Civil Rights, Day 11 - Class Recap

One of the quotes at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington DC.

Hi everyone,

I was out of the building today at another 9th Grade Success meeting, so this post is what I was hoping happened in class:

Learning Targets Addressed:

Behavior LT 1: I can self direct my learning.
Communication LT 1: I can communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing.
Knowledge LT 16: I can explain the process of change and continuity in a society, place, or region.
Knowledge LT 19: I can explain the role and impacts of social hierarchies.

AGENDA 12/6/18:
News Brief – Esther
Children's March
Debrief
Work Time

Homework: Read the blog. Continue working on your Activism Project! Next news brief: Marianne.

News Brief: Esther had the news brief today and selected an article about a story inside the United States to talk about.

Marianne was selected to do the next news brief, on Monday.

As part of the news brief, we usually watch the one minute BBC World News update. Here's the link to see the latest one minute update, at any time of day:

BBCNews.com - One-minute World News

Children's March: To begin the next part of class, the following document was passed out:

Google Drive - The Children's March Video Guide

I wanted to see how much students knew about Birmingham, Alabama and non-violent activism before we watched the video below as a class, and noted how parts of non-violent activism related to actions taken:

Hopefully students found this interesting and engaging! It is definitely powerful to see how children made a different during the Civil Rights Movement.

Debrief: After the film, students completed the back side of the assignment sheet. I am certainly curious as to if there is anything you would be willing to go to jail for! I want students to keep the Children's March note sheet so that we can go through it together next Monday.

Work Time: Last week, I introduced the main project for the Civil Rights unit, which is where students choose to identify a cause that they care about and create a poster or brochure explaining why and how people could be involved. Here's the assignment sheet that I passed out in class:

Google Drive - Activism Project Assignment and Rubrics

This assignment will be due the last day we meet before break, December 20th. If you are leaving before that day for break, you will need to turn it in before.

Generally, students can choose almost anything that they want to, but I do want to hear about the issue before embarking on too much work. We will set aside a fair amount of class time before the break to do this, and I will provide large sheets of paper, but if a student wants to go above and beyond in working on the project at home or with a poster board, that is obviously great as well.

Some examples of student choices are:

Climate Change
Animal Rights
Gun Issues
Immigration/Border Issues
Human Trafficking 

Thanks for your continued work and engagement with the Civil Rights unit! We will keep at it next week. Here's our tentative schedule for our next few classes until break:

December 6 (substitute): Children’s March (What Would You Do?) / Work Time on Activism Project

December 11: Music as Activism (graded) – partner assignment

December 13 (Wednesday): Share Music/Work time on Activism Project

December 15: MLK vs. Malcolm X – Whose Ideas Were Best?

December 19: Activism Project Work Time (final day)

December 21: Activism Project presentations/gallery walk/Unfinished Business with Civil Rights