Civil Rights Movement
Why did Rosa Parks join the Civil Rights Movement?
This is an inquiry lesson plan on the transitions of time from the 1800Õs-1950Õs all-important aspects that fuel the Civil Rights Movement. This is designed for a 5th grade Social Studies lesson. The first lesson was on the 1800Õs, before slavery was outlawed. Since the students will be writing a paper that includes all the aspects of how the Civil Rights Movement came to be, the students will be capturing main points throughout the unit to write their final paper, which will all be presented at an assembly later on in the year titled, ÒRemembering HeroÕs.Ó Being able to pull information from their prior lessons, will give them an exciting opportunity to retell the information that they learned from their perspective. This is an important lesson because, it will give the students confidence to stand up for their beliefs and learn about Rosa ParksÕ role in the Civil Rights Movement. The major focus of this lesson will be that the students find out for themselves why Rosa Parks was a hero, and what she, and many others did for this nation. This lesson that was used previously will take us into our next topic the fight against Nazi Germany during WWII.
EALRÕs
Essential Academic Learning Requirements
Social Studies
Understand and use inquiry and information skills
required are citizens in a democratic society.
1.1.1a: Select a
social studies topic; ask questions to identify sub-topics.
1.1.1d: Locate particular
facts in social studies documents and identify the main idea.
Writing
Revises to improve text.
1.3.1: Revises
text, including changing words, sentence, paragraphs and ideas.
Objectives
¯ Content: Identify and understand the reasons for why Rosa Parks
joined the Civil Rights movement.
¯ Intellectual: Analyze the text that has been read, and make up a
thesis statement, consider revisions throughout the lesson.
¯ Affective: Express their ideas orally and in
writing through group work discussion and class discussion and also artistically
by using a video at the end.
Higher-Order Thinking
Outcomes
¯ Students compare and contrast information
about the inquiry lesson.
¯ Analyze the information and revise
hypotheses, each time new data set is presented.
¯ Justify a thesis statement using the
information from the data sets, and the discussions in class.
Curriculum Integration
This lesson will
also be used as writing lesson.
The students will write a paper consisting of all the different time
periods that they learned about and they will emphasize the time period of when
Rosa Parks became part of the Civil Rights Movement and why this was important
in our nationÕs history. They will
be presenting their papers in an assembly that has to do with, ÒRemembering
Heroes,Ó Rosa Parks will be one of the people presented at the assembly. They will write for meaning.
Logistics and Resources
This lesson will
take place over two consecutive 50-minute class periods. The classroom will remain in groups of
four arranged so the students can see the board that I am working on, but also
so they can collaborate as a group.
They will all form their own hypothesis and all be asked to share if
they want to. There will be
enough room for the teacher to stroll through the classroom so that he/she can
answer studentsÕ questions. The
teaching materials needed for the lesson are listed as follows: Computer Power
Point presentation, speakers for the computer, white board, markers, handouts,
map of the United States of America.
The students will need a pencil, and a personal journal/folder to store
handout in.
Engagement (hook) (DAY1)
¯ Watch a clip of
Martin Luther King Jr. ÒI have a Dream Speech.Ó
¯ We will then move on to a clip from you tube
that goes into our discussion.
¯ The students will pick up on the fact that
this is the final part to our unit and that this will be what we will be
writing about.
¯ The next piece that I will use will be a
timeline of all the events that were happening around this event. They will see topics that they have
already talked about in other lessons and topics that we will not visit; (this
will be up to the students if they want to pursue the following topics.
¯ The next piece that I will show will be
another you tube clip on Rosa Parks.
A tribute to everything she and others did for the Civil Rights
Movement.
¯ The next two pieces of evidence I will show
are pictures of Birmingham and a picture of the bus that Rosa Parks sat on.
¯ This will engage the students and will ready
their mind for what will come next.
Hypothesis Development
To be able to
extract hypotheses from students to answer the inquiry question, the teacher
will: Present the students with historical context around the time that is
important to the question. This
very short lecture is used only to develop schema, and because we have done
lessons prior during this unit, this is a great time for the teacher to assess,
where they are all at, and to fill in the missing pieces before beginning the
new lesson.
Teacher says: Good morning fifth graders! The past
couple of days, we have been discussing different events that have led to the
Civil Rights Movement, and can someone please recap what we have talked about
thus far? This is where we
activate their schema about what we will be talking about. Teacher says: We have been talking about the
historical events that led up to the Civil Rights Movement, and why were these
events so important? Great job
class! Today we are going to talk
about a woman that put her foot down and demanded change. Now I build the
schema, by telling them a bit of information about Rosa Parks.
After this initial
hypothesis question is presented, Why did Rosa Parks join the Civil Rights
Movement the students will write their hypothesis. LetÕs take a closer look at
this, (look to hook). Students
will be asked to analyze the information and present the data set, after each
data set is presented, the student will revise their initial hypothesis. Then using the information from all the
data sets, the student should develop a thesis statement to answer the inquiry
question. Write down everything on
the board that they say.
Data Gathering: First Data
Set
This first data set
is from an article by Kira Albin,
discusses what happened the day that Rosa Parks was arrested for not giving her
seat up on the bus to a Caucasian man.
This is important for the students to know what happened to her and what
this event started.
ÒOur mistreatment was just not right, and I was tired of it," writes Parks in her recent book, Quiet Strength, (ZondervanPublishingHouse, 1994). "I kept thinking about my mother and my grandparents, and how strong they were. I knew there was a possibility of being mistreated, but an opportunity was being given to me to do what I had asked of others." The rest of Parks' story is American history...her arrest and trial, a 381-day Montgomery bus boycott, and, finally, the Supreme Court's ruling in November 1956 that segregation on transportation is unconstitutional. She served as secretary of the NAACP and later Adviser to the NAACP Youth Council, and tried to register to vote on several occasions when it was still nearly impossible to do so. She had run-ins with bus drivers and was evicted from buses. Parks recalls the humiliation: "I didn't want to pay my fare and then go around the back door, because many times, even if you did that, you might not get on the bus at all. They'd probably shut the door, drive off, and leave you standing there."
First Hypothesis Revision
After the first data
set is presented, students will discuss in their group the information for
about two minutes. Students will
then revise their hypotheses.
The teacher will ask some students for their hypotheses to write on the
white board. Some question that
the teacher should ask the students are: how did you come to that
hypothesis? What were the major
events were that were used to come up with that hypotheses? Does this
information stand on its own or do we need more information about this woman?
Data Gathering: Second
Data Set
This data set is an
article written by Nancy Steinback and the article is
Rosa Parks: Mother of the American Civil Rights Movement. This is important because it is not
Rosa talking. This is one voice of the Civil Rights Movement.
Parks and her husband joined the local chapter of the NAACP. She acted as the secretary from 1943 to 1956. She also worked to help improve conditions for African Americans. She worked on cases involving such issues as, flogging, peonage, rape, and murder. After her stand against bus segregation in Montgomery in 1955, Parks lost her seamstress job. Parks and her husband moved to Detroit in 1957. From 1965 to 1988 she served on staff for United States Representative John Conyers. In 1979, Parks won the Spingarn Medal for her civil rights work. Also, in her honor the Southern Christian Leadership Council established the annual Rosa Parks Freedom Award. In 1987, after Raymond Parks' death, she founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development to help young people. In 1996, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and in 1999 she received the Congressional Gold Medal.
Second Hypothesis Revision
After the second
data set is presented, students will discuss in their group the information for
about two minutes. Students will
then revise their hypotheses.
The teacher will ask some students for their hypotheses to write on the
white board. Some question that
the teacher should ask the students are: how did you come to that
hypothesis? What were the major
events were that were used to come up with that hypotheses? Does this
information stand on its own or do we need more
information about this woman?
Data Gathering: Third Data
Set (DAY 2)
This data set is
written by, E.R. Shipp, called the founding symbol of the Civil rights
movement. This is especially important because it brings up another influential
person in history.
The events that began on that bus in the winter of 1955
captivated the nation and transformed a 26-year-old preacher named Martin
Luther King Jr. into a major civil rights leader. It was Dr. King, the new
pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, who was drafted to
head the Montgomery Improvement Association, the organization formed to direct
the nascent civil rights struggle. "Mrs. ParksÕ arrest was the
precipitating factor rather than the cause of the protest," Dr. King wrote
in his 1958 book, "Stride toward Freedom.Ó The cause lay deep in the
record of similar injustices."
Her act of civil disobedience, what seems a simple gesture of defiance so many years later, was in fact a dangerous, even reckless move in 1950's Alabama. In refusing to move, she risked legal sanction and perhaps even physical harm, but she also set into motion something far beyond the control of the city authorities. Mrs. Parks clarified for people far beyond Montgomery the cruelty and humiliation inherent in the laws and customs of segregation.
Third Hypothesis Revision
After the third data
set is presented, students will discuss in their group the information for
about two minutes. Students will
then revise their hypotheses.
The teacher will ask some students for their hypotheses to write on the
white board. Some question that
the teacher should ask the students are: how did you come to that
hypothesis? What were the major
events were that were used to come up with that hypotheses? Does this
information stand on its own or do we need more information about this woman?
Data Gathering: Fourth
Data Set
This is the final
data set written by Jeff Frey and the title of the article is, ÒThe Mother and
the symbol of the Civil Rights Movement.Ó
This is an important article; because Rosa parks were so modest you
would never think she would stand up to people.
That moment on the Cleveland Avenue bus also turned a very private woman into a reluctant symbol and torchbearer in the quest for racial equality and of a movement that became increasingly organized and sophisticated in making demands and getting results.Ó She sat down in order that we might stand up," the Rev. Jesse Jackson said. The truth, as she later explained, was that she was tired of being humiliated, of having to adapt to the byzantine rules, some codified as law and others passed on as tradition that reinforced the position of blacks as something less than full human beings. "She was fed up," said Elaine Steele, a longtime friend and executive director of the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development. "She was in her 40's. She was not a child. There comes a point where you say, 'No, I'm a full citizen, too. This is not the way I should be treated.Ó "In "Stride toward Freedom," Dr. King wrote, "Actually no one can understand the action of Mrs. Parks unless he realizes that eventually the cup of endurance runs over, and the human personality cries out, 'I can take it no longer.' "
Fourth Hypothesis Revision
After the fourth
data set is presented, students will discuss in their group the information for
about two minutes. Students will
then revise their hypotheses.
The teacher will ask some students for their hypotheses to write on the
white board. Some question that
the teacher should ask the students are: how did you come to that hypothesis? What were the major events were that
were used to come up with that hypotheses? Does this information stand on its
own or do we need more information about this woman?
Conclusion
After all the data
has been presented, the students will be asked to come up with a thesis
statement to answer the inquiry question.
Students will do this part on their own. The student can use any of the data that was presented. There is no wrong answer. The students will report their
information orally and will write their thesis statement at the top of their
writing assignment. They will be
told to go on writing their papers after they have orally reported it.
Assessment
The students will be
assessed throughout the process; I will add things in order to make them think
logically about the topic. I will
also ask them to write their final thesis statement answering the inquiry
question, and then ask them to do artistic video or power point that will play
behind them at the assembly this will aid their speech to be playing behind
them so while they are presenting their speech, they will have images to go right
along with it. At the end I will
ask the students if anyone would like to volunteer reading their thesis
statement. The students will all
resent their speeches and power points/videos at the assembly. From this experience they will have
learned to revise their work constantly and through inquiry, they will be able
to change what they initially thought when they first started this assignment
and this is part of our world today.
The NETS-S Standard that is used in this lesson is, standard number one,
standard one is mainly about creativity.
The students have taken a lot of time to write there paperÕs and now
they are able to get as creative as they want with their power points or their
videoÕs. In standard number one it
talks about creating original works as a means of personal or group expression. Making a video or a power point to go
along with their speech does exactly that. This is away for any to become, as much as involved as they
want to be and as creative as they want to be.
Accommodation of Diverse
Learners
Students with disabilities
will be given the passages before hand and Power Point as well. So parents will be able to go over the
important details before the lesson.
They will also be able to begin the assignment in advance.