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A Time for Justice

Time Frame

1 class periods of 60 minutes each

Group Size

Individual

Life Skills

  • Communication
  • Social & Civic Responsibility

Authors

MARY MOULTON

Summary

Enduring Understanding:Students will understand the protections and privileges of individuals and groups in the United States.
Essential Questions:What are the rights outlined in the Bill of Rights?
How does the Bill of Rights protect divresity?
What was the civil rights movement in the south?


Materials

Paper and Pen, copy of the Bill of Rights


Background for Teachers

This is a lesson in which students will write down their feelings, describing a civil rights violation from a visual projection and answer questions from the video presentation.


Student Prior Knowledge

Students need basic knowledge of the following:

  • civil or human rights
  • 1st, 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution
  • Basis chronology of the African American moment in the south beginning with the Dred Scott case.


Intended Learning Outcomes

Students will assess the freedom and rights guaranteed in the Constitution.
Students will assess the impact of the civil rights movement in the south as it relates to the Bill of Rights.


Instructional Procedures

Anticipatory Set: Provide a slide. powerpoint picture, transparency of a civil rights violation. This picture should include white, African American, male and female persons. It should be a "negative" image. An example of a sit-in, riot, march, fight, etc... Question: What is going on in the slide?

Explain: This is a slide of... Discuss with the students.

Lesson: Senses: Civil Rights Movement.

  1. Take out a sheet of paper-write your name, hour, in the right hand corner-no assignment name yet.
  2. Pick an individual in the slide-give yourself a name and physically describe yourself. (The student will choose someone in the slide to become.)
  3. Have the students divide their papers into four sections by folding the paper in half and in half again. Each section will be labeled according to the five senses. One sense for each section, and one section of the back.
    Write one word adjectives
    : What do you (give them 2 minutes for each sense)
    • see: as that person: model this for them
    • feel: touch and inside feelings
    • hear:
    • smell:
    • taste:
  4. After you have completed all five senses, write a six sentence paragraph or more using your name, physical description, and the five senses (give them 5-6 minutes to write.) Tell you what is happening in the picture/story. They will be asked to share their writing.
  5. Give your paragraph a title.
  6. Exchange papers with your neighbor or partner.
  7. Choose people in the class to read their paper.

Transition:

  1. What does this exercise and more importantly the picture have to do with the civil rights movement? Take a look at your paper: you may have just described what if felt like having your rights taken away from you-someone from the civil rights movement!
  2. What rights are being violated? 1, 5, 8, 14, 15, etc...

Closure:
What would you have done?
Briefly discuss.

Today we are going to look at what the people of the civil rights movement did to win their rights as U.S. citizens--read attached video set up. (see assessment section)

Worksheet: Completed during the film-if not for homework(see assessment section.)

Closure: After the film, discuss the following question: What are you willing to do?


Strategies for Diverse Learners

This assignment is enjoyed by both higher and lower level students. All students are capable of completing this assignment.


Assessment Plan

Attachments

Websites

Introducing the videotape
A Time For Justice from Teaching Tolerance in Montgomery Alabama (purchasing information located below under web sites)

"Imagine being unable to eat or sleep in most restaurants and hotels; being unable to sit where you wanted in a movie theater; having to sit in the back when you boarded a bus, even an empty one; being forced to attend an inferior school; and even being forbidden to drink from certain water fountains. These were the facts of everyday life for all black people in the Southern part of the United States as recently as 1960. They were citizens of a country founded on the principle that all people were created equal. Yet, they were treated unequally, and declared unequal by the law.

"in the middle of the 1950s, a movement of ordinary men and women arose to challenge this way of life. Using boycotts, marches, and other forms of protest, they ultimately forced the South to end its peculiar system of legalized segregation. they succeeded because, in a democracy, when the people speak the government must listen.

"The video you are about to see will describe the conditions that blacks were forced to live under in the South, and the risks they took to win equality. The pictures you will see are historical photographs and film footage. The voices you hear are those of the people were up against and ask:what values were so important that they were willing to die for them?" Watch the video A Time For Justice

Homework: Have students answer questions. Optional questions are also provided if you choose to assign them. See attachments


Created: 08/06/2002
Updated: 02/05/2018
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