Lesson Plans (Prek-12) | Lessons
Online Projects: PreK-8 |
Barriers Essay Contest
Students in grades 4-8 can enter
Breaking Barriers Essay Contest sponsored by Scholastic.
Entries must be received by February
21, 2012. Prizes include
a trip to the 2012 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, laptop
computers for teachers and students,
a class visit from Sharon
Robinson (daughter of Jackie Robinson), and every book from the
Scholastic Book Clubs' Voices Catalog for winning teachers.
The Black Past:
Remembered and Reclaimed
Discovery Education Streaming
A keyword search
for African American History or Black History in
Streaming returns excellent videos, video clips, images,
source photos, lesson plans and articles. If you need
more information about your account, talk to your site
librarian or email the PUSD helpdesk team at:
Lesson Plans (PreK-12 Lessons)
US Government Websites
Brown Bookshelf: 28 Days Later, A Black History Month
Celebration of Children's Literature This site
introduces "emerging children's authors of color" for 28
days in February. Interviews with the authors are
excellent as are their recommendations of good works on
African American History.
Recipe for Courage:
After students read works on the courage of Rosa
Parks, Ruby Bridges, Melba Beal, Harriet Tubman, Jackie
Robinson, Martin Luther King, and others, brainstorm a list
of the character traits they had that allowed them to
demonstrate courage. Students will determine which
traits were most necessary and which played smaller, but
equally significant roles as they equate them with the
various measures on this black line recipe master.
(For example if one of the characters said she had faith
that it is what she was meant to do, then the student might
choose faith as the 2c. ingredient. If she said her
friend sometimes talked to her in the halls and helped her
get through the day, perhaps friendship would go in 1/4 c.)
(Blackline Master for
a transcript and audio interview with Ruby
Bridges on KPBS
Bridges Official Website
The Story of Ruby Bridges by Robert
Through My Eyes by
has hosted multiple live chats with Rosa Parks over the years.
You can read transcripts on their site. They also have a photo
journal of her life and many additional resources and lesson
plans as well at a section of their site titled:
"Rosa Parks: How I Fought for Civil Rights."
Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt:
and the Freedom Quilt by Deborah Hopkinson
Don't Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals
is an excellent book that describes
the challenges faced by a young girl who integrated Little Rock High
School in the 1950's. For lesson plans, resources, a photo
journal of her life, and multiple student led interviews with Melba,
Integrating Central High: The Melba Pattillo Story at
discovered several unpublished photos of civil rights events
in their archives, they posted them on this site with the title:
From Negatives to Positives.
of Congress African~American Odyssey This site is a
digital collection of rare and unique
items related to African American history that are housed in the Library of
Congress. It includes pamphlets, letters, political cartoons, photos,
manuscripts, music, videos, and news articles. In the section on the
Rights Era, issues such as African~Americans serving in the military and dying for their country, yet
not being allowed equal access are addressed through
on the drawing at the left to see a sample. (Courtesy of Dr. Helma
You can also see a page from chapter 10 of the book,
Aaron, titled: "I Was Tired of Being Invisible" describing his
strategy for becoming a record-sitting hitter.
(When the page loads, hold your cursor near the bottom right edge of any
artifact or picture. An icon will appear with four arrows on it. Click on it
and the artifact will enlarge.) On the
page you can read about
the incredible amount of hate mail he received upon breaking Babe Ruth's
famous home run record.
From Slavery to Freedom, The African~American Pamphlet
Collection from 1824-1909
This collection includes
personal accounts, public speeches, legislative speeches, dramas, and
organizational reports. Some of the authors found in this collection are:
Frederick Douglass, Charles Sumner, Mary Church Terrell, and Booker T.
Another collection of pamphlets valuable to the study of African~American History can be found at:
African American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the
Daniel A.P. Murray Collection, 1818-1907.
site has developed a tremendous amount of resources for teachers and
students studying Black history. There are projects, readings, web field
trips, research starters, live interviews, and writing prompts. You can also
read some amazing interviews students have done with Melba Pattillo, one of
the Little Rock Nine, Rosa Parks, or Jackie Robinson's family. For a
teacher's guide that gives an overview
of the various projects with rubrics, class management ideas, grade level
ideas, and other valuable resources,
Software (Grades 9-12)
To access this outstanding software purchased by PUSD, click on
firstname.lastname@example.org or your school librarian for
information on your password and login, or check the email sent
to you earlier this year.
Some sample lessons are described below. A search in SASinSchool
for the keywords African American History will bring up a list
of links directly to Literature and Social Science lessons.
Studies > US History> Struggle for Civil Rights>
section has the following components:
of the Supreme Court:
In this web lesson, students analyze important Supreme
Court civil rights cases from the 1850s to the 1990s. They
research and summarize the Court's decisions and their impact on
African Americans and subsequent civil rights events. The class
then creates a PowerPoint® presentation that profiles the cases
chronologically in order to identify and discuss the evolution of
the Supreme Court's decisions.
In this classroom activity, students explore the methods of
nonviolent protest used by the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s
and 1960s. Small groups of students develop a campaign for a
contemporary civil rights issue, creating a class presentation
that outlines the goals, protest methods, and proposed outcomes of
their social action.
In this project, students research one of six
African-American civil rights organizations and analyze its impact
on the struggle for civil rights during the 1950s and 1960s.
this web lesson, students research the lives of two African
American writers, George Moses Horton and Frederick Douglass. They
analyze selected quotations from their autobiographical works and
discover the external causes and internal motivations that led
Horton and Douglass to become professional writers, despite the
oppressions of slavery.
and Plot in A Raisin in the Sun:
this classroom activity, students transform their classroom
into a stage set and perform scenes from A Raisin in the Sun.
They analyze the elements of dramatic characterization and plot
development as they read, view, and perform scenes from the play.
When they complete their study of the play, students write,
perform, and assess a dramatic dialogue of their own.
Boy by Richard
this project, students read Black Boy by Richard
Wright, create a chart for note-taking purposes, choose from a
list of essay topics, and compose a well-elaborated essay.
Students conclude their study with a classroom presentation that
reveals their response to their reading and the author's literary
American Quest: Overview:
this InterActivity, students complete learning steps that
prepare for an assessment activity, either a written literary
analysis or notes for a group discussion. African American Quest
introduces students to the culture, themes, and stylistic
devices associated with African American literature. In the
opening Focus section, students examine images and respond to
questions that prepare for reading. In the Explore section,
students read and may listen to short quotations by Frederick
Douglass, Pauline Hopkins, W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes,
Richard Wright, Eldridge Cleaver, and Lucille Clifton.
Interpretive aids help students analyze themes and stylistic
passages. In Respond, students apply their learning in an
independent analysis of James Baldwin's "Letter to My
under American Literature > African American Literature
There is a new audio inquiry on the