BE A MAKER: HASHTAG ACTIVISM AND THE INSTAGRAM

ESSAY

By Laura Lisabeth, Ph.D, 826NYC

In this lesson, students experiment with the multimodal

composition of Instagram and use this social media platform to
promote a social justice issue.

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LEVEL
Grades 6–8

TYPE
Persuasive, Visual, Performing, and Media Arts

COMMITMENT
3 Sessions, 2 Hours Each

DOWNLOAD INCLUDES
Lesson Instructions

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WHAT YOUR STUDENTS WILL LEARN

Students apply their understanding of rhetorical strategies and

the multimodal composition of Instagram to promote a social
justice issue that they care about.

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WHAT YOUR STUDENTS WILL PRODUCE

Students will produce a persuasive essay on a social justice

issue of their choice and utilize a social media platform to
promote this issue.

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WHAT YOU WILL DO

Session 1
(2 hours)

Students will build an understanding of Instagram posts as a

hybrid form of public rhetoric that combines text with visual
images. They will also learn to distinguish a purely social use of
Instagram from those Instagram accounts that are either
commercial or that have a purposeful, socially conscious intent.
Students will leave this session with an understanding of
rhetorical terms such as audience, purpose, and context.
Students will also leave with an understanding of the hashtag
as a way to connect with larger communities and emojis as
digital punctuation.

YOU WILL NEED

Computer, iPad, or smartphone with internet access

Projector (optional)

HOW TO BEGIN
(20 minutes)

Digital Space as a Place to Compose

Start by having students talk about their own social media use
in general. If some are limited by their parents in how they
participate in social media, talk about why. Most students will
have a sense of a boundary between the broader public space
of social media and a more limited private space of social
media (e.g. a company’s Facebook page versus a friend or
family member’s Instagram page). It is helpful for them to know
this difference in order to start developing a more informed
concept of digital space as a public engagement platform.

A few questions to ask might be:

• How would you describe the many different social media

platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Vine, Snapchat, Instagram)?
• Do they have different audiences? Different purposes?
Which ones do you participate in?
• How do parents and teachers perceive social media and your
participation in it?
• What kinds of posts do you usually create?
• Who is/are your audience(s)?
• What is/are your purpose(s) when you post something on
social media?

It is important for students to begin distinguishing between

sharing to a wide digital public and sharing to “friends” and
family as this lesson aims to show that digital space can be a
place of purpose and engagement with important issues, not
just a place for daily social interaction — though it is that, too!

Step 1
(20 minutes)

A Look at Instagram.

Start off by showing students a variety of accounts. Some

suggestions include:

Celebrities: @beyonce, @taylorswift (students may notice an

interesting comparison between Beyonce’s activist images and
Swift’s images of glamorous celebrity life!)
Accounts selling products: @cwpencilenterprise,
@addidasfootball
Environmental concerns and wildlife:
@chesapeakebayfoundation, @paulnicklen
Activism: @jsmooth995, @_ poetix

In your discussion, here are some questions that allow students

to consider Instagram as a rhetorical platform:

• Who is the audience for this Instagram feed?

• How does the visual image reach out to that audience?
• What is this user’s purpose in sharing the things she shares?
• What are some differences between these Instagram
accounts?
• How are they using hashtags?
• What communities are they joining by using hashtags?
• What is meant by the phrase “hashtag activism”?

While you are discussing examples of Instagram accounts, be

sure to bring attention to hashtags used in these posts.
Hashtags are a way that social media users connect to wider
public communities. For example the Instagram user @_poetix
is a spoken word poet. His hashtags include #spokenword and
#blacklivesmatter and #writersofinstagram.

Here are some questions you might ask students about

hashtags like @_poetix’s:

• What communities is he hoping to connect with?

• What kinds of conversations might he be able to join through
these hashtags?
• Which emojis are being used?
• Where are they positioned?
• What extra information do they add to the post that words
alone don’t communicate?

INTRODUCTION

This lesson was developed and made possible as part of the

Inclusion Storytelling Project, a collaboration between 826LA,
826 National, and Cartoon Network’s award-winning “Stop
Bullying: Speak Up” campaign. This lesson from 826LA is
centered on writing as a vehicle for Social Emotional Learning
and is designed to encourage youth to share their individual
stories about kindness and empathy in an effort to stop bullying
before it starts.