Civil Rights
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| Civil Rights Act of 1964 |
More than ever it is imperative that we discuss the topic of racism in our classrooms with our students. Mostly when racism is discussed it is brought up as a thing of the past, however, this is not the case. It will be the purpose of this lesson to introduce racism of the past in conjunction with racism happening today. My main source will be a novel by Katherine Stockett called The Help. Because The Help is a popular novel I hope it will capture the interest of students, I also plan on showing the movie as a visual. In order to continue the conversation after reading the novel and watching the movie, sources such as a short article about Trayvon Martin will be introduced and it will be paired with a news clip detailing the events of his murder. To tie it all together I will introduce the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and also have students explore the Black Lives Matter webpage in order to reveal how rights for racial equality are still being fought for today.
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| Black Lives Matter |
The Help by Kathryn Stockett is a fictional novel that follows the lives of black housekeepers living in 1960's Jackson Mississippi. The novel is a commentary on the civil rights movement and paints a picture of what it was like to live as an African American woman in the south.
Quantitative: The Lexile for this book according to The Lexile Framework for Reading is a 730. If you compare the Lexile given to this novel compared to the Common Core Standards, it would put this book at grades 2-3 reading range. Because the content of this book deals with issues beyond the comprehension level of children in those grade levels I cannot recommend that the Lexile be used as the only measure.
Qualitative: According to the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy, I would recommend that this novel is taught to kids who are in 10th-12th grade. Because this novel deals with a discussion of women's rights and civil rights, these are the grades at which they could think critically on these subjects and perhaps also have the background knowledge in order to discuss them in detail.
Vocabulary Terms: Palsey, Heirloom, Quarters, Endorse, Plantation, Rheumatism
Using this novel in a classroom would be to open conversation about civil rights and racism. It is to activate prior knowledge, introduce new topics, and to motivate students to understand more about equality. This is a complex novel as far as the issues within it that would be discussed as well as the length of the novel. It's a longer read, so the text can't be found online and would need to be provided by the school.
Works Cited
Black Lives Matter. blacklivesmatter.com/resources/.
Botelho, Greg. “What Happened the Night Trayvon Martin Died.” CNN. CNN, www.cnn.com/2012/05/18/justice/florida-teen-shooting-details/index.html. Accessed 23 May 2012.
“Trayvon Martin Shooting, Minute by Minute.” YouTube, 3 Dec. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia0w_dOj7R4.
United States, Congress, House. Civil Rights Act of 1964. Government Printing Office, www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=97.
Hi Ally!
ReplyDeleteI like your topic for your inquiry project, and I think it revolves around a very important thing for students to talk about. For "The Help", you analyzed it's quantitative and qualitative aspects briefly, but I think you could dive into them a little deeper. What is the prior knowledge needed before this unit? Will they be reading it on their own and then having discussion in class? Also, I think you could go a little further into detail with what your classroom/school will look like. (Ex. Is it an urban school? What state? Etc.)
Your print source is good, but you are missing your multimedia source and culturally relevant source. I think you could find some really great sources for multimedia and culturally relevant.
I look forward to learning more about your project.
Natalie
Hi Ally. I agree completely with Natalie's comment before mine. I think you have a good start here and have selected a very important topic. However, I would like to know more about your theoretical class. I also think you are missing two more sources in your post that we can look at. The Help was a great movie and I think the novel is a good jumping off point and great text to look at throughout the course of your lesson.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you pair the people magazine article with the book. I think the pairing will do much to show that the struggles of the characters in the book of "times ago" still permeate our culture today. You provide a nice analysis of this one text, but what about the others?
ReplyDeleteAlly, I enjoyed your text set and like how you paired the newspaper article (that was relevant to the time) with the book written about the same time period and the People magazine article. This helps to teach students about how racism has (or has not) evolved in our country and the impacts of racism. I commend you for choosing such a heavy topic. Your text set helps present the topic in a way that is appropriate for your students, without you simply telling them about racism in America. I haven’t read the book The Help, though I have seen the movie. Based on the film, I do agree with your qualitative analysis. While the vocabulary may be readable for 2-3 graders, the context is not. I think that although the book talks about women’s and civil rights, these are topics that could be addressed with students possibly in middle school. As we see with the national coverage of the “March for Our Lives”, youth are highly involved in protesting and legislative reform. This was also evident in the protests throughout the country surrounding the police shootings of unarmed African American Males. You noted that the use of this book was to activate prior knowledge. I find this interesting and am curious about what prior knowledge your student may already have about the topic as it relates to domestic workers. I look forward to keeping up with your blog topic and learning more.
ReplyDelete