For more than a decade I had taught a unit about Social Labels. The base novel was the novel Monsterby Walter Dean Myers. In the book, the main character Steve is hanging out with the wrong people and gets caught up in this crowd. This group commits a robbery and murders the store owner in the process.

What I like about this story is that it focuses heavily on social and self labels. There are the social labels that Steve fights against such as: criminal, felon, murderer and monster.

In regards to the class, I challenge them to look at people for who they are, not what someone on television or social media might tell them about that person or group.