Civil Rights, Day 4 - Class Recap

A quote from the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C. Photo taken in 2011.

Hello everyone,

Thank you for another good day! We had some fun discussions and I think some interesting content in class. Read on for the recap:

Learning Targets Addressed:
SS.HS.KN.ALT.17: I can explain the process of change and continuity in a society, place or region.
SS.HS.KN.ALT.19: I can explain the role and impacts of social hierarchies.
SS.HS.CO.ALT.01: I can organize ideas in a logically sequenced manner and in a way that is appropriate to the content area.

Soundtrack: “Stop The Rock” by Apollo 440. Selected for today because of the topic of the Little Rock Nine, who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. Lyrics here.

AGENDA 3/18/14:
News Brief
Social Hierarchies
Segregation Pictures
Little Rock Nine

Homework: Revise historical investigation, if needed. Read the blog! Next news brief: Shannon.

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News Brief: The news brief today slipped Sergio's mind over the long weekend, so we did not have an article to talk about. It was fun talking about your weekends, though!

Social Hierarchies: Before I gave everyone the chance to do the "Early Struggles" reading response for learning target credit, I showed this example of what a social hierarchy (a system by which society ranks categories of people) is, from Ancient Egypt:

Thinking about that sort of example, I then had everyone write out responses to the following two questions:

1) How does the term "societal hierarchy" apply to African Americans in the United States?

2) What has happened to African Americans as a result of societal hierarchies?

Segregation Pictures: Next, we got up and looked around at various pictures representing segregation in the United States, which were posted around the room. This activity was designed to get people up and moving around - though some ingenious students defeated this by using their phones to take pictures of the pictures. Oh, you youngsters... In any case, thank you for the participation here!

Little Rock Nine: To start this section off, I showed this video clip from Marquette University, which goes over the basics of what happened in Little Rock's Central High School in 1957, with the forced integration:

After this, I passed out a reading which we did in much the same style as the "Early Struggles" reading last class. This was about the background to integration, with a specific focus on what happened in Little Rock. The questions we will do next class are:
1) Why do you think Elizabeth Eckford encountered such a hostile reaction when she arrived at Central High School?
2) How did societal hierarchies connect to the events surrounding the integration of Central High School?

Next class (the last before Spring Break), you will answer these questions, do an activity involving some role-playing, and get the main assignment for the unit, to at least think about over break.