CommonLit - On Disability Rights: Highlights from Speeches by Ed Roberts
On Disability Rights: Highlights from Speeches by Ed Roberts Lesson by CommonLit
*This lesson was developed by CommonLit and links to an external source.
Summary:
Students read a compilation of speeches by Ed Roberts, a disability rights activist and organizer, and examine how he uses personal narrative, humor, and argument to make the case for disabled people's autonomy, access, and civil rights. Through reading and discussion, students analyze Roberts' rhetorical choices and consider how individuals and communities build power to challenge systemic barriers.
Our suggestions when teaching this lesson:
Roberts uses the words "crips" and "cripples" in this text, on his own terms. Before students read, take a few minutes to discuss reclaimed language: who uses certain words, in what context, and why context matters. This is not a license for students to adopt his language.
Roberts states in this text that the sit-in lasted 45 days. Most sources, including Kitty Cone's own account for the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, place the San Francisco occupation at 26 to 28 days. The likely explanation is that he was counting from when the Emergency 504 Coalition began active organizing in March 1977, not from April 5 when the occupation of the federal building began. He understood the sit-in as the culmination of a longer campaign, not its starting point, and his count reflects that. If a student asks about the discrepancy, it is a genuine opening to discuss how participants and historians sometimes count the same event differently depending on where they locate its beginning.
Two of CommonLit's four discussion questions ask students what Roberts' attitude can teach them about facing adversity and overcoming it. Those questions pull a structural political argument into an inspiration narrative Roberts himself rejected. He was not making a case for positive attitude. He was making a case for self-determination, organized power, and systemic change. We recommend replacing or supplementing those two questions with the following:
Roberts describes the rehabilitation system as built to make decisions for people rather than with them. What examples does he give? What would a system built on self-determination look like?
Roberts says he gets angry "all of the time." What is he angry about, and how does he describe what to do with that anger?
Roberts connects disability rights to the women's movement and the Black Power movement. What did he see as the common ground? Why did others not always see it?
These speeches are from 1977. The ADA did not exist yet. Consider asking students: which of the things Roberts was fighting for are now law? Which are still not fully realized?
Subject and topic:
English Language Arts (ELA), History
Grade level:
10th
Duration:
45 minutes
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See the lesson plan on CommonLit: https://www.commonlit.org/texts/on-disability-rights-highlights-from-speeches-by-ed-roberts