From https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/inclusive-teaching/social-identity-wheel/:

“The Social Identity Wheel worksheet is an activity that encourages students to identify social identities and reflect on the various ways those identities become visible or more keenly felt at different times, and how those identities impact the ways others perceive or treat them. The worksheet prompts students to fill in various social identities (such as race, gender, sex, ability disability, sexual orientation, etc.) and further categorize those identities based on which matter most in their self-perception and which matter most in others’ perception of them. The Social Identity Wheel can be used in conjunction with the Personal Identity Wheel to encourage students to reflect on the relationships and dissonances between their personal and social identities. The wheels can be used as a prompt for small or large group discussion or reflective writing on identity by using the Spectrum Activity, Questions of Identity.”

I’ve used the Social and Personal Identity Wheel exercises at the start of the semester to help invite our identities into the classroom spaces. I stress that our identities inform our perspectives and interpretations and are what provide the unique ways we will perceive and write about the essays and stories we read.