Lesson Plan: Online Resources for Historical Analysis

Lesson Plan: Online Resources for Historical Analysis

Creator: Christina Lawrence

Middle School Level American History: 
School Segregation and the Civil Rights Movement

Learning Objectives:

• Teach students about segregation and racial inequalities preceding the Civil Rights movement, as well as how the desegregation of schools influenced the Civil Rights Movement.
• Facilitate critical engagement with historical materials.
• Introduce students to historical primary sources.
• Create a critical timeline of the Civil Rights Movement.

 Exercise:

• Introduce students to landmark legal cases about race and segregation, such as Dred Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. The Board of Education.
  • http://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/resources/two.html
  • http://www.loc.gov/teachers/standards/standards.php?standards=state&st=LA&gr=8&su=Social+Studies&loid=none&formLocation=
  • http://www.ourdocuments.gov/index.php?flash=true&
  • http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/brown-v-board/
• Have the class explore this Omeka site as a way to understand the ways in which segregation was enacted and debated during its final days.
• Show students “The Problem We All Live With” by Norman Rockwell as they listen to Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream.”
• Discussion questions:
  • What were schools like before integration? 
  • Why were the schools segregated? 
  • What did “separate but equal” actually mean?
  • Why would people protest integration? 
• As a class, begin to make a timeline of significant events leading up to, and during, the Civil Rights Movement.  Continue to add to this timeline through other lessons.

Further Reading/Resources:

• Ruby Bridges and Integration in New Orleans: http://www.rubybridges.com/
• Oral narratives about living under Jim Crow: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_narratives.html

Follow-ups:

• Have students find a contemporary newspaper or magazine article about education. Have them analyze the article and discuss contemporary debates about education.
• Introduce a speaker or have students talk to an older community member about their experiences in school. Have students discuss the ways this relates to the lesson, as well as compare and contrast to their educational experience.