Slide outline for Lesson 5.2, one day, thirteen slides. The plain shirt on a hanger carries slides 5 to 7; the chart paper carries slides 10 to 12. [Sal: your own shirt, and your own 80s Day story at slide 10, in about 45 seconds.]
What clothing says before you do
- Lesson 5.2
- One rule today: we talk about clothing, not about each other's clothes
- Nobody in this room has to explain or defend what they are wearing
- By the end: this class writes an agreement we all sign
Teacher notes
Image: a speech bubble with a T-shirt shape inside it instead of words.
Say the rule out loud and point at it on the board. It is already written up there from before the bell.
Do now
- Two people walk into a store
- One is wearing a suit. One is wearing a delivery uniform.
- Write the first thing you assume about each one
- Then write one reason your assumption could be wrong
Teacher notes
Image: two plain figures side by side, one in a suit, one in a delivery uniform with a package.
Four channels of communication
- Words: what you choose to say
- Voice: tone, volume, speed, pauses
- Body: face, hands, posture, distance
- Appearance: clothing, grooming, what you carry
- Clothing lives in channel 4, and people read it first
Teacher notes
Image: four labeled boxes in a row with an eye icon over box 4.
People form an impression almost instantly, before you speak. [Sal: either cite a specific study on this slide or leave the number off. Do not put an unsourced number on the site.]
Nonverbal means without words
- Nobody chose to send the message
- The message got sent anyway
- Knowing that gives you a choice: you can dress on purpose
- It does not give you the right to grade what anybody else is wearing
Teacher notes
Image: a mouth with an X over it next to a shirt with sound lines coming off it.
What a uniform says
- "I have a role here"
- It tells you what somebody does and who to ask for help
- It takes personal choice off the table on purpose
- A nurse, a referee, a team, a school with uniforms
Teacher notes
Image: three uniformed silhouettes with no faces, a nurse in scrubs, a referee in stripes, a player in a numbered jersey.
Ask what a police uniform says, then a referee's, then a school uniform. Three different answers, all loud.
What a costume says
- "This is not me today"
- On purpose, temporary, and both sides know it
- A play, a mascot, Spirit Week
- The trap: a costume only works when everybody knows it is a costume
Teacher notes
Image: a theater mask and a mascot head side by side.
One shirt, three settings
- Setting 1: a job interview
- Setting 2: a family cookout
- Setting 3: a school hallway
- Same shirt. Three readings.
Teacher notes
Image: the same plain button-down shown three ways, with a tie, sleeves rolled and untucked, and under a hoodie.
Hold the actual shirt. Change it in front of them. For each setting ask: what does it say here, who is the audience, would it work in one of the others?
The shirt did not change
- What changed was the setting
- And the audience
- And what that audience already expects
- Write the sentence: "The shirt did not change. What changed was ___."
Teacher notes
Image: an arrow labeled "setting" and an arrow labeled "audience" both pointing at one unchanged shirt.
Clothing and culture
- A hijab, a sari, a kilt, a kente cloth, a guayabera, a kufi, a huipil
- Religious, regional, practical, and often very old
- An item that belongs to a living culture is not a costume
- "It is just a costume" is not an answer
Teacher notes
Image: seven small respectful illustrations of the named garments, each labeled, shown as garments and not on caricatured figures.
Accuracy matters here. Name each item correctly. If a student in the room wears one of these, do not turn to them; the point is made from the slide.
Clothing and generations
- Jeans in the 1970s, the 1990s, and now
- Every generation thought theirs looked right
- Every generation got criticized by the one before it
- Every single one of them thought the criticism was unfair
Teacher notes
Image: three pairs of jeans in three silhouettes, wide, baggy, and current, labeled by decade.
This is where the 80s Day story goes. [Sal: forty-five seconds, first person, no names. You and a colleague stopped the planned lesson because the hallway comments got mean. Students believe a story about a teacher changing his plan.]
The sticky notes
- One comment about clothing you have heard at this school
- No names. No details that identify anybody.
- Face down in the box
- I read a few out loud. I skip anything with a name in it.
Teacher notes
Image: a small box with folded sticky notes going into a slot.
Skim them before you read any aloud. Skip anything about a staff member.
We write the agreement
- Two columns: okay to say, not okay to say
- Nominate a line. I will ask you why.
- About five lines per column, so it can be read from the back
- Then we vote, and everybody who agrees signs it
Teacher notes
Image: a blank two-column chart with the headings "Okay to say" and "Not okay to say."
Push every nomination with "why?" Steer toward lines students can actually keep.
This stays up
- The agreement stays posted for the rest of Unit 5
- It comes back out on the first sewing day, when you hold up your own crooked first stitch
- And at the gallery walk, when thirty projects go on a table
Teacher notes
Image: the signed chart paper taped to a classroom wall next to a display table.
Exit card: one line you will actually use; one thing clothing says without words; one question. Give the counselor a copy of the agreement.