? What might be different about that story?
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4. MEET THE REPORTER
Orlando Campbell AKA Roach Gigz is a hip-hop artist from the Bay Area. Born and raised in San Francisco he currently resides in Oakland, CA. His group B.I.G. (Roach Gigz and Lil 4Tay) have had their songs played on 106 KMEL and WILD 949 in a number of mix shows. The group produced their hit song “I Get It” at the old Youth Radio in Berkeley where Orlando used to take classes. He now splits his time touring with Atlantic artist Mistah Fab, preparing for his upcoming album, and working at the new Youth Radio building in Oakland. His commentaries have been featured on NPR’s Day To Day, and KQED.
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5. RESOURCES AND RESEARCH
• Jeannie Oakes’ Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality
• King Anyi Howell’s story relevant to youth-police relations
• Jay MacLeod’s Ain’t No Makin’ It
• Paul Willis’s Learning to Labour
• Interview with The Wire co-creator and former police officer and public school teacher, Ed Burns
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6. MEDIA PRODUCTION FOR LEARNING: Making Audio Narratives
Click here to link to Youth Radio's guidelines for conducting interviews, writing commentaries, and producing features.
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