About the Executive Dis/Order Project Lesson Series
This lesson plan is part of a series of assignments and activities developed for the Executive Dis/Order Project, a collaboration between The Pedagogy Lab, The Abusable Past, and the Center for Feminist Futures (UC Santa Barbara). The project examines contemporary politics and political art as a tool of resistance against executive power and anticipatory compliance. Each unit in this series focuses on a different Executive Dis/Order submission—an artistic and textual intervention into the political landscape—analyzing its themes, rhetorical strategies, and creative methods of refusal. The series covers a range of topics, reflecting the diverse ways executive actions impact communities. Other lessons in the series may address issues such as immigration, DEI crackdowns, gender policies, environmental deregulation, and academic freedom.
Each unit centers a different executive order and offers a sample political art piece (an Executive Dis/Order submission) as a case study for analysis and creative response. Lessons can be used individually or as part of a larger unit on public political art, executive power, or artistic resistance. The structure follows a repeatable format: information about the executive order, background and context for the order, close analysis of the artwork, discussion and critique of its themes and artistic strategies, and a hands-on creative exercise where students generate their own responses. Instructors are encouraged to modify discussions and activities to fit their students’ engagement levels and course goals.
Lesson Plan Overview
This lesson addresses the January 29, 2025 Executive Order: Expanding Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to Full Capacity.
Estimated time
1–2 class sessions
Grade level
High school; early college
Relevant Fields of Study
Political Science & Civics; Art & Art History; Communications & Media Studies; History; American Studies; Sociology & Anthropology; Law & Public Policy; Gender & Ethnic Studies
Themes & Keywords
Guantánamo Bay detention camp, detention, incarceration, state violence, imperialism, abolition, migration, citizenship, visual silence, erasure, censorship, redaction, surveillance, medical authority, testimony, human rights, constitutional law, public political art, resistance, rhetoric
License
Learning Goals
Students will:
- Identify how detention and isolation are used to exert executive power
- Analyze the role of image, redaction, and documentation in carceral systems
- Connect U.S. policies of quarantine, detention, and migration control
- Experiment with visual erasure and juxtaposition as rhetorical tools
- Produce their own creative critique of executive authority
Art Object Focus
Pre-Lesson Preparation
Instructors
- Review the executive order and a brief history of Guantánamo Bay.
- Project or print the object Carceral Quarantine.
- Familiarize yourself with visual erasure and photo redaction techniques.
Students (optional)
- Read short background pieces on Guantánamo Bay and U.S. immigration policy.
- Bring in a found image that could be reworked or redacted.
Lesson Outline
1. Warm-Up (10–15 minutes)
- What do you know about Guantánamo Bay?
- What does it mean to “erase” something from a document or image?
- When is redaction protective? When is it controlling?
2. Guided Analysis (30–40 minutes)
A. Content and Language
- What kind of document does this look like?
- What words or phrases are legible? What is obscured?
- What does the redaction imply about whose stories can be told or heard?
Follow-up prompts if students get stuck:
- What emotions or reactions do the blacked-out sections evoke?
Does this image feel like evidence? Art? Protest?
B. Visual and Formal Analysis
- Where does your eye go first? Why?
- How does the image structure affect how you interpret it?
- What’s the relationship between the image and the overlaid text?
Follow-up prompts if students get stuck:
- What might be missing from the image?
- How does this differ from how we’re used to seeing political art or protest?
3. Creative Activity: Write Your Own Executive Dis/Order (30–45 minutes)
Invite students to respond to the same executive order by making their own visual artwork. The piece should mimic or manipulate a bureaucratic visual format—using redaction, testimony, or documentation as creative tools. Students can use photography, collage, scanned documents, or drawing.
Examples include:
- A redacted photo with handwritten overlay
- A mock quarantine notice for the classroom
A visual testimony from the point of view of a detainee - A stamp, sticker, or label that shifts how we read official forms
4. Post-Activity Discussion (10–15 minutes)
Have students present their work aloud or in a gallery-style walk. Invite responses using the following prompts:
- What strategies did your classmates use to resist or reframe the order?
- What did the process of erasing or redacting make you think about?
- What makes an object feel “official”? What happens when you disrupt that?
Suggested Readings & Resources
Open Access
- Abolitionist Toolkit (Critical Resistance)
- Guantánamo Reports (The Center for Constitutional Rights)
Requires Purchase or Institutional Access
- Puar, Jasbir K. “Prognosis time: Towards a geopolitics of affect, debility and capacity.” Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory 19.2 (2009): 161-172.
- Kaplan, Amy. The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of U.S. Culture (2005, Harvard University Press)