Conceptual Unit
Civil Rights Movement
One Person CAN Make a Difference
Kristin Chang
Katie Fuchs
Meredith Molnar
English 319
Kristin Chang, Katie Fuchs, and Meredith Molnar
ENGL 319
Dr. Carmen Manning
Nov. 2nd 2010
Conceptual Unit Proposal
1. Context of Unit
This unit will be taught to a ninth grade class in a Midwestern (Wisconsin) city/suburb
community, such as the Eau Claire community. There are 27 students in the class with about
half of them at an average ability level and half at an advanced ability level. The class consists
of students from a low to middle socio-economic standing with a few students on the upper
range. The classroom contains a diverse population of students with four African American
students, 17 Caucasian students, three Hispanic students, and three Hmong students. Half of
these students are female and the other half is male. Some of the Hmong and Hispanic students
are English language learners and will require special attention in regards to translation. Students
in this class have an egotistical view of the world at this point, and focus on themselves. They
stick with their friends and do not usually go beyond their specific groups to talk to others.
Students are trying to create an identity for themselves and gain more independence from home,
but also want to fit in at school. Their maturity levels vary between somewhat immature to
mature. They still think in a concrete way while learning, and have difficulty processing abstract
ideas. Some students struggle with this more while others are right on the edge between concrete
thinking and abstract.
The community is set in a city/suburb area like Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Parents and
adults mostly work at blue collar jobs. A few are employed as professionals or have white collar
jobs. One common value is in religion. The community shares the same general view of
religion which is Christianity. Everyone in the community wants their children to receive a good
education, and therefore parents have a high value for education. All parents want their children
to go to college and receive a degree of some sort. However, after college the trend is to usually
come back to the original community where they stay for the rest of their lives.
The school is a medium size with about 700 students all together. Grades 9-12 all share
this building. The structure is formed into classes with academic classrooms for each grade
divided into “blocks” with the cafeteria, gym, etc. used by all grades. The school is located in
the neighborhood district central to all students and community members. This gives everyone
easy access to the school and makes transportation easy for students. The school district
enforces an open curriculum which means that there are no set goals or texts to teach from. The
teachers make their own curriculum and lesson plans based off of the WI Common Core
standards. English teachers are to incorporate the aspects of reading literature, writing, and
speaking and listening into their curriculum. The organization and presentation of materials is
also left for the teachers to decide. English teachers can order their units in different ways as
long as they include the four above mentioned subjects somewhere within a unit or over the
course of the year.
The time when this conceptual unit would be taught is at the start of October and would
spill into November. This gives students the whole month of September to acclimate themselves
to the new high school environment. The teacher will have ample time to create a safe
atmosphere where the students will feel comfortable in sharing opinions and thoughts. October
is still at the beginning of the year and the students will not be burned out yet from classes and
schoolwork. This month also gives the teacher four and a half weeks of uninterrupted classes in
which to teach a continuous flow of topics and ideas and to frame the overall concept over the
entire unit. The unit will end in early November and the students will then get a break later on
for Thanksgiving.
2. Conceptual Focus of Unit Plan
The central concept of this unit is centered on the Civil Rights Movement and the importance
that individual beliefs and actions have. The title of our unit is “One Person CAN Make a
Difference.” In the four and a half weeks allotted to this unit, students will read To Kill a
Mockingbird by Harper Lee, along with excerpts from Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice,
an informational book by Phillip Hoose. Both of these texts concern the civil rights movement,
with To Kill a Mockingbird’s influence at the beginning of the movement and Claudette Colvin’s
individual history as a young woman participating in the actual movement.
This unit will take an in depth look at the Civil Rights Movement and the individuals that
sparked and contributed to its inception through readings of Harlem Renaissance Poetry and a
series of YouTube clips containing speeches by Martin Luther King Jr. and songs inspired by the
Civil Rights movement. Students will keep in class journals in which they will write 1-2 page
reflections on discussions and texts. The students will also work in small groups of four to create
an anthology of renaissance poetry which they will share with the class on a poetry reading day.
The culminating project of the unit will be a collaborative paper in which students will choose a
pressing issue of importance in today’s society to research in a 2-3 page paper. In it they will
present the facts of the issue and possible ways to remedy the situation. This lesson will be
taught in early October and into November. Students will have had some time to get to know and
become comfortable with one another and there will be few school breaks to interrupt class time.
3. Justification
Texts- Our Unit is titled “one person Can make a difference,” and this is a theme reflected in
To Kill a Mockingbird. By studying this text, students will become familiar with an influential
book that played an important part in the Civil Rights Movement. The character of Atticus is an
exemplification of this theme, as is the author Harper Lee. By standing up for Tom in the book,
Atticus starts to change public opinion, and through her book, Harper Lee was able to start a
revolution. This novel is a classic and part of the literary cannon. The chapters are relatively
short and easy to read, making it appropriate for the age level. Students will also be able to relate
to the growing characters, as they are not so far removed from the age of some of the characters.
This text will also be supplemented by YouTube clips and further investigation of the Civil
rights movements and texts produced during the time period, such as the Harlem Renaissance
Poetry. Excerpts from the Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice informational Novel will
enhance the understanding of the Civil Rights movement, and provide more examples of
individual action.
We chose To Kill a Mockingbird because it is a well known text and is readily available in
multiple translations, making it easy to teach for ELL students. Our students are around the age
of Jem and Scout, making To Kill a Mockingbird an appropriate choice of text for this class.
Some of the students in our classroom deal with money issues as a result of their socio-economic
status, much like the citizens of Maycomb in the text. Our students will have multiple ways of
relating to the character as they are growing and experiencing change as well. The Claudette
Colvin text will also be another opportunity for students to encounter a character who played an
important role in America’s Civil rights movement who is closer to their own age than Rosa
Parks. The YouTube clips are another form of presentation that will include students in our
classroom with auditory and visual learning styles which we have noticed are prevalent. The
ELL students will also benefit because they can rely on the images to help interpret the text.
Collaborative paper- Our research project will be the culminating product of the unit, relying
on the students’ application of the writing skill of composing an informational document. The
paper will be a group effort to research current issues that are impacting society today. The
students will be put into groups of two or three and each will be assigned a topic chosen by the
teacher. They will also be given pre-selected materials that they can use in their papers. From
this information, they will then be able to present the facts without bias in order to change other’s
minds and have their own individual impact on the way society views the issue. If a student
should prefer to work individually, they may, but the collaborative format of the paper will make
scaffolding and teaching the research methods and paper format more efficient and in keeping
with the time allotted for the unit.
We have chosen this format to further our goal of teaching students to distinguish fact from
fiction and present ideas without bias. Students at this age are very impressionable and tend to
mimic the popular or mainstream idea. This paper will help them realize that some “facts” are
influenced by bias, and that personal thought and analysis are necessary to form an individual
opinion. They will learn to present others with fact so that others can form an individual opinion
as well.
Journals- These will be structured much as they are described in Kirby, Kirby, Liner, with
students each having an individual notebook to respond to prompts or class discussion and other
topics. These will be completed within 10 minutes and will be easy, non-formal assessments of
student comprehension of themes and readings. This will be a safe environment in which the
students will be able to express their feelings and thoughts about what they are learning. This
will also be a space where they can organize the ideas and concepts learned in class. Grammar is
not an issue and they will be assessed on the content of their free-writing. This will allow ELLs
an opportunity to express their opinions more freely as they would be able to write in their own
language as well as practice English without the fear of someone seeing their mistakes. The other
students are affected by their peers’ judgments, so the journals will allow them to develop their
own ideas without fear of judgment from their peers, as well as provide a sounding board to
experiment ideas before presenting them to the class.
Group Poetry Project- In this project, students will be put into groups of four where they will
discuss four pieces of a Harlem Renaissance poet’s work. The groups will be structured with
varying levels of ability according to Vygotsky’s theory of the Zone of Proximal Development.
The students in our class are at different intellectual ability levels, and the collaboration of this
project will allow them to raise their thinking abilities up to those of their partners. The higher
level students will push the lower level students into their ZPD to create higher learning. The
higher level students will benefit from learning how to help others while solidifying basic ideas
and concepts. Students will learn better themselves by teaching others. The culminating activity
in this project is a poetry reading day where the groups will come up and read their poetry to the
class. In this group project, they will explore the products of individuals of the Civil Rights
Movement. Also, they will discuss how these poems may have sparked change within society.
Discussion-We will switch between small and large group discussions in order to fit the
comfort level of different students. Discussions will revolve around prompts and questions
provided by the teacher but will center on student to student communication. The students will
have time to prepare answers for the start of the discussion either the night before as homework
or in their journals beforehand. By working together and discussing others ideas, students will
learn that their peers see the world in different ways and that it’s important to be open-minded
and listen to all aspects of an issue. This will start the students focusing on others instead of
having a self-centered point of view while still maintaining that each individual’s opinion is
important. Discussions encompass Vygotsky’s ZPD theory in both small and large groups.
Students will continue to benefit from being pushed out of their intellectual comfort zones and
testing each other’s ideas. Since students are still very egocentric, hearing the opinions of peers
as well as airing their own ideas will allow them to create a new understanding of the ideas and
topics presented. Discussion will help ELLs to learn aspects of language such as pronunciation,
intonation, and structure.
4. Goals Correlated to the Wisconsin Common Core Standards
Reading Standards for Literature 6-12
3.
Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations)
develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop
the theme.
Goal 1: Look at how characters develop throughout a text and how their opinions and
thinking change after different experiences that they’ve had.
Writing Standards 6-12
2.
Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and
information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of
content.
Goal 2: Look at an issue and be able to distinguish fact from fiction while presenting
others with these facts in order to influence or change their understanding of a topic.
Speaking and Listening Standards 6-12
1.
Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in
groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 9–10 topics, texts, and issues, building
on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively
Goal 3: Students will be able to discuss important topics while hearing different
opinions, which will then lead them to create a collaborative and individual
understanding in large discussions, small discussions, and group work.
5. Assessments
Collaborative Paper- This is our main culminating assessment that will focus on students’
ability to apply skills such as identifying relevant information and incorporating facts into their
papers without bias. They must “convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and
accurately” according to the writing standard. Students will be divided into small groups and
provided with a topic chosen by the teacher, along with texts that they can use in their papers.
The paper will be about an issue related to the fight for Civil Rights, which would likely be about
either a current event or a historical event that links to the theme. Students will be provided with
sources in which they will have to choose which facts are most relevant to their topics. They
should be able to provide a bibliography that includes every source that they used. The paper
itself will be about 3 pages. The information should be relevant, and should be organized so that
it is clear and concise. As the paper will be done in chunks with different drafts being turned in,
students should keep on schedule and get each section done on time.
Journals- Throughout the week, student journals will provide an informal assessment of their
comprehension of the material and of their writing development. The writing standard states that
students should be able to explain concepts through effective “analysis of content.” As students
read the texts and begin to think of new ideas, they will have the opportunity to write their
thoughts in their journals for their own reflection and for the teacher's assessment. These
journals are an informal evaluation of how students' thoughts are developing. Our writing goal is
for students to change and influence the ways that other people think through their own written
ideas. The main criteria for this portion of the assessment will be that students should add to
their journals each time we have journal time during class. The content of the journal should
show contemplation of the theme, reflection on the writing and reading process, and at least
some relevance to the prompt if one is provided.
Poetry Group Project- This group project will provide an opportunity for students to be
assessed in an interactive setting where they must work together to achieve an end product. The
speaking and listening standard will be addressed in this activity by our evaluation of how
students “participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions” according to the
speaking and listening standard. In this case, students will be put into small groups and given
directions to discuss and explore a specific poet of Harlem Renaissance poetry. Each student
will be expected to add to their group's conversation. We should see them “building on others’
ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.” In order to make sure that we hear
what each group has to say, they will be required to compose a 1 page summary on what they
feel is the purpose of the poetry. We will look at how they organize their thoughts, the relevance
to the overall theme of making a difference, and evidence that they are developing a deeper
understanding of why it is important to care about what others think. This project focuses on how
one person through their writing can express important ideas that change others’ opinions and
gives people a different way to look at an issue.
October
Monday
Intro
-Unit
-Harper Lee
-Civil Rights
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Ch. 1-3
Friday
Ch. 4-5
Introduce Journal
Entries
-Civil Rights
-In-class Journal
-Review
-TKM Discussion
Introduce
Collaborative Paper
-YouTube/
Discussion
-In-class Journal
-TKM Discussion
Leading goal
(1/2/3/)
Ch. 6-9
Leading goal (1/2/3)
Goal 3
Goal 3
Goal 3
-In-class Journal
-Small Group Paper
Workshop
-Claudette Colvin
Excerpt/Discussion/
Multimedia
Goal 3
Leading goal (goal 1)
Ch. 9-11 (Part 2)
Ch. 15-16
-In-class Journal
-Claudette Colvin
Excerpt/Discussion/
Multimedia
-1st Draft Paper Due
Goal 2
Ch. 12-14
-Paper
Workshop/Feedback
Day
-In-class Journal
-TKM Discussion
Goal 2/3
Goal 3
Ch. 17-19
-In-class Journal
-Paper Workshop
Day
-Peer-Edit Papers
-In-class Journal
-TKM Discussion
Goal 3
Leading goal (goal 2)
Ch. 20-22
-Paper Workshop
-Group Discussions
-In-class Journal
-Trial Discussion/
YouTube
Goal 2/3
Goal 1
FINAL Paper due
Goal 1
Ch. 23-25
Ch. 26-28
-Revision Day
-Papers Handed
Back
-Read/ discuss
Introduce Poetry
-In-class Journal
-Poetry and
Structure
-Find poems
-Poetry Exploration
Day/Multimedia
- Write Paper/
Practice Poems
Goal 2/3
Leading goal (2/3)
Goal 2
Goal 3
-In-class Journal
-TKM Discussion
Poetry
Reading/Discussion
Day
Goals 1/3
Goal 3
Poetry
Reading/Discussion
Day
-In-class Journal
-Reflection of Unit
Were the goals met?
Ch. 29-31
-In-class Journal
-TKM Discussion
Paper Revisions Due
Goal 1/2/3
Goal 1: Look at how characters develop throughout a text and how their opinions and thinking
change after different experiences that they’ve had.
Goal 2: Look at an issue and be able to distinguish fact from fiction while presenting others with
these facts in order to influence or change their understanding of a topic.
Goal 3: Students will be able to discuss important topics while hearing different opinions, which
will then lead them to create a collaborative and individual understanding in large discussions,
small discussions, and group work.
Conceptual Unit-Lesson 1
Pre-Service Teacher Information
Name: Katie Fuchs (Kristin Chang, Meredith Molnar)
Course: Engl 319: Introduction to English Education Methods
Unit of which this lesson is a part: Conceptual Unit
Lesson Background Information
Grade Level: 9th grade
Learning Goal: To introduce concepts the students will encounter during the unit as well
as provide them with information regarding the texts they will encounter.
Necessary Materials: TKM books to hand out (one copy for every student in the class),
Harper Lee Biography, computer, projector and screen, unit calendars (one copy for every
student in the class), white board with markers
Lesson:
1. Begin class by asking what the students know about the civil rights movement. Make a
list on the board of what students know. If information is not forthcoming, mention
leaders of the civil rights movement (Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks…). Ask them why
they think this period in time is significant. What changes were made and how do they
impact us today?
2. Show YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSug2B-tk64) and lead into
discussions of TKM and Harper Lee. Explain that much of the book deals with class
conflicts between blacks and whites at the same time of the civil rights movement. Talk
about Harper Lee and introduce the article.
3. Have students read the article individually for 10-15 minutes.
4. Once students have read the essay, hand out TKM and unit calendars (students at this age
are easily distracted, so to keep them from looking through the book and at the calendar
instead of reading the essay, don’t hand anything out until you see that they are done with
the article). Go through the unit calendar and expectations for the projects (briefly, more
detail will be added along with scaffolding as the unit progresses).
a. How reading schedule works-explain that the chapters need to be read by the day
they are listed (for example, by Wednesday chapters 1-3 should be read).
b. Journals-five to ten minute writing assignments that will be graded and used to
determine how affective my teaching is. It is for them to air their opinions and
ideas before they share them with the class. This will be introduced in the next
lesson.
c. Collaborative paper-explain that like the civil rights leaders such as Rosa Parks
and Claudette Colvin, anyone can make a difference. The paper explores an issue
and the group will be responsible for writing a paper that presents facts and not
opinion.
d. Claudette Colvin- she is a young woman very close to their age that had an active
role in the civil rights movement (much like Rosa Parks but younger and before
Rosa Parks). We will be looking at excerpts from an informational book written
about her to help us see what factual, unbiased writing looks like.
e. Poetry Project- collaborative project where each group will be assigned an author.
Each group member will find a poem to share with the class. The group will also
write a 1pg paper explaining why they chose their poem.
5. Reiterate that chapters 1-3 need to be read by Wednesday and that tomorrow we will be
going over journal entries and further discussion of the civil rights movement with some
in class reading time.
Assessment:
There is no formal assessment for today’s lesson as it is an introductory lesson, but students
will be assessed on their attentiveness and contributions to class. No points will be awarded,
but their attention will tell me whether or not they are interested in the material or if I need to
take another approach.
Harper Lee Biography
Born Nelle Harper Lee
( 1926 – )
Born Nelle Harper Lee on April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama. Lee Harper is best known for writing the
Pulitzer Prize-winning best-seller To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)—her one and only novel. The youngest of four
children, she grew up as a tomboy in a small town. Her father was a lawyer, a member of the Alabama state
legislature, and also owned part of the local newspaper. For most of Lee’s life, her mother suffered from
mental illness, rarely leaving the house. It is believed that she may have had bipolar disorder.
One of her closest childhood friends was another writer-to-be, Truman Capote (then known as Truman
Persons). Tougher than many of the boys, Lee often stepped up to serve as Truman’s protector. Truman,
who shared few interests with boys his age, was picked on for being a sissy and for the fancy clothes he wore. While the two friends were
very different, they both shared in having difficult home lives. Truman was living with his mother’s relatives in town after largely being
abandoned by his own parents
In high school, Lee developed an interest in English literature. After graduating in 1944, she went to the all-female Huntingdon College in
Montgomery. Lee stood apart from the other students—she could have cared less about fashion, makeup, or dating. Instead, she focused on
her studies and on her writing. Lee was a member of the literary honor society and the glee club.
Transferring to the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, Lee was known for being a loner and an individualist. She did make a greater
attempt at a social life there, joining a sorority for a while. Pursuing her interest in writing, Lee contributed to the school’s newspaper and its
humor magazine, the Rammer Jammer. She eventually became the editor of the Rammer Jammer.
In her junior year, Lee was accepted into the university’s law school, which allowed students to work on law degrees while still
undergraduates. The demands of her law studies forced her to leave her post as editor of the Rammer Jammer. After her first year in the law
program, Lee began expressing to her family that writing—not the law—was her true calling. She went to Oxford University in England that
summer as an exchange student. Returning to her law studies that fall, Lee dropped out after the first semester. She soon moved to New
York City to follow her dreams to become a writer.
In 1949, a 23-year-old Lee arrived in New York City. She struggled for several years, working as a ticket agent for Eastern Airlines and for
the British Overseas Air Corp (BOAC). While in the city, Lee was reunited with old friend Truman Capote, one of the literary rising stars of the
time. She also befriended Broadway composer and lyricist Michael Martin Brown and his wife Joy.
In 1956, the Browns gave Lee an impressive Christmas present—to support her for a year so that she could write full time. She quit her job
and devoted herself to her craft. The Browns also helped her find an agent, Maurice Crain. He, in turn, was able to get the publishing firm
interested in her first novel, which was first titled Go Set a Watchman, then Atticus, and later To Kill a Mockingbird. Working with editor Tay
Hohoff, Lee finished the manuscript in 1959.
Later that year, Lee joined forces with old friend Truman Capote to assist him with an article he was writing for The New Yorker. Capote was
writing about the impact of the murder of four members of the Clutter family on their small Kansas farming community. The two traveled to
Kansas to interview townspeople, friends and family of the deceased, and the investigators working to solve the crime. Serving as his
research assistant, Lee helped with the interviews, eventually winning over some of the locals with her easy-going, unpretentious manner.
Truman, with his flamboyant personality and style, also had a hard time initially getting himself into his subjects’ good graces.
During their time in Kansas, the Cutters’s suspected killers, Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, were caught in Las Vegas and brought back
for questioning. Lee and Capote got a chance to interview the suspects not long after their arraignment in January 1960. Soon after, Lee and
Capote returned to New York. She worked on the galleys for her forthcoming first novel while he started working on his article, which would
evolve into the nonfiction masterpiece, In Cold Blood. The pair returned to Kansas in March for the murder trial. Later that spring, Lee gave
Capote all of her notes on the crime, the victims, the killers, the local communities, and much more.
Soon Lee was engrossed her literary success story. In July 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird was published and picked up by the Book-of-theMonth Club and the Literary Guild. A condensed version of the story appeared in Reader’s Digest magazine. The work’s central character, a
young girl nicknamed Scout, was not unlike Lee in her youth. In one of the book’s major plotlines, Scout and her brother Jem and their friend
Dill explore their fascination with a mysterious and somewhat infamous neighborhood character named Boo Radley. But the work was more
than a coming-of-age story, however. Another part of the novel reflected racial prejudices in the South. Their attorney father, Atticus Finch,
tries to help a black man who has been charged with raping a white woman to get a fair trial and to prevent him from being lynched by angry
whites in a small town.
The following year, To Kill a Mockingbird won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize and several other literary awards. Horton Foote wrote a
screenplay based on the book and used the same title for the 1962 film adaptation. Lee visited the set during filming and did a lot of
interviews to support the film. Earning eight Academy Award nominations, the movie version of To Kill a Mockingbird won four awards,
including Best Actor for Gregory Peck’s portrayal of Atticus Finch. The character of Atticus is said to have been based on Lee’s father.
By the mid-1960s, Lee was reportedly working on a second novel, but it was never published. Continuing to help Capote, Lee worked with
him on and off on In Cold Blood. She had been invited by Smith and Hickock to witness their execution in 1965, but she declined. When
Capote’s book was finally published in 1966, a rift developed between the two friends and collaborators. Capote dedicated to the book to Lee
and his longtime lover Jack Dunphy, but he failed to acknowledge her contributions to the work. While Lee was very angry and hurt by this
betrayal, she remained friends with Truman for the rest of his life.
That same year, Lee had an operation on her hand to repair damage done by a bad burn. She also accepted a post on the National Council
of the Arts at the request of President Lyndon B. Johnson. During the 1970s and 1980s, Lee largely retreated from public life.
She spent some of her time on a nonfiction book project about an Alabama serial killer, which had the working title The Reverend. But the
work was never published.
Lee continues to live a quiet, private life in New York City and Monroeville. Active in her church and community, she usually avoids anything
to do with her still popular novel.
© 2010 A&E Television Networks. All rights reserved.
Conceptual Unit-Lesson 2
Pre-Service Teacher Information
Name: Katie Fuchs (Kristin Chang, Meredith Molnar)
Course: Engl 319: Introduction to English Education Methods
Unit of which this lesson is a part: Conceptual Unit
Lesson Background Information
Grade Level: 9th grade
Learning Goal: Introduce the concept of a writing journal and structure the format to be
used when writing in them. Continue to discuss the Civil Rights movement and guide students to
an understanding of their cultural importance.
Necessary Materials: Writing Journals; computer, document camera, projector, and
screen; Civil Rights PowerPoint; Writing Journal Handout.
Lesson:
1. Begin class by reviewing the list of things students came up with during their
investigation activity of Civil Rights (put a list of what student’s said up on the document
camera. Ask if they would like to add anything to it). Remind students that chapters 1-3
are to be read by tomorrow before class. They will be getting some reading time towards
the end of class today, but they need to read 1-3 even if they don’t finish in class today.
2. Move to PowerPoint of Civil Rights and Jim Crow laws. This will help scaffold some of
the material the students will be encountering in their early readings of TKM as
segregation may not be a term or practice they are familiar with. The YouTube clip also
covers some of the later Civil Rights action taken, providing a basis for later discussions
on Civil Rights and things brought up in the book.
3. Transition from the PowerPoint to handing out Writing Journals and Writing Journal
Handouts. Read over the handout with the students, clarifying as you go along what kind
of ideas you would like to see them discuss in the journals and how detailed they should
be. Answer any other questions students may have regarding the journals.
4. Have students take five minutes to write a response to the PowerPoint and YouTube clip
they just viewed. Ask them if they have learned anything new that they didn’t know
before, whether or not they thought the PowerPoint and video were helpful, what they
would like to know if they want to know more about Jim Crow Laws or the Civil Rights
Movements, or to respond to what they have read of TKM.
5. Collect the journals from the students. The rest of the time is theirs for silent reading.
Instruct them that they must stay in their seats with no talking. If there is too much noise
you can give them a quiz on Jim Crow Laws and the information on Harper Lee from
yesterday’s lesson.
Assessment:
The student’s journal entries will give me an informal assessment of whether or not the
students understood what the Writing Journals are to be used for and if the presentation on
Jim Crow laws was effective or not. I will not assign a grade to these entries as it is their first
time with them, unless I feel that it is needed to prompt some students to achieve higher.
In Class Writing Journal
These journals are for you!! We will be discussing To Kill a Mockingbird and the
Civil Rights Movement in class and most of the discussion will rely on responses
from YOU. These journals are a way for you to write down and organize your
thoughts and responses to our discussion before sharing with the class.
How long does it have to be?: The journals will fall anywhere between ½-1 ½
page(s), depending on how much time you are given in class (usually 10-15
minutes). They can be longer if you like, but I will ask that you wrap up your
thoughts at the end of the writing time so that we can move onto discussion. The
journals will stay in the classroom as I will look at them after each time we write.
Will we be graded on this?: There won’t be a formal grade attached to the entries
unless I decide that it is necessary. I will be reading them to assess whether or not
the reading is being done and if I need to re-teach anything.
When will we be writing?: All journal entries will be written during class, usually
at the beginning of class. This is so you have a chance to write down your ideas
before we dive into discussion.
Completed Journals at the end of the unit are worth 40 points!
Lesson
3
Pre-Service Teacher Information
Name: Meredith Molnar (Katie Fuchs and Kristin Chang)
Course: Eng 319
Unit of which this lesson is a part (if applicable): “One Person CAN Make a Difference”
Lesson Background Information
Grade Level: 9
Learning Goal: Discuss character relationships within the text so that students will be able to make
connections to real-life. Describe setting and make predictions so students will have an enriched
further reading of the text.
Necessary Materials: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
"To Kill a Mockingbird” Book trailer, Youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-Wv8nPQc4&feature=related
Lesson
1. Recap Harper Lee and Civil rights. Yesterday we introduced the unit and went over some of the topics
that will be important to know. Who remembers something that we discussed? Answers could be To Kill
a Mockingbird, Martin Luther King Jr., Harper Lee, the Civil Rights movement, or journals, although I will
hold off on talking about those until the next section. As each thing is mentioned, I will write it on the
board and let 1-2 people describe it a little bit. This is to make sure that they understood the topics, but
also to keep them fresh in their memories. I will constantly be encouraging them throughout the unit to
tie in all of the different texts and topics to their journals, discussion, and eventually their collaborative
paper, so I want to get them used to bringing these things up often. I will leave everything on the board
so that it is accessible later during discussion time. (5 minutes)
2. To capture the students' attention, I will show a Youtube clip. This video shows a fan-made book
trailer, which shows images and captions pertaining to the book for the purpose of getting students
interested in reading the featured book. Since they have just begun reading the book, students will
become interested in what they are about to read. Some students might have not finished today's
required reading, so this activity may make them more intrigued about the book. After the trailer
shows, I will quickly recap a little bit about the book and then transition to the next part. (3 minutes)
3. Recap journal instructions. Can anyone remember what the guidelines are for writing the journals? I
will take answers from students as they raise their hands. Eventually, I expect that each of the
guidelines will be covered. For those that are not mentioned, I will add the missed information. As the
students say these guidelines, I will write them on the board clearly so that everyone can see them.
After they say what the guideline was, I'll have them remind the class what it means. (3 minutes)
4. In-class Journal: For this first journal, I will give you a couple of questions that you can answer. You
don't have to stick strictly to the prompt, as we discussed in the guidelines. After answering the prompt,
you can move onto discussing something that stuck out to you in the novel. Try to write for the whole
10 minutes. If you finish early, you can work on reading the novel. Today's prompts are, “Even though
you have never lived in Maycomb, what do you imagine it must be like to live there? Describe a day in
the life of a Maycomb resident: what do you do? Who do you talk to, and who do you avoid?” (2
minutes for instruction and answering questions, 10 minutes for journal)
5. Since this is our first journal, it might be helpful for students to share what they wrote with a partner
to see if they are on the right track or to get ideas about how to go about answering the prompt. I will
tell the class that they can move around and talk to a few different people about their journals. If they
don't wish to share, they don't have to but can still listen to others' thoughts and summaries on their
own journals. This should be a somewhat fast-paced activity just so people get a feel for what the
journals should or can be like. In this way, there is a small self-assessment that they can use in future
writing. I may have to model this activity by describing the kinds of questions they can use and giving an
idea of how much time it should take (not very). (10 minutes, including instruction and activity)
6. Discussion of TKAM, Chapters 1-3. Today's discussion will be shorter than most others will likely be,
but it will give us a feel of how to interact and talk about the book. I will put the class into small groups
(3-4 people each) to ease into this aspect of the class. We will focus on Scout and Jem for the first part.
I will provide each group a list of some questions to answer. What kind of relationship do Scout and Jem
have? Can anyone in the group relate to this at all? What do you think it was like to live during this time
at Scout's age? We will also talk about predictions for the book. Which characters do you think you are
going to like most? Which characters are most trustworthy? How will living in Maycomb influence the
way that Scout begins to see the world?(10 minutes)
7. During discussion, I will walk around the room making sure that the groups are staying on track and
spending a couple of minutes with each group to answer any questions that they have.
8. After discussion, we will wrap up by talking about how the discussion went. What did your group
come up with for your predictions? I will go around to each group and have them give a summary of
what they discussed. We will close by looking over what the reading assignment is for Friday and I will
tell them that we will be looking more closely at the Civil Rights movement tomorrow. (8 minutes)
Assessment
Share how you will assess students’ work for the day.
I will collect the journals for review. I will look for relation to the prompt and coherency in their writing.
Also, I will be looking for any mention of the other topics outside of the book that have been introduced.
The journal should be an appropriate length for 10 minutes of writing (at the very least, a half of a page).
During discussion, I will check that everyone is contributing and offering relevant thoughts and opinions.
Lesson 4
Pre-Service Teacher Information
Name: Meredith Molnar (Kristin Chang and Katie Fuchs)
Course:
Unit of which this lesson is a part (if applicable): “One Person CAN Make a Difference”
Lesson Background Information
Grade Level: 9
Learning Goal: Students will be able to discuss important topics while hearing different
opinions, which will then lead them to create a collaborative and individual understanding in
large discussions, small discussions, and group work.
Necessary Materials: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Excerpts of “I Have a Dream Speech” Youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxO9zriKMiw&feature=related
Text version of “I Have a Dream Speech”: http://www.mlkonline.net/dream.html
Computer and projector to display the video clip
Martin Luther King Biography Youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ank52Zi_S0
Sources for paper topics, ready to be handed out to groups/ Collaborative Paper Rubric
Lesson
1. Before class, have the computer set up with the Martin Luther King Youtube clip, with the projector
on so I will be ready to hit play when I need to show the clip.
2. When students come in and are settled, I will begin with a short recap of what we talked about
yesterday and since the beginning of the unit. I will say, “So far, we've talked a little bit about what we
are going to do over the next few weeks, and we also know a little bit about the author of To Kill a
Mockingbird. Does anyone have any comments or questions about what we've talked about so far?”
Students will ask any questions they have, and I will ask for answers from other students before giving
my own answers. (5 minutes for introduction)
3. “We have also talked a little bit about the Civil Rights movement. Today we're going to watch a short
video of a very influential speech from that time period. Many of you have probably heard about Martin
Luther King Jr., and you might have even heard this speech before. We will use the information we learn
in class today to learn more about the novel and how one person can make a difference to thousands of
people.” We will then watch the video clip. ( 2 minutes for introduction/questions, 5 minutes for video)
4. I will now hand out a text version of the speech. We're going to talk a bit about Martin Luther King Jr.
Students will explore by reading the text version of the speech and connecting it with the audio version
that we just heard. “On your text version, skim through and try to find what you think is the most
important line of the speech. Is there one part that summarizes the whole? Underline what you think is
the most interesting or impactful sentence or section of the speech.” I will give them a few minutes to
read over the speech. Some students will not have had time to read the entire speech, but the
important part is that they either pick something that they can discuss or remember the gist of the video
clip. (3 minutes for handout and instructions, 3 minutes for skimming the text)
5. I will have students turn to a partner next to them and tell them that they will be sharing their
“important statements” or summaries from the speech. I will say that each of them should share their
statements and then briefly talk about what they think it means. I will go around the room checking to
see that everyone is discussing and answering any questions that they have. I will also take cues from
them as to how long this activity should go on. If the discussion weakens early, I will direct their
attention and have them talk about other parts of the speech. Since we will be discussing as a whole
class, they can prepare by talking with each other who they think King was addressing and what the time
period must have been like to demand that kind of action.(5 minutes.)
6. As I direct their attention to the front of the room, I will introduce the next video clip. This clip will
give us more of an understanding of the man behind the speech. It will help us to understand what it
was like to be an African American who had the courage to speak up for what was wrong. We will also
be able to relate it to characters in To Kill a Mockingbird as we learn more about Atticus, Tom, and the
trial. Show the video (5 minutes).
7. Now we will come back together as a whole class. Ideally, the desks will be rearranged into a large
circle. We will begin discussion, and I will remind them to raise their hands before talking and to respect
everyone's comments. Feel free to say whatever is on your mind or to ask clarity questions, as long as
you are being respectful to each person in the room. How could Martin Luther King Jr. influence so
many people just by talking? What was it like for him, and many other people, to be an African
American in that time period? Do you think that he was one of many people who talked to a huge
crowd, or do you think he was one of few? Can you think of any other people who have done the same?
(Try to discreetly direct them to thinking about Harper Lee if it does not come up. How much of a
difference did Martin Luther King Jr. make, and to whom? (10 minutes)
8. Introduce Collaborative Paper project. (Hand out rubric.) We will be starting a project where you will
work with some classmates to read about a topic to find out how individuals and groups of people have
come together to make a difference. The class will be put into groups of 3-4 and there will be 3 different
topics. Each group will be assigned to one topic, but there will be multiple groups working on the same
topic. There resources will be provided by the teacher. Your topic will either be the Montgomery Bus
Boycott, Martin Luther king Jr., or Emmett Till. Part of this project is to read through someone’s review
of an event or person and pick out the most important, useful, and unbiased pieces of information. You
should also be able to evaluate whether the source was reliable, and how you can tell whether the
information is truly fact instead of opinion. (10 minutes)
9. Recap what we've talked about today. Answer questions and address any additional issues.
(Remaining 2 minutes)
Assessment
Share how you will assess students’ work for the day.
Most of the assessment will come from my observations of their discussion. Are they sharing their
thoughts effectively? Are they interacting well in both small and large groups? Are they able to hear
others' opinions respectfully? Also, how well are they integrating these additional texts into the novel
that they are currently reading?
Collaborative Paper Rubric
An “A” paper will address each of these questions. As you review this rubric, you should be able to
answer “yes” to each of these issues. If you are unsure whether your paper meets these requirements,
it means you should do some revisions or your grade may go down. If you address most of these things,
you will receive a “B,” and if you address half or less of these issues, you will receive a “C” or lower,
depending on how much of these requirements you meet with your paper.
Use of Sources:
Does the paper show a range of sources? Are there references to the sources for each piece of
information that was taken from an outside source? Did you choose useful information from the
source and pick out the most unbiased pieces of information? Is all of your information true to
the source, without adding any of your own bias?
_______ 10 points
Relevance to the Topic:
Does the paper stay on topic? Is the information included in the paper taken directly from the
source? Is all of the information used in a way that explains the topic to the reader?
_______ 10 points
Writing Style:
Is the paper well organized, from beginning to end? Is there a clear introduction, body with
separate paragraphs, and conclusion? Does it flow and make sense, and does it show that the
writers thought through the information carefully?
_______ 10 points
Mechanics:
Are sentence structures used correctly, and are they varied? Is grammar used properly? Is the
paper free of run-on sentences, capitalization errors, subject-verb agreement errors, etc.? Does
the paper meet the required length (2-3 pages)? Do you have a bibliography of the sources that
you used?
_______ 10 points
I Have a Dream - Address at March on Washington
August 28, 1963. Washington, D.C.
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the
greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
[Applause]
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the
Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to
millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a
joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.
But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One
hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation
and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of
poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is
still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So
we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our
republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the declaration of Independence,
they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a
promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of
color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro
people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe
that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the
great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will
give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this
hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the
luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from
the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to
open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the
quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the
determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not
pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an
end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be
content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be
neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The
whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of
justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which
leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty
of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of
bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not
allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to
the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy
which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for
many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that
their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can
never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in
the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the
Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long
as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for
which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down
like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of
you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for
freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police
brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that
unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back
to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will
be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I
still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of
former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat
of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged
by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping
with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little
black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and
walk together as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made
low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the
glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able
to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to
transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this
faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together,
to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My
country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the
pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the
prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New
York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let
freedom ring.
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every
state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men
and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing
in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are
free at last!"
License granted by Intellectual Properties Management, Atlanta, GA as exclusive Licensor of the
Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr.
http://www.mlkonline.net/dream.html
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
[Previous Topic] [Next Topic] [Up]
[Table of Contents] [Citation Guide] [Feedback] [Search] [Home] [Help!]
"My feets is weary, but my soul is rested."
-- Mother Pollard [1]
The Montgomery Bus Boycott officially started on December 1, 1955. That was the day when
the blacks of Montgomery, Alabama, decided that they would boycott the city buses until they
could sit anywhere they wanted, instead of being relegated to the back when a white boarded. It
was not, however, the day that the movement to desegregate the buses started. Perhaps the
movement started on the day in 1943 when a black seamstress named Rosa Parks paid her bus
fare and then watched the bus drive off as she tried to re-enter through the rear door, as the driver
had told her to do. Perhaps the movement started on the day in 1949 when a black professor Jo
Ann Robinson absentmindedly sat at the front of a nearly empty bus, then ran off in tears when
the bus driver screamed at her for doing so. Perhaps the movement started on the day in the early
1950s when a black pastor named Vernon Johns tried to get other blacks to leave a bus in protest
after he was forced to give up his seat to a white man, only to have them tell him, "You ought to
knowed better." [2] The story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott is often told as a simple, happy
tale of the "little people" triumphing over the seemingly insurmountable forces of evil. The truth
is a little less romantic and a little more complex.
The simple version of the story leaves out some very important people, such as Jo Ann
Robinson, of whom Martin Luther King, Jr., would later write, "Apparently indefatigable, she,
perhaps more than any other person, was active on every level of the protest." [3] She was an
educated woman, a professor at the all-black Alabama State College, and a member of the
Women's Political Council in Montgomery. After her traumatic experience on the bus in 1949,
she tried to start a protest but was shocked when other Women's Political Council members
brushed off the incident as "a fact of life in Montgomery." After the Supreme Court's Brown
decision in 1954, she wrote a letter to the mayor of Montgomery, W.A. Gayle, saying that "there
has been talk from 25 or more local organizations of planning a city-wide boycott of buses." By
1955, the Women's Political Council had plans for just such a boycott. Community leaders were
just waiting for the right person to be arrested, a person who would anger the black community
into action, who would agree to test the segregation laws in court, and who, most importantly,
was "above reproach." When fifteen year old Claudette Colvin was arrested early in 1955 for
refusing to give up her seat, E.D. Nixon of the NAACP thought he had found the perfect person,
but Colvin turned out to be pregnant. Nixon later explained, "I had to be sure that I had
somebody I could win with." [4] Enter Rosa Parks.
Rosa Parks is probably the most romanticized personage in the Montgomery cast of characters.
She is often portrayed as a simple seamstress who, exhausted after a long day at work, refused to
give up her seat to a white person. While this is not untrue, there is more to the story. Parks was
educated; she had attended the laboratory school at Alabama State College because there was no
high school for blacks in Montgomery at that time, but had decided to become a seamstress
because she could not find a job to suit her skills. She was also a long-time NAACP worker who
had taken a special interest in Claudette Colvin's case. When she was arrested in December 1955,
she had recently completed a workshop on race relations at the Highlander Folk School in
Monteagle, Tennessee. And she was a well-respected woman with a spotless record.
On Thursday, December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks boarded a city bus and sat with three other blacks
in the fifth row, the first row that blacks could occupy. A few stops later, the front four rows
were filled with whites, and one white man was left standing. According to law, blacks and
whites could not occupy the same row, so the bus driver asked all four of the blacks seated in the
fifth row to move. Three complied, but Parks refused. She was arrested.
When E.D. Nixon heard that Parks had been arrested, he called the police to find out why. He
was told that it was "[n]one of your damn business." He asked Clifford Durr, a sympathetic white
lawyer, to call. Durr easily found out that Parks had been arrested for refusing to give up her seat
on a bus. [5] Nixon went to the jail and posted bond for Parks. Then he told her, "Mrs. Parks,
with your permission we can break down segregation on the bus with your case." [6] She talked
it over with her husband and her mother, then agreed.
That night, Jo Ann Robinson put plans for a one-day boycott into action. She mimeographed
handouts urging blacks to stay off the city buses on Monday, when Parks' case was due to come
up. She and her students distributed the anonymous fliers throughout Montgomery on Friday
morning. That evening, a group of ministers and civil rights leaders had a meeting to discuss the
boycott. It did not go well. Many ministers were put off by the way Rev. L. Roy Bennett took
control of the meeting. Some left and others were about to leave. [7] Those remaining, however,
agreed to spread word of the boycott through their sermons on Sunday, then meet again on
Monday night if the boycott went well to decide whether or not to continue it. [8]
Martin Luther King, Jr., minister at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, thought that "if we could get
60 percent cooperation the protest would be a success." He was pleasantly surprised when bus
after empty bus rolled past his house that morning. "A miracle had taken place," King would
later write. "The once dormant and quiescent Negro community was now fully awake." [9] The
group from Friday night met again that afternoon and decided to call themselves the
Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). They elected King as president. The next
decision was whether or not to end the boycott. Some ministers wanted to end it as a one-day
success. Then E.D. Nixon rose to speak:
What's the matter with you people? Here you have been living off the sweat of these
washerwomen all these years and you have never done anything for them. Now you have a
chance to pay them back, and you're too damn scared to stand on your feet and be counted! The
time has come when you men is going to have to learn to be grown men or scared boys. [10]
The MIA decided to let the people vote on whether or not to continue the boycott at the mass
meeting that night. There, the decision was unanimous. The boycott would continue.
When the boycott began, no one expected it to last for very long. There had been boycotts of
buses by blacks before, most recently in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1953. A one-day boycott,
followed three months later by a week-long boycott, resulted in buses that were more
desegregated but that still had some seats reserved for whites as well as some for blacks. On
Thursday, December 8, the fourth day of the boycott, King and other MIA officials met with
officials and lawyers from the bus company, as well as the city commissioners, to present a
moderate desegregation plan similar to the one already implemented in Baton Rouge and other
Southern cities, including Mobile, Alabama. The MIA was hopeful that the plan would be
accepted and the boycott would end, but the bus company refused to consider it. In addition, city
officials struck a blow to the boycott when they announced that any cab driver charging less than
the 45 cent minimum fare would be prosecuted. Since the boycott began, the black cab services
had been charging blacks only 10 cents to ride, the same as the bus fare, but this service would
be no more. Suddenly the MIA was faced with the prospect of having thousands of blacks with
no way to get to work, and with no end to the boycott in sight.
In response, the MIA worked out a "private taxi" plan, under which blacks w ho owned cars
picked up and dropped off blacks who needed rides at designated points. The plan was elaborate
and took a great deal of planning; consequently, the MIA appointed a Transportation Committee
to oversee it. The service worked so well so quickly that even the White Citizens Council (whose
membership doubled during one month of the boycott) had to admit that it moved with "military
precision." [11]
Whites tried to end the boycott in every way possible. One often-used method was to try to
divide the black community. On January 21, 1956, the City Commission met with three nonMIA black ministers and proposed a "compromise," which was basically the system already in
effect. The ministers accepted, and the commission leaked (false) reports to a newspaper that the
boycott was over. The MIA did not even hear of the compromise until a black reporter in the
North who received a wire report phoned to ask if the Montgomery blacks had really settled for
so little. By that time it was Saturday night. On Sunday morning Montgomery newspapers were
going to print the news that the boycott was over and the city's blacks were going to believe it.
To prevent this from happening, some MIA officials went bar-hopping to spread the word that
the stories were a hoax, that the boycott was still on. Later, the black ministers told King that
they hadn't understood the proposal.
When that effort to break up the boycott failed, whites turned to violence. King's home was
bombed on January 30, and Nixon's home was bombed on February 1.
Next, whites turned to the law. On February 21, 89 blacks were indicted under an old law
prohibiting boycotts. King was the first defendant to be tried. As press from around the nation
looked on, King was ordered to pay $500 plus $500 in court costs or spend 386 days in the state
penitentiary.
Whites also tried to break down the "private taxi" system that many blacks relied on as their only
means of transportation to and from work. Some churches had purchased station wagons, usually
called "rolling churches," to be used in the private taxi service. Liability insurance was canceled
four times in four months before King found insurance through a black agent in Atlanta,
underwritten by Lloyd's of London. The police also arrested drivers for minor traffic offenses.
When King dropped by a pickup point to help transport blacks waiting there, he was arrested for
driving thirty miles per hour in a twenty-five mile per hour zone.
Despite all the pressures to end the boycott, blacks continued to stay off the buses. One white bus
driver stopped to let off a lone black man in a black neighborhood. Looking in his rear view
mirror, he saw an old black woman with a cane rushing towards the bus. He opened the door and
said, "You don't have to rush auntie. I'll wait for you." The woman replied, "In the first place, I
ain't your auntie. In the second place, I ain't rushing to get on your bus. I'm jus' trying to catch up
with that nigger who just got off, so I can hit him with this here stick."
By this point, some members of Montgomery's business community were becoming frustrated
with the boycott, which was costing them thousands of dollars because blacks were less likely to
shop in downtown stores. Although they were as opposed to integration as the next white
Montgomery resident, they realized that the boycott was bad for business and therefore wanted
the boycott to end. They formed a group called the Men of Montgomery and tried negotiating
directly with the boycotters. Eventually, however, these discussions broke down, and the boycott
continued.
But blacks had already begun to fight to end the boycott in court. They would no longer settle for
the moderate desegregation plan that they had first proposed. Now, they would accept nothing
less than full integration. The city was fighting a losing battle. The blacks were armed with the
Brown decision, less than two years old, which said that the "separate but equal" doctrine had no
place in public education. Surely it must follow that the doctrine had no place in any public
facilities. In addition, the city was not in the prejudiced local courts but in federal court, where
even a black man could hope to have a fair trial. When the city defended segregation by saying
that integration would lead to violence, Judge Rives asked, "Is it fair to command one man to
surrender his constitutional rights, if they are his constitutional rights, in order to prevent another
man from committing a crime?" [12] The federal court decided 2-1 in favor of the blacks, with
the lone dissent coming from a Southern judge. The city, of course, appealed the ruling, but on
November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal court's ruling, declaring
segregation on buses unconstitutional. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was officially over.
Blacks continued, however, to stay off the city buses until the mandate from the Supreme Court
arrived. During that time, MIA officials tried to prepare blacks as best they could for integrated
buses. But, as Martin Luther King, Jr., noted wryly, "not a single white group would take the
responsibility of preparing the white community." [13]
Blacks returned to the buses on December 21, 1956, over a year after the boycott began. But
their troubles were not over. Snipers shot at buses, forcing the city to suspend bus operations
after 5 P.M. A group tried to start a whites-only bus service. There was also a wave of bombings.
The homes of two black leaders, four Baptists churches, the People's Service Station and Cab
Stand, and the home of another black were all bombed. In addition, an unexploded bomb was
found on King's front porch. Seven white men were arrested for the bombings, and five were
indicted. The first two defendants, Raymond D. York and Sonny Kyle Livingston, were found
not guilty, even though they had signed confessions. The remainder of the bombers were set free
under a compromise that also canceled the cases of blacks arrested under the anti-boycott laws,
although King still had to pay his $500 fine.
The KKK also tried to scare the blacks, but "it seemed to have lost its spell," King wrote.
"...[O]ne cold night a small Negro boy was seen warming his hands at a burning cross." [14] The
violence died down after several prominent whites spoke out against it, and the integration of the
Montgomery buses was ultimately successful.
On January 10 and 11, 1957, ministers from the MIA joined other ministers from around the
South in Atlanta, Georgia. They founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
and elected Martin Luther King, Jr., as president. SCLC would continue to work in various areas
of the South for many years, continuing the nonviolent fight for civil rights started in
Birmingham.
Although the gains of the Montgomery Bus Boycott were small compared with the gains blacks
would later win, the boycott was important start to the movement. The lasting legacy of the
boycott, as Roberta Wright wrote, was that "It helped to launch a 10-year national struggle for
freedom and justice, the Civil Rights Movement, that stimulated others to do the same at home
and abroad." [15]
[Previous Topic] [Next Topic] [Up]
[Table of Contents] [Citation Guide] [Feedback] [Search] [Home] [Help!]
Copyright © 1997 Lisa Cozzens (lisa@www.watson.org ). Please read this before you email me!
URL for this page: http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/montbus.html
Last modified: Mon Jun 29, 1998
http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/montbus.html
30 November 2005
U.S. Marks 50th Anniversary of Montgomery Bus Boycott
Rosa Parks’ bravery sparked a national civil rights movement
Rosa Parks is arrested and fingerprinted by police after refusing to give up her seat on a bus for a white passenger. (© AP
Images)
Washington -- The successful African American boycott of segregated Montgomery, Alabama, buses,
which began with the arrest of Rosa Parks on December 1, 1955, transformed the civil rights cause
into a mass political movement. It demonstrated that African Americans could unite and engage in
disciplined political action, and marked the emergence of Martin Luther King Jr. -- the indispensable
leader who inspired millions, held them to the high moral standard of nonviolent resistance, and built
bridges between Americans of all races, creeds and colors.
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) attorneys, led by such titans as
Howard University Law School Vice Dean Charles Hamilton Houston and future Supreme Court Justice
Thurgood Marshall, were already at work, gradually dismantling the legal basis for racial segregation.
The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision was their greatest success. This landmark Supreme
Court decision declared unconstitutional state statutes that required the segregation of public schools
by race.
Even so, obtaining legal decisions was not the same as getting state and local officials to enforce
them. Nor would this strategy necessarily secure practical legislation guaranteeing civil equality and
voting rights. After Montgomery, the makings of a broad-based civil rights movement would be in
place.
ROSA PARKS KEEPS HER SEAT
"The only tired I was," Rosa Parks would later say of the day that changed her life, "was tired of giving
in." Parks represented both the older style of African-American leadership and the new.
A high-school graduate in an era when diplomas were hard to come by for blacks in the South, Parks
was active in her local NAACP, a registered voter (another privilege held by few Southern blacks) and
a respected figure in Montgomery. In the summer of 1955, she attended an interracial leadership
conference at the Highlander Folk School, a Tennessee institution that trained labor organizers and
desegregation advocates. Parks thus knew of efforts to improve the lot of African-Americans and that
she was well suited to provide a test case should the occasion arise.
When Rosa Parks rode home from work on the afternoon of December 1, 1955, she sat in the first row
of the “colored section” of seats between the “white” and “black rows.” When the white seats filled,
the driver required Parks to give up her seat when another white boarded the bus. Parks refused, and
was thereupon arrested, jailed, and ultimately fined $10, plus $4 in court costs. Parks was 42 years
old; she had crossed the line into direct political action.
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. GAINS PROMINENCE
javascript:;
Keith Davis and his son, Keith Jr., examine the bus in which Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in 1955. (© AP
Images)
An outraged black community formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) to organize a
boycott of the city bus system. Partly to forestall rivalries among local community leaders, citizens
turned to a recent arrival to Montgomery, Martin Luther King Jr., pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist
Church.
In his first speech to MIA, King told the group: “We have no alternative but to protest. For many years
we have shown an amazing patience. We have sometimes given our white brothers the feeling that we
liked the way we were being treated. But we come here tonight to be saved from that patience that
makes us patient with anything less than freedom and justice.”
Under King’s leadership, boycotters organized carpools, while black taxi drivers charged boycotters the
same fare --10 cents -- they would have paid on the bus. By auto, by horse-and-buggy and even
simply by walking, direct, nonviolent political action forced the city to pay a heavy economic price for
its segregationist ways.
It also made a national figure of King, whose powerful presence and unsurpassed oratorical skills drew
publicity for the movement and attracted support from sympathetic whites, especially those in the
North. Even after his house was attacked, and King himself, along with over 100 boycotters, was
arrested for “hindering a bus,” his continued grace and adherence to nonviolent tactics earned respect
for the movement, discredited the segregationists of Montgomery, and launched King to national
prominence as a civil rights champion.
THE LEGAL CHALLENGE
The desegregation of the Montgomery bus system required a combination of Rosa Parks’ personal
initiative and bravery, King’s political leadership and, in the end, an NAACP-style legal effort. Even as
the boycotters braved segregationist opposition, desegregationist attorneys cited the precedent of
Brown v. Board of Education as they challenged the Montgomery bus ordinance in the courts.
In November 1956, the Supreme Court of the United States rejected the city’s final appeal, and the
segregation of Montgomery buses ended, as did the boycott.
As civil rights attorneys scored a victory over legal segregation, the Montgomery bus boycott made a
hero of Rosa Parks, a leader of King, and political actors of thousands of previously disenfranchised
African-Americans. Thus strengthened, the civil rights movement -- sparked by a woman “tired of
giving in,” -- would, after much more struggle, bequeath to us all the legislative triumphs of the
1960s.
For more information on Rosa Parks, who died October 24, 2005, at the age of 92, see "Civil Rights
Catalyst Rosa Parks Dead at 92."
Also see Black History Month.
http://www.america.gov/st/diversityenglish/2005/November/20080225140519liameruoy0.664715.html#ixzz16dbsmj71
MONTGOMERY BUS
BOYCOTT
by Aryn Moulton, Nicole Phillips, Sabrina Styza and Sandy Gonzales
In this web page we will be telling people about the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Rosa Parks,
a black woman, refused to give up her seat to a white man. This triggered the Montgomery
Bus Boycott, which ended bus segregation. This web page is to inform people about the
events of the Bus Boycott. Below is a computer simulation to visually show and give an
understanding of what happened in the Boycott. We all took John Zola's Protest and
Reform History class. With this web page and simulation we would like to share what we
have learned.
HISTORY OF THE MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT
On December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks, a 40 year old black seamstress, was arrested for refusing
to give up her seat to a white man on the bus. "...the only tired I was, was tired of giving
in," says Rosa Parks. She was lso part of an organization, called the NAACP (National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People.) The NAACP played a huge role in
trying to stop segregation. The NAACP was looking for someone that would stand up to the
court system in a test case. Before Rosa Parks was chosen for the test case, there were two
women befor her that were arrested for not giving up their seats, and the NAACP tried to
use them for a test case aswell. Neither of these women proved to be suitable candidates for
the test case that would end segregation. The day Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to
give up her seat, the NAACP knew that she was the perfent test case.
After Rosa Parks was taken to jail and fingerprinted she was allowed one phone call, which
she made to her Reverend, E.B Nixon. He was the president of the NAACP in Montgomery,
Alabama. Nixon called the Washington D.C. NAACP, who decided that they needed to
"move on it today. " The next calls were to Reverend A. Philip Randolph and Reverend
Martin L. King. From there, they decided they were going to hold an eight o'clock meeting
at the local Baptist church in Montgomery. That night, they agreed that they were going to
start the protest on December 5, the day of Rosa Parks' trial. The next day, flyers were
passed out to every black elementary, junior high, and high school in Montgomery, that
announced a protest to be held December 5 in front of the court house. There were also
signs posted on every bus stop, that read, "Don't ride the bus today, don't ride it for
freedom." This was the beginning of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which effected U.S.
history, and specifically rights for blacks, forever.
The protest challenged the policy of bus segregation. On the day of Rosa Parks trial almost
the whole black community did not ride the busses at all. The protest really hurt the bus
systems. More than 66% of the riders on the busses were blacks, therefore, most of the
income for the bus company came from black riders. On the morning of December 5, when
they stopped riding the busses, Coretta King looked out her window and yelled to her
husband, Martin Luther King, that the busses were empty. They both knew that the
Boycott was going to change the way blacks were treated.
The black community did not use violence to protest bus segregation, they used a nonviolent protest. They simply stopped using the bus system to show that they weren't going
to be treated unfairly, by the community , government and bus system. Every week the
black community would meet at the First Baptist Church and have a meeting about the
protest. These gatherings were the inspiration and the backbone of the Boycott.
The white community did not like the protest and tried to stop it many times. The black
people would not fight back when white people would try to start a fight with them, and
this was very powerful. When they would be car pooling to their destinations, cops would
pull them over and say it was against the law to drive an un-authorized taxi. The K.K.K.
would raid through the black neighborhoods and yell and humiliate the black community.
In response, the blacks sat on their porches and all clapped together. The K.K.K. then
turned to violence for intimidation. They bombed Martin Luther King Jr.'s and E.B.
Nixon's house. Then, the police started arresting the blacks for no reason. However, this
did not stop blacks from protesting. They remained non-violent and because of this method
they won in the end.
After 381 days of boycotting the busses they went to the Supreme Court to prove that it
was not legal to segregate blacks from whites on public transportation. Eventually, the
Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to separate people based on their race.
When the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the blacks, they knew it was going to change
their way of life. This victory inspired blacks to challenge other segregation issues all the
way to the Supreme Court. This Boycott ended something horrible and started something
wonderful. They really accomplished a lot. The proof of how things have changed is shown
in the improved rights of black people today. They stopped segregation on busses, and it
gave them a chance to stop segregation in other public establishments. The black
community of Montgomery proved that having a non-violent protest can create positive
change. They provided a starting point in the fight for racial equality.
http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/systems/agentsheets/new-vista/bus-boycott/index.html
The Nobel Peace Prize 1964
Martin Luther King Jr.
The Nobel Peace Prize 1964
Martin Luther King Jr.
Biography
Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther
King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the family's long tenure as pastors of the
Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from 1914 to 1931; his father has served from then until the present, and
from 1960 until his death Martin Luther acted as co-pastor. Martin Luther attended segregated public schools in
Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen; he received the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse
College, a distinguished Negro institution of Atlanta from which both his father and grandfather had graduated. After
three years of theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he was elected president of a
predominantly white senior class, he was awarded the B.D. in 1951. With a fellowship won at Crozer, he enrolled in
graduate studies at Boston University, completing his residence for the doctorate in 1953 and receiving the degree in
1955. In Boston he met and married Coretta Scott, a young woman of uncommon intellectual and artistic attainments.
Two sons and two daughters were born into the family.
In 1954, Martin Luther King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Always a
strong worker for civil rights for members of his race, King was, by this time, a member of the executive committee of
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the leading organization of its kind in the nation. He
was ready, then, early in December, 1955, to accept the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration
of contemporary times in the United States, the bus boycott described by Gunnar Jahn in his presentation speech in
honor of the laureate. The boycott lasted 382 days. On December 21, 1956, after the Supreme Court of the United
States had declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses, Negroes and whites rode the buses as
equals. During these days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, he was subjected to personal
abuse, but at the same time he emerged as a Negro leader of the first rank.
In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to
provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. The ideals for this organization he took from
Christianity; its operational techniques from Gandhi. In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled
over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and
action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. In these years, he led a massive protest in
Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of
conscience. and inspiring his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", a manifesto of the Negro revolution; he planned the
drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters; he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of
250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, "l Have a Dream", he conferred with President John F. Kennedy
and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he was arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least
four times; he was awarded five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and
became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure.
At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. When
notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the
civil rights movement.
On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he
was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated.
Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 1964
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html
Martin Luther King Jr. Biography
original name Michael Luther King, Jr.
( 1929 – 1968 )
(born Jan. 15, 1929, Atlanta, Ga., U.S.—died April 4, 1968, Memphis, Tenn.) Baptist minister and social activist who
led the civil rights movement in the United States from the mid-1950s until his death by assassination in 1968. His
leadership was fundamental to that movement's success in ending the legal segregation of African Americans in the
South and other parts of the United States. King rose to national prominence as head of the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference, which promoted nonviolent tactics, such as the massive March on Washington (1963), to
achieve civil rights. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
Early years
King came from a comfortable middle-class family steeped in the tradition of the Southern black ministry: both his
father and maternal grandfather were Baptist preachers. His parents were college-educated, and King's father had
succeeded his father-in-law as pastor of the prestigious Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. The family lived on
Auburn Avenue, otherwise known as “Sweet Auburn,” the bustling “black Wall Street,” home to some of the country's
largest and most prosperous black businesses and black churches in the years before the civil rights movement.
Young Martin received a solid education and grew up in a loving extended family.
This secure upbringing, however, did not prevent King from experiencing the prejudices then common in the South.
He never forgot the time when, at about age six, one of his white playmates announced that his parents would no
longer allow him to play with King, because the children were now attending segregated schools. Dearest to King in
these early years was his maternal grandmother, whose death in 1941 left him shaken and unstable. Upset because
he had learned of her fatal heart attack while attending a parade without his parents' permission, the 12-year-old King
attempted suicide by jumping from a second-story window.
In 1944, at age 15, King entered Morehouse College in Atlanta under a special wartime program intended to boost
enrollment by admitting promising high-school students like King. Before beginning college, however, King spent the
summer on a tobacco farm in Connecticut; it was his first extended stay away from home and his first substantial
experience of race relations outside the segregated South. He was shocked by how peacefully the races mixed in the
North. “Negroes and whites go [to] the same church,” he noted in a letter to his parents. “I never [thought] that a
person of my race could eat anywhere.” This summer experience in the North only deepened King's growing hatred
of racial segregation.
At Morehouse, King favoured studies in medicine and law, but these were eclipsed in his senior year by a decision to
enter the ministry, as his father had urged. King's mentor at Morehouse was the college president, Benjamin Mays, a
social gospel activist whose rich oratory and progressive ideas had left an indelible imprint on King's father.
Committed to fighting racial inequality, Mays accused the African American community of complacency in the face of
oppression, and he prodded the black church into social action by criticizing its emphasis on the hereafter instead of
the here and now; it was a call to service that was not lost on the teenage King. He graduated from Morehouse in
1948.
King spent the next three years at Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pa., where he became acquainted with
Mohandas Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence as well as with the thought of contemporary Protestant theologians.
He earned a bachelor of divinity degree in 1951. Renowned for his oratorical skills, King was elected president of
Crozer's student body, which was composed almost exclusively of white students. As a professor at Crozer wrote in a
letter of recommendation for King, “The fact that with our student body largely Southern in constitution a colored man
should be elected to and be popular [in] such a position is in itself no mean recommendation.” From Crozer, King
went to Boston University, where, in seeking a firm foundation for his own theological and ethical inclinations, he
studied man's relationship to God and received a doctorate (1955) for a dissertation titled “A Comparison of the
Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman.”
The Montgomery bus boycott
While in Boston, King met Coretta Scott, a native Alabamian who was studying at the New England Conservatory of
Music. They were married in 1953 and had four children. King had been pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
in Montgomery, Ala., slightly more than a year when the city's small group of civil rights advocates decided to contest
racial segregation on that city's public bus system following the incident on Dec. 1, 1955, in which Rosa Parks, an
African American woman, had refused to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger and as a consequence was
arrested for violating the city's segregation law. Activists formed the Montgomery Improvement Association to boycott
the transit system and chose King as their leader. He had the advantage of being a young, well-trained man who was
too new in town to have made enemies; he was generally respected, and it was thought that his family connections
and professional standing would enable him to find another pastorate should the boycott fail.
In his first speech to the group as its president, King declared:
We have no alternative but to protest. For many years we have shown an amazing patience. We have sometimes
given our white brothers the feeling that we liked the way we were being treated. But we come here tonight to be
saved from that patience that makes us patient with anything less than freedom and justice.
These words introduced to the country a fresh voice, a skillful rhetoric, an inspiring personality, and in time a dynamic
new doctrine of civil struggle. Although King's home was dynamited and his family's safety threatened, he continued
to lead the boycott until, one year and a few weeks later, the city's buses were desegregated.
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Recognizing the need for a mass movement to capitalize on the successful Montgomery action, King set about
organizing the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which gave him a base of operation throughout
the South, as well as a national platform from which to speak. King lectured in all parts of the country and discussed
race-related issues with religious and civil rights leaders at home and abroad. In February 1959 he and his party were
warmly received by India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and others; as the result of a brief discussion with
followers of Gandhi about the Gandhian concepts of peaceful noncompliance (satyagraha), King became increasingly
convinced that nonviolent resistance was the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for
freedom. King also looked to Africa for inspiration. “The liberation struggle in Africa has been the greatest single
international influence on American Negro students,” he wrote. “Frequently I hear them say that if their African
brothers can break the bonds of colonialism, surely the American Negro can break Jim Crow.”
In 1960 King and his family moved to his native city of Atlanta, where he became co-pastor with his father of the
Ebenezer Baptist Church. At this post he devoted most of his time to the SCLC and the civil rights movement,
declaring that the “psychological moment has come when a concentrated drive against injustice can bring great,
tangible gains.” His thesis was soon tested as he agreed to support the sit-in demonstrations undertaken by local
black college students. In late October he was arrested with 33 young people protesting segregation at the lunch
counter in an Atlanta department store. Charges were dropped, but King was sentenced to Reidsville State Prison
Farm on the pretext that he had violated his probation on a minor traffic offense committed several months earlier.
The case assumed national proportions, with widespread concern over his safety, outrage at Georgia's flouting of
legal forms, and the failure of Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower to intervene. King was released only upon the intercession
of Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy—an action so widely publicized that it was felt to have
contributed substantially to Kennedy's slender election victory eight days later.
In the years from 1960 to 1965, King's influence reached its zenith. Handsome, eloquent, and doggedly determined,
King quickly caught the attention of the news media, particularly of the producers of that budding medium of social
change—television. He understood the power of television to nationalize and internationalize the struggle for civil
rights, and his well-publicized tactics of active nonviolence (sit-ins, protest marches) aroused the devoted allegiance
of many African Americans and liberal whites in all parts of the country, as well as support from the administrations of
Presidents Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. But there were also notable failures, as in Albany, Ga. (1961–62), when
King and his colleagues failed to achieve their desegregation goals for public parks and other facilities.
The letter from the Birmingham jail
In Birmingham, Ala., in the spring of 1963, King's campaign to end segregation at lunch counters and in hiring
practices drew nationwide attention when police turned dogs and fire hoses on the demonstrators. King was jailed
along with large numbers of his supporters, including hundreds of schoolchildren. His supporters did not, however,
include all the black clergy of Birmingham, and he was strongly opposed by some of the white clergy who had issued
a statement urging African Americans not to support the demonstrations. From the Birmingham jail, King wrote a
letter of great eloquence in which he spelled out his philosophy of nonviolence:
You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?” You are
quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to
create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to
confront the issue.
Near the end of the Birmingham campaign, in an effort to draw together the multiple forces for peaceful change and
to dramatize to the country and to the world the importance of solving the U.S. racial problem, King joined other civil
rights leaders in organizing the historic March on Washington. On Aug. 28, 1963, an interracial assembly of more
than 200,000 gathered peaceably in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial to demand equal justice for all citizens under
the law. Here the crowds were uplifted by the emotional strength and prophetic quality of King's famous “I Have a
Dream” speech, in which he emphasized his faith that all men, someday, would be brothers.
The rising tide of civil rights agitation produced, as King had hoped, a strong effect on national opinion and resulted in
the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, authorizing the federal government to enforce desegregation of public
accommodations and outlawing discrimination in publicly owned facilities, as well as in employment. That eventful
year was climaxed by the award to King of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in December. “I accept this award today
with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind,” said King in his acceptance speech.
“I refuse to accept the idea that the ‘isness' of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for
the eternal ‘oughtness' that forever confronts him.”
Challenges of the final years
The first signs of opposition to King's tactics from within the civil rights movement surfaced during the March 1965
demonstrations in Selma, Ala., which were aimed at dramatizing the need for a federal voting-rights law that would
provide legal support for the enfranchisement of African Americans in the South. King organized an initial march from
Selma to the state capitol building in Montgomery but did not lead it himself. The marchers were turned back by state
troopers with nightsticks and tear gas. He was determined to lead a second march, despite an injunction by a federal
court and efforts from Washington to persuade him to cancel it. Heading a procession of 1,500 marchers, black and
white, he set out across Pettus Bridge outside Selma until the group came to a barricade of state troopers. But,
instead of going on and forcing a confrontation, he led his followers to kneel in prayer and then unexpectedly turned
back. This decision cost King the support of many young radicals who were already faulting him for being too
cautious. The suspicion of an “arrangement” with federal and local authorities—vigorously but not entirely
convincingly denied—clung to the Selma affair. The country was nevertheless aroused, resulting in the passage of
the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Throughout the nation, impatience with the lack of greater substantive progress encouraged the growth of black
militancy. Especially in the slums of the large Northern cities, King's religious philosophy of nonviolence was
increasingly questioned. The rioting in the Watts district of Los Angeles in August 1965 demonstrated the depth of
unrest among urban African Americans. In an effort to meet the challenge of the ghetto, King and his forces initiated a
drive against racial discrimination in Chicago at the beginning of the following year. The chief target was to be
segregation in housing. After a spring and summer of rallies, marches, and demonstrations, an agreement was
signed between the city and a coalition of African Americans, liberals, and labour organizations, calling for various
measures to enforce the existing laws and regulations with respect to housing. But this agreement was to have little
effect; the impression remained that King's Chicago campaign was nullified partly because of the opposition of that
city's powerful mayor, Richard J. Daley, and partly because of the unexpected complexities of Northern racism.
In Illinois and Mississippi alike, King was now being challenged and even publicly derided by young black-power
enthusiasts. Whereas King stood for patience, middle-class respectability, and a measured approach to social
change, the sharp-tongued, blue jean-clad young urban radicals stood for confrontation and immediate change. In the
latter's eyes, the suit-wearing, calm-spoken civil rights leader was irresponsibly passive and old beyond his years
(King was in his 30s)—more a member of the other side of the generation gap than their revolutionary leader.
Malcolm X went so far as to call King's tactics “criminal”: “Concerning nonviolence, it is criminal to teach a man not to
defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.”
In the face of mounting criticism, King broadened his approach to include concerns other than racism. On April 4,
1967, at Riverside Church in New York City and again on the 15th at a mammoth peace rally in that city, he
committed himself irrevocably to opposing U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Once before, in early January 1966,
he had condemned the war, but official outrage from Washington and strenuous opposition within the black
community itself had caused him to relent. He next sought to widen his base by forming a coalition of the poor of all
races that would address itself to economic problems such as poverty and unemployment. It was a version of
populism—seeking to enroll janitors, hospital workers, seasonal labourers, and the destitute of Appalachia, along with
the student militants and pacifist intellectuals. His endeavours along these lines, however, did not engender much
support in any segment of the population.
Meanwhile, the strain and changing dynamics of the civil rights movement had taken a toll on King, especially in the
final months of his life. “I'm frankly tired of marching. I'm tired of going to jail,” he admitted in 1968. “Living every day
under the threat of death, I feel discouraged every now and then and feel my work's in vain, but then the Holy Spirit
revives my soul again.”
King's plans for a Poor People's March to Washington were interrupted in the spring of 1968 by a trip to Memphis,
Tenn., in support of a strike by that city's sanitation workers. In the opinion of many of his followers and biographers,
King seemed to sense his end was near. As King prophetically told a crowd at the Mason Temple Church in Memphis
on April 3, the night before he died, “I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know
tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.” The next day, while standing on the second-story balcony
of the Lorraine Motel, where he and his associates were staying, King was killed by a sniper's bullet. The killing
sparked riots and disturbances in over 100 cities across the country. On March 10, 1969, the accused assassin, a
white man, James Earl Ray, pleaded guilty to the murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison.
Ray later recanted his confession, claiming lawyers had coerced him into confessing and that he was the victim of a
conspiracy. In a surprising turn of events, members of the King family eventually came to Ray's defense. King's son
Dexter met with the reputed assassin in March 1997 and then publicly joined Ray's plea for a reopening of his case.
When Ray died on April 23, 1998, Coretta Scott King declared, “America will never have the benefit of Mr. Ray's trial,
which would have produced new revelations about the assassination…as well as establish the facts concerning Mr.
Ray's innocence.” Although the U.S. government conducted several investigations into the murder of King and each
time concluded that Ray was the sole assassin, the killing remains a matter of controversy.
- David L. Lewis
Historical significance and legacy
In the years after his death, King remained the most widely known African American leader of his era. His stature as
a major historical figure was confirmed by the successful campaign to establish a national holiday in his honour in the
United States and by the building of a King memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C., near the Lincoln Memorial, the
site of his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963. Many states and municipalities have enacted King holidays,
authorized public statues and paintings of him, and named streets, schools, and other entities for him. These efforts
to honour King have focused more on his role as a civil rights advocate than on his controversial speeches, during his
final year, condemning American intervention in Vietnam and calling for the Poor People's Campaign.
The King holiday campaign overcame forceful opposition, with critics citing FBI surveillance files suggesting that King
was an adulterous radical influenced by communists. Although the release of these files during the 1970s under the
Freedom of Information Act fueled the public debate over King's legacy, the extensive archives that now exist
document King's life and thought and have informed numerous serious studies offering balanced and comprehensive
perspectives. Two major books featuring King—David J. Garrow's Bearing the Cross (1986) and Taylor Branch's
Parting the Waters (1988)—won Pulitzer Prizes. Subsequent books and articles reaffirmed King's historical
significance while portraying him as a complex figure: flawed, fallible, and limited in his control over the mass
movements with which he was associated, yet also a visionary leader who was deeply committed to achieving social
justice through nonviolent means.
Although the idea of a King national holiday did not gain significant congressional support until the late 1970s, efforts
to commemorate King's life began almost immediately after his assassination. In 1968 Rep. John Conyers of
Michigan introduced a King holiday bill. The idea gradually began to attract political support once the newly formed
Congressional Black Caucus included the holiday in its reform agenda. Coretta Scott King also played a central role
in building popular support for the King holiday campaign while serving as founding president of the Atlanta-based
Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change (later renamed the King Center), which became one of
the major archives of King's papers.
Despite the overall conservative trend in American politics in the 1980s, which might have been expected to work
against recognition of the efforts of a controversial activist, King holiday advocates gained political support by
portraying him as a symbol of the country's progress in race relations. Musician Stevie Wonder contributed to the
campaign by writing and recording “Happy Birthday,” a popular tribute to King. In 1983 Coretta Scott King and Stevie
Wonder participated in the 20th Anniversary March on Washington, which drew a bigger crowd than the original
march.
After the House and the Senate voted overwhelmingly in favour of the King holiday bill sponsored by Sen. Ted
Kennedy, Pres. Ronald Reagan put aside his initial doubts and signed the legislation on Nov. 3, 1983, establishing
Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, to be celebrated annually on the third Monday in January. Coretta Scott King also
succeeded in gaining congressional approval to establish a King Federal Holiday Commission to plan annual
celebrations, beginning Jan. 20, 1986, that would encourage “Americans to reflect on the principles of racial equality
and nonviolent social change espoused by Dr. King.”
Celebration of the King national holiday did not end contention over King's legacy, but his status as an American icon
became more widely accepted over time. The revelation during the early 1990s that King had plagiarized some of his
academic writings and the occasional controversies involving his heirs did little to undermine recognition of King's
enduring impact on the country. Even before the first King national holiday, members of King's fraternity, Alpha Phi
Alpha, had proposed a permanent memorial in Washington, D.C. By the end of the 20th century, that proposal had
secured governmental approval for the site on the Tidal Basin, near the Mall. In 2000 an international design
competition ended with the selection of a proposal by ROMA Design Group. To build and maintain the memorial, the
Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation eventually raised more than $100 million.
Commemorations of King's life were also held in other countries, and in 2009 a congressional delegation traveled to
India to mark the 50th anniversary of King's pilgrimage to what he called the “Land of Gandhi.”
Assessment
As with the lives of other major historical figures, King's life has been interpreted in new ways by successive
generations of scholars, many of whom have drawn attention to the crucial role of local black leaders in the African
American protest movements of the 1950s and '60s. Recognizing that grassroots activists such as Rosa Parks, Fred
Shuttlesworth, and others prepared the way for King's rise to national prominence, biographers and historians have
questioned the view that Southern black protest movements relied on King's charismatic guidance. Nonetheless,
studies of King continue to acknowledge his distinctive leadership role. For example, though he often downplayed his
contribution to the Montgomery bus boycott, King's inspirational leadership and his speeches helped to transform a
local protest over bus seating into a historically important event. More generally, studies of King have suggested that
his most significant contribution to the modern African American freedom struggle was to link black aspirations to
transcendent, widely shared democratic and Christian ideals. While helping grassroots leaders mobilize African
Americans for sustained mass struggles, he inspired participants to believe that their cause was just and consistent
with traditional American egalitarian values. King also appealed to the consciences of all Americans, thus building
popular support for civil rights reform. His strategy of emphasizing nonviolent protest and interracial cooperation
enabled him to fight effectively against the Southern system of legalized racial segregation and discrimination, but it
also proved inadequate during his final years as he sought to overcome racial and economic problems that were
national in scope.
- Clayborne Carson
Copyright © 1994-2010 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. For more information visit Britannica.com
http://www.biography.com/articles/Martin-Luther-King-Jr.-9365086?part=7
Biography
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a vital figure of the modern era. His lectures and dialogues
stirred the concern and sparked the conscience of a generation. The movements and marches he
led brought significant changes in the fabric of American life through his courage and selfless
devotion. This devotion gave direction to thirteen years of civil rights activities. His charismatic
leadership inspired men and women, young and old, in this nation and around the world.
Dr. King’s concept of “somebodiness,” which symbolized the celebration of human worth and
the conquest of subjugation, gave black and poor people hope and a sense of dignity. His
philosophy of nonviolent direct action, and his strategies for rational and non-destructive social
change, galvanized the conscience of this nation and reordered its priorities. His wisdom, his
words, his actions, his commitment, and his dream for a new way of life are intertwined with the
American experience.
Birth and Family
Martin Luther King, Jr. was born at noon on Tuesday, January 15, 1929 at the family home, 501
Auburn Avenue, N.E., Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Charles Johnson was the attending physician.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was the first son and second child born to the Reverend Martin Luther
King, Sr. and Alberta Williams King. Also born to the Kings were Christine, now Mrs. Isaac
Farris, Sr., and the Reverend Alfred Daniel Williams King. The Reverend A.D. King is now
deceased.
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s maternal grandparents were the Reverend Adam Daniel Williams,
second pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, and Jenny Parks Williams. His paternal grandparents
were James Albert and Delia King, sharecroppers on a farm in Stockbridge, Georgia.
He married Coretta Scott, the younger daughter of Obadiah and Bernice McMurry Scott of
Marion, Alabama, on June 18, 1953. The marriage ceremony took place on the lawn of the
Scott’s home in Marion, Alabama. The Rev. King, Sr. performed the service, with Mrs. Edythe
Bagley, the sister of Coretta Scott King as maid of honor, and the Rev. A.D. King, the brother of
Martin Luther King, Jr., as best man.
Four children were born to Dr. and Mrs. King:
Yolanda Denise (November 17, 1955, Montgomery, Alabama)
Martin Luther III (October 23, 1957, Montgomery, Alabama)
Dexter Scott (January 30, 1961, Atlanta, Georgia)
Bernice Albertine (March 28, 1963, Atlanta, Georgia)
Education
At the age of five, Martin Luther King, Jr. began school, before reaching the legal age of six, at
the Yonge Street Elementary School in Atlanta. When his age was discovered, he was not
permitted to continue in school and did not resume his education until he was six. Following
Yonge School, he was enrolled in David T. Howard Elementary School. He also attended the
Atlanta University Laboratory School and Booker T. Washington High School. Because of his
high scores on the college entrance examinations in his junior year of high school, he advanced
to Morehouse College without formal graduation from Booker T. Washington. Having skipped
both the ninth and twelfth grades, Dr. King entered Morehouse at the age of fifteen.
In 1948, he graduated from Morehouse College with a B.A. degree in Sociology. That fall he
enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. While attending Crozer, he
also studied at the University of Pennsylvania. He was elected President of the Senior Class and
delivered the valedictory address. He won the Peral Plafkner Award as the most outstanding
student, and he received the J. Lewis Crozer Fellowship for graduate study at a university of his
choice. He was awarded a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Crozer in 1951.
In September of 1951, Martin Luther King, Jr. began doctoral studies in Systematic Theology at
Boston University. He also studied at Harvard University. His dissertation, “A Comparison of
the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman,” was
completed in 1955, and the Ph.D. degree was awarded on June 5, 1955.
Honorary Degrees
Dr. King was awarded honorary degrees from various colleges and universities in the United
States and several foreign countries. They include:
Doctor of Humane Letters, Morehouse College
Doctor of Laws, Howard University
Doctor of Divinity, Chicago Theological Seminary
Doctor of Laws, Morgan State University
Doctor of Humanities, Central State University
Doctor of Divinity, Boston University
Doctor of Laws, Lincoln University
Doctor of Laws, University of Bridgeport
Doctor of Civil Laws, Bard College
Doctor of Letters, Keuka College
Doctor of Divinity, Wesleyan College
Doctor of Laws, Jewish Theological Seminary
Doctor of Laws, Yale University
Doctor of Divinity, Springfield College
Doctor of Laws, Hofstra University
Doctor of Humane Letters, Oberlin College
Doctor of Social Science, Amsterdam Free University
Doctor of Divinity, St. Peter’s College
Doctor of Civil Law, University of New Castle, Upon Tyne
Doctor of Laws, Grinnell College
Career
Martin Luther King, Jr. entered the Christian ministry and was ordained in February 1948 at the
age of nineteen at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia. Following his ordination, he
became Assistant Pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church. Upon completion of his studies at Boston
University, he accepted the call of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. He
was the pastor of Dexter Avenue from September 1954 to November 1959, when he resigned to
move to Atlanta to direct the activities of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. From
1960 until his death in 1968, he was co-pastor with his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church.
Dr. King was a pivotal figure in the Civil Rights Movement. He was elected President of the
Montgomery Improvement Association, the organization that was responsible for the successful
Montgomery Bus Boycott from 1955 to 1956 (381 days). He was arrested thirty times for his
participation in civil rights activities. He was a founder and president of the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference from 1957 to 1968. He was also Vice President of the National Sunday
School and Baptist Teaching Union Congress of the National Baptist Convention. He was a
member of several national and local boards of directors and served on the boards of trustees of
numerous institutions and agencies. Dr. King was elected to membership in several learned
societies including the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Awards
Dr. King received numerous awards for his leadership in the Civil Rights Movement. Among
them were the following:
Selected as one of the ten most outstanding personalities of the year by Time Magazine, 1957.
Listed in Who’s Who in America, 1957.
The Spingarn Medal from the NAACP, 1957.
The Russwurm Award from the National Newspaper Publishers, 1957.
The Second Annual Achievement Award from The Guardian Association of the Police
Department of New York, 1958.
Selected as one of the sixteen world leaders who had contributed most to the advancement of
freedom during 1959 by Ling Magazine of New Delhi, India.
Named “Man of the Year,“ by Time Magazine, 1963.
Named “American of the Decade,” by the Laundry, Dry Cleaning, and Die Workers,
International Union, 1963.
The John Dewey Award, from the United Federation of Teachers, 1964.
The John F. Kennedy Award, from the Catholic Interracial Council of Chicago, 1964.
The Nobel Peace Prize, at age 35, the youngest man, second American, and the third black man
to be so honored, 1964.
The Marcus Garvey Prize for Human Rights, presented by the Jamaican Government,
posthumously, 1968.
The Rosa L. Parks award, presented by The Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
posthumously, 1968.
The Aims Field-Wolf Award for his book, Stride Toward Freedom.
The above awards and others, along with numerous citations, are in the Archives of The Martin
Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Inc. in Atlanta, Georgia.
Publications
Although extremely involved with his family, his church, the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, activities for peace and justice, his world travels, and his many speaking
engagements, Dr. King wrote six books and numerous articles. His volumes include:
Stride Toward Freedom, (New York: Harper & Row, 1958). The story of the Montgomery Bus
Boycott.
The Measure of a Man, (Philadelphia: Pilgrim Press, 1959). A selection of sermons.
Why We Can’t Wait, (New York: Harper & Row, 1963). The story of the Birmingham
Campaign.
Strength to Love, (New York: Harper & Row, 1963). A selection of sermons.
Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? (New York: Harper & Row, 1967).
Reflections on the problems of today’s world, the nuclear arms race, etc.
The Trumpet of Conscience, (New York: Harper & Row, 1968). The Massey Lectures.
Sponsored by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. (Posthumously).
Death
Dr. King was shot while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee
on April 4, 1968. Dr. King was in Memphis to help lead sanitation workers in a protest against
low wages and intolerable working conditions. James Earl Ray was arrested in London, England
on June 8, 1968, and returned to Memphis, Tennessee on July 19, 1969 to stand trial for the
assassination of Dr. King. On March 9, 1969, before coming to trial, he entered a guilty plea and
was sentenced to ninety-nine years in the Tennessee State Penitentiary.
On December 8, 1999, a jury of twelve citizens of Memphis, Shelby County, TN concluded in
Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King, III, Bernice King, Dexter Scott King and Yolanda King
Vs. Loyd Jowers and Other Unknown Conspirators that Loyd Jowers and governmental agencies
including the City of Memphis, the State of Tennessee, and the federal government were party to
the conspiracy to assassinate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dr. King’s funeral services were held on April 9, 1968 at Ebenezer Baptist Church and on the
campus of Morehouse College, with the President of the United State proclaiming a day of
mourning and flags being flown at half-staff. The area where Dr. King is entombed is located on
Freedom Plaza and is surrounded by the Freedom Hall Complex of the Martin Luther King, Jr.
Historic Site. The site is a 23-acre area was listed as a National Historic Landmark on May 5,
1977 and was made a National Historic Site on October 10, 1980 by the U.S. Department of the
Interior.
In recent years, events in the lives of the King family have continued to reflect the tragedy and
the triumph so uniquely combined in Dr. King’s own life and is intrinsic, perhaps, in the lives of
all dedicated persons the world over.
Just a little more than a year after Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed, his younger brother, Alfred
Daniel, died in a tragic accident at his home in Atlanta. Funeral services were held at Ebenezer
Baptist Church on July 24, 1969, where Alfred Daniel had served as co-pastor.
On Sunday, June 30, 1974, Mrs. Alberta Williams King, the mother of Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr., was shot and killed as she sat at the organ in the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Again,
through an act of violence, there ended a life that was totally nonviolent, a life that was
thoroughly Christian, a life that reflected love for all persons and unselfish service to humankind.
Again, the indomitable faith of the King family was put to the test, and again love prevailed amid
the greatest sadness. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr., bereft by the violent deaths of his two
sons and now by the equally tragic death of his devoted wife, could still say – and did say – at
her funeral service on July 3, “I cannot hate any man.”
In 1975, the year following his wife’s death, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr. resigned his fortyfour year pastorate at Ebenezer, passing on the active leadership of the church to the young and
inspired Dr. Joseph L. Roberts, Jr. At his retirement banquet on August 1, 1975, however,
“Daddy King” made it clear – as if anyone could have thought otherwise – that his resignation
did not mean his retirement from the full and active life that has described his long career. This
“Giant of a Man,” as he was acclaimed on that memorable evening, continued to work and to
speak and to use the gifts with which the Lord had endowed him in the loving service of others.
Among the Rev. King, Sr.’s many accomplishments is the completion of his one luxury, the
publication of his autobiography, Daddy King. Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr. died on November
11, 1984 of a heart attack at Crawford W. Long Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. He was 84 years
of age. Funeral services were held on November 14, 1984.
Speeches
Dr. King’s speech at the March on Washington in 1963, along with his acceptance speech of the
Nobel Peace Prize, and his final sermon in Memphis are among his most famous utterances. The
following excerpts reveal the cogency, conviction and persuasion of his powerful speaking style.
(From the speech “March on Washington”)
“I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I
still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one
day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed; ‘We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ I have a dream that one day on the red hills of
Georgia, sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down
together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day, even the state of Mississippi, a
state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be
transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.”
“I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged
by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream today¼I have a
dream that one day down in Alabama with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips
dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right there in Alabama, little
black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with the little white boys and white girls as
sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.”
“This hope is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the south with. And with this faith, we
will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able
to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to stand up for freedom together,
knowing that we will be free one day.”
“...And so let freedom ring, from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring
from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of
Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring
from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that. Let freedom ring from Stone
Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring
from every hill and mole hill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring¼And
when we allow freedom to ring – when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from
every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black
men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and
sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty, we are
free at last.”
(From the Acceptance Speech, The Nobel Peace Prize, 1964)
“I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future
of mankind. I refuse to accept the idea that the ‘isness’ of man’s present nature makes him
morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal ‘oughtness’ that forever confronts him. I refuse
to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life unable to influence the
unfolding of events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically
bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and
brotherhood can never become a reality.”
“I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic
stairway into the hell of a thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and
unconditional love will have the final world in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is
stronger that evil triumphant.”
(From the sermon “I’ve Been To the Mountaintop,” April 3, 1968)
“...That’s the question before you tonight. Not, ‘If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will
happen to my job?’ ‘Not, if I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to all of the
hours that I usually spend in my office everyday and every week as a pastor?’ The question is
not, ‘If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?’ The question is, ‘If I do not stop
to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?’ That’s the question.”
“Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And
let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to
be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation. And I want to thank God once
more for allowing me to be here with you.”
“...And they were telling me, now it doesn’t matter now. It really doesn’t matter what happens
now. I left Atlanta this morning, and as we got started on the plane, there were six of us, the pilot
said over the public address system. ‘We are sorry for the delay, but we have Dr. Martin Luther
King on the plane. And to be sure that all of the bags were checked, and to be sure that nothing
would be wrong on the plane, we had to check out everything carefully. And we’ve had the plane
protected and guarded all night.”
“And then I got into Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that
were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?”
“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really
doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop and I don’t mind. Like
anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about
that now. I just want to do God’s will, and He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve
looked over and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to
know tonight, that we as a people will get to the Promised Land. And I’m happy tonight; I’m not
worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming
of the Lord.”
Speeches used by permission of Intellectual Properties Management, Atlanta, Georgia, as
Manager of The King Estate.
Make a Donation | King Holiday | Get Involved | Teachers & Students | Programs & Services
© Copyright 2010 The King Center | site by:
http://www.thekingcenter.org/DrMLKingJr/
The Murder of Emmett Till
[Previous Topic] [Next Topic] [Up]
[Table of Contents] [Citation Guide] [Feedback] [Search] [Home] [Help!]
"Have you ever sent a loved son on vacation and had him returned to you in a pine box, so
horribly battered and water-logged that someone needs to tell you this sickening sight is your
son -- lynched?"
-- Mamie Bradley, mother of Emmett Till [14]
In August 1955, a fourteen year old boy went to visit relatives near Money, Mississippi.
Intelligent and bold, with a slight mischievous streak, Emmett Till had experienced segregation
in his hometown of Chicago, but he was unaccustomed to the severe segregation he encountered
in Mississippi. When he showed some local boys a picture of a white girl who was one of his
friends back home and bragged that she was his girlfriend, one of them said, "Hey, there's a
[white] girl in that store there. I bet you won't go in there and talk to her." [15] Emmett went in
and bought some candy. As he left, he said "Bye baby" to Carolyn Bryant, the wife of the store
owner.
Although they were worried at first about the incident, the boys soon forgot about it. A few days
later, two men came to the cabin of Mose Wright, Emmett's uncle, in the middle of the night.
Roy Bryant, the owner of the store, and J.W. Milam, his brother-in-law, drove off with Emmett.
Three days later, Emmett Till's body was found in the Tallahatchie River. One eye was gouged
out, and his crushed-in head had a bullet in it. The corpse was nearly unrecognizable; Mose
Wright could only positively identify the body as Emmett's because it was wearing an initialed
ring.
At first, local whites as well as blacks were horrified by the crime. Bryant and Milam were
arrested for kidnapping even before Emmett's body was found, and no local white lawyers would
take their case. Newspapers and white officials reported that all "decent" people were disgusted
with the murder and proclaimed that "justice would be done." [16]
The Emmett Till case quickly attracted national attention. Mamie Bradley, Emmett's mother,
asked that the body be shipped back to Chicago. When it arrived, she inspected it carefully to
ensure that it really was her son. Then, she insisted on an open-casket funeral, so that "all the
world [could] see what they did to my son." Over four days, thousands of people saw Emmett's
body. Many more blacks across the country who might not have otherwise heard of the case
were shocked by pictures of the that appeared in Jet magazine. These pictures moved blacks in a
way that nothing else had. When the Cleveland Call and Post polled major black radio preachers
around the country, it found that five of every six were preaching about Emmett Till, and half of
them were demanding that "something be done in Mississippi now." [17]
Whites in Mississippi resented the Northern criticism of the "barbarity of segregation" and the
NAACP's labeling of the murder as a lynching. [18] Five prominent lawyers stepped forward to
defend Milam and Bryant, and officials who had at first denounced the murder began supporting
the accused murderers. The two men went on trial in a segregated courthouse in Sumner,
Mississippi on September 19, 1955.
The prosecution had trouble finding witnesses willing to testify against the two men. At that time
in Mississippi, it was unheard of for a black to publicly accuse a white of committing a crime.
Finally, Emmett's sixty-four year old uncle Mose Wright stepped forward. When asked if he
could point out the men who had taken his nephew that dark summer night, he stood, pointed to
Milam and Bryant, and said "Dar he" -- "There he is." Wright's bravery encouraged other blacks
to testify against the two defendants. All had to be hurried out of the state after their testimony.
In the end, however, even the incredible courage of these blacks did not make a difference.
Defense attorney John C. Whitten told the jurors in his closing statement, "Your fathers will turn
over in their graves if [Milam and Bryant are found guilty] and I'm sure that every last AngloSaxon one of you has the courage to free these men in the face of that [outside] pressure." The
jurors listened to him. They deliberated for just over an hour, then returned a "not guilty" verdict
on September 23rd, the 166th anniversary of the signing of the Bill of Rights. The jury foreman
later explained, "I feel the state failed to prove the identity of the body." [19]
The impact of the Emmett Till case on black America was even greater than that of the Brown
decision. For the first time, northern blacks saw that violence against blacks in the South could
affect them in the North. In Mamie Bradley's words, "Two months ago I had a nice apartment in
Chicago. I had a good job. I had a son. When something happened to the Negroes in the South I
said, `That's their business, not mine.' Now I know how wrong. I was. The murder of my son has
shown me that what happens to any of us, anywhere in the world, had better be the business of us
all." [20] Blacks, in the North as well as in the South, would not easily forget the murder of
Emmett Till.
[Previous Topic] [Next Topic] [Up]
[Table of Contents] [Citation Guide] [Feedback] [Search] [Home] [Help!]
Copyright © 1997 Lisa Cozzens (lisa@www.watson.org ). Please read this before you email me!
URL for this page: http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/early-civilrights/emmett.html
Last modified: Mon Jun 29, 1998
http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/early-civilrights/emmett.html
Emmett Till
(born July 25, 1941, Chicago, Ill., U.S.—died Aug. 28, 1955, Money, Miss.) African American teenager whose murder
catalyzed the emerging civil rights movement.
Till was born to working-class parents on the South Side of Chicago. When he was barely 14 years old, Till took a trip
to rural Mississippi to spend the summer with relatives. He had been warned by his mother (who knew him to be a
jokester accustomed to being the centre of attention) that whites in the South could react violently to behaviour that
was tolerated in the North. This animosity was exacerbated by the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 decision (in Brown v.
Board of Education of Topeka ), which overturned the “separate but equal” doctrine established in Plessy v. Ferguson
(1896) that allowed racial segregation in public facilities.
Till arrived in Money, Miss., on Aug. 21, 1955. He stayed with his great-uncle, Moses Wright, who was a
sharecropper, and he spent his days helping with the cotton harvest. On August 24, Till and a group of other teens
went to a local grocery store after a day of working in the fields. Accounts of what transpired thereafter vary. Some
witnesses stated that one of the other boys dared Till to talk to the store's cashier, Carolyn Bryant, a white woman. It
was reported that Till then whistled at, touched the hand or waist of, or flirted with the woman as he was leaving the
store. Whatever the truth, Till did not mention the incident to his great-uncle. In the early morning hours of August 28,
Roy Bryant, the cashier's husband, and J.W. Milam, Bryant's half brother, forced their way into Wright's home and
abducted Till at gunpoint. Bryant and Milam severely beat the boy, gouging out one of his eyes. They then took him to
the banks of the Tallahatchie River, where they killed him with a single gunshot to the head. The two men tied the
teen's body to a large metal fan with a length of barbed wire before dumping the corpse into the river.
Wright reported the kidnapping to the police, and Bryant and Milam were arrested the following day. On Aug. 31,
1955, Till's corpse was discovered in the river. His face was unrecognizable as a result of the assault, and positive
identification was possible only because Till was wearing a monogrammed ring that had belonged to his father. On
September 2, less than two weeks after Till had embarked on his journey south, the train bearing his remains arrived
in Chicago. Till's mother kept her son's casket open, choosing to reveal to the tens of thousands who attended the
funeral the brutality that had been visited on her son. The appalling images of Till's body in the casket appeared in
the pages of Jet magazine and the Chicago Defender , and his murder became a rallying point for the civil rights
movement.
The trial of Till's killers began on Sept. 19, 1955, and from the witness stand Wright identified the men who had
kidnapped Till. After four days of testimony and a little more than an hour of deliberation an all-white, all-male jury (at
the time, blacks and women were not allowed to serve as jurors in Mississippi) acquitted Bryant and Milam of all
charges. Protected from further prosecution by double jeopardy statutes, the pair was paid for the story and
interviewed by their lawyer and a journalist in a 1956 article for Look magazine in which they related the
circumstances of Till's kidnapping and murder. In 2004 the Federal Bureau of Investigation reopened the case.
Although Bryant and Milam were long dead, agents sought to obtain a conclusive account of Till's final hours. The
three-year investigation, during which Till's body was exhumed for a complete autopsy, did not lead to the filing of
criminal charges, but it did uncover a deathbed confession by Milam's brother Leslie, who admitted his own
involvement in the kidnapping and murder.
Copyright © 1994-2009 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. For more information visit Britannica.com.
Lesson Plan 5
English Education
Pre-Service Teacher Information
Name: Kristin Chang (Katie Fuchs, Meredith Molnar)
Course: English 319: Introduction to English Education Methods
Unit of which this lesson is a part (if applicable): One Person CAN Make a Difference
Lesson Background Information
Grade Level: 9th Grade High School Students
Learning Goal: Students will explore their thoughts and opinions of the text through their
journal entries in order to start organizing their ideas into coherent statements and will then
discuss their findings with classmates so that they will realize that people’s opinions can differ
and still be valid.
Necessary Materials: Journals
Lesson
1.
Start the class with a review of what happened in the first three chapters of To Kill a
Mockingbird and a couple of main ideas that were focused on in that discussion. This is not a
time for discussion, but rather a mini lecture for the teacher to recap what was talked about and
refresh students’ memories. This way is quicker and easier than having the whole discussion
over again and gives a clear cut distinction for the students between discussion time, when
students are able to state their opinions with no “right” answer, and lecture time, when the
teacher talks and relays information to the students. For some ideas that were brought up in the
last discussion session (Wednesday), look at the Lesson Plan for Day Three which was created
by Meredith Molnar. A few details in chapters one through three that could be mentioned are:
the introduction to the setting of Maycomb county, the characters Scout, Jem, Dill, and Atticus,
other characters like Boo Radley, Scout’s eventful first day of school, taking Walter home to
dinner, the Burris Ewell incident, and Scout making a pact with Atticus to keep reading. This
should take about five minutes.
2.
Next, have students pull out their journals that they started on Wednesday. Remind them
that this space is for them to write and not worry about judgments from others or grammar.
What is important is that the get their ideas and feelings written out on paper so they can see the
way in which they think and then begin to organize their opinions into rationally thought out
statements. Today, they are to write in their journals for ten minutes about the first discussion
question which is: On page 45 of the text, Scout asks Miss Maudie if the rumors about Boo
Radley are true to which she responds, “That is three-fourths colored folks and one-fourth
Stephanie Crawford.” Do you think Scout is affected by her opinion? This is not only a yes or
no question! You need to say WHY and provide support and examples from the text in your
answer. This question makes the students look at their own feelings toward Miss Maudie, Scout,
and Boo and then articulate them with writing. Write this question on the board so the students
can consider it while writing in their journals.
3.
Form small groups for the students to get into and discuss other questions. Make sure
that the ELL students are with the students who are able to translate and help them talk. Before
they move to their small groups, give them another discussion question to discuss. Start by
explaining what they have been learning about over the past few days such as how one person,
no matter who they are, is able to make a difference in some way. Remind them of Harper Lee
and how this book helped start the Civil Rights Movement. Now ask: How has Dill affected the
lives of Scout and Jem? How has Miss Maudie influenced the three of them? What affect do
you think Boo Radley has on the children? This question will start them thinking of how
individuals of the book interact with one another and change other characters’ opinions. They
will then have a concrete example of how others, like their classmates, can influence their
feelings. Also, the question serves to get them thinking on how a single person can become
important in the minds of others such as Dill becomes a necessity of summertime to Jem and
Scout. Tell them to discuss their journal entry response to the first discussion question as well.
Have students jot down notes of what they talked about in order to share it with others later.
Give the students 15 minutes to talk about this in their groups. Walk around the room to make
sure the students stay focused. Help the ELL students if needed, clarify points for students,
answer any questions they ask, make sure everyone in the group has the chance to participate.
4.
Have the student stop discussing but stay in their groups. The small groups will then
present to the class, informally, what sort of opinions and ideas came up in each group. The
groups can have a spokesperson or they can all contribute. Before moving on, other groups will
be asked to comment or ask questions of the items brought up by the specific group who shared.
The teacher should ask if anyone disagrees with the group’s collaborative thoughts. If someone
does, ask why and tell them to give evidence. If no one raises their hands or speaks, then ask
who agrees with the group. Then ask them why and to provide support from the text, from
personal experience, or from their own group’s discussion. This will bridge into another group’s
collaborative response. If it does not, the teacher should interject with a comment and bridge
that into another group so as to give everyone a chance to present their ideas. This discussion
will take the rest of the class period which is 15 minutes.
Assessment
While students are in small groups walk around the room and make sure to hear the
conversations going on in each group. This is an informal assessment of their level of
comprehension of the text. Also, this assessment will show the teacher what students need more
help and what students would be able to give that help for future groups. The teacher is also
prepared for what the students will talk about during the whole group discussion and will be
ready with appropriate comments about each group’s ideas. The teacher will see if the students
are working collaboratively in a group to construct a broader meaning or if they are stuck just
sharing their own opinions.
The journal entries are to be read by the teacher after class. This is another informal assessment
so the teacher may see if the students are organizing their thoughts and if they have improved
from their first journal entry.
Lesson Plan 6
English Education
Pre-Service Teacher Information
Name: Kristin Chang (Katie Fuchs, Meredith Molnar)
Course: English 319: Introduction to English Education Methods
Unit of which this lesson is a part (if applicable): One Person CAN Make a Difference
Lesson Background Information
Grade Level: 9th Grade High School Students
Learning Goal: Students will continue to organize their thoughts in their journals without fear
of being judged in order to build their confidence level and allow them to experiment with their
writing and their opinions. Students will have time to work collaboratively on their papers and
learn how to compromise and incorporate different ideas from all group members into the
project.
Necessary Materials: Journals, Paper materials,
Lesson
1.
Start the class with students writing in their journals. Give the students an initial question
to think about and then tell them that if they want to explore other ideas about the book or
questions and write those in their journals, they may do so, but only after they have responded to
the discussion question to the best of their ability. The discussion question for To Kill a
Mockingbird reading is: Jem loses his pants in the Radley yard trying to see into the house.
Later, he tells Scout that he has to go back to get them because, “Atticus ain’t ever whipped me
since I can remember. I wanta keep it that way” (56). Why does Jem want to keep his father’s
good opinion of him? How has Atticus affected Jem so that he does not want to disappoint him?
Write the question on the board so students can refer to it while writing. Let the students write
quietly for 10 minutes.
2.
Tell students that their group is to talk about and start analyzing the materials given to
them on their topic. Students must pick what information will be most relevant to what they
want to write in their paper. Walk around the room and make sure students are on task. Help
with questions or comments. Watch the ELL students so that they do not fall behind or are left
out. Push students to realize that other people’s opinions are just as noteworthy as their own by
making comments about how to combine two ideas or to try to include one that got thrown out
initially. Also encourage the students to realize that collaborative work helps them to think more
critically because they must consider thoughts that differ from their own, and then either decide
to incorporate that into a new definition or discard it because of lack of evidence. The teacher
can do this by modeling. When the teacher overhears a new idea, she can step in and think out
loud about how that does not fit with what her normal opinion. She should state her initial
viewpoint and then go on to say something such as, it makes sense in this context or with this
example, and therefore, my understanding would change to this. State the new, more complex,
viewpoint. Students will then have an idea on how to work together and create new meaning
from different opinions. Students will have 10 minutes to collaboratively pick out the
information that they view is the most important.
3.
Next, have the students remain in their small groups. Tell them each to pick a different
fact that they pulled from the texts. Tell them to write why they think it is important to the issue
that they are dealing with and give them 3 minutes to write. Now, tell the students to exchange
only the facts and write about why a different fact is important to their paper for 3 minutes.
Have the students do this until all group members have written about each others’ facts. This
should take 12 minutes.
4.
Direct the small groups to discuss their answers. Tell them to look for similarities and
differences and ultimately decide which one is best or if their answers should be combined in
some way. Have the students write out the new assessments of the facts based off of their
collaborative discussion and decisions. Their collaborative assessment should be organized in a
rational fashion and made to look like a paper. This will serve as a rough draft for the students if
no more class time is allotted to work on their papers. This activity will take the rest of the
period which is about 13 minutes.
Assessment
When walking around the room, informally assess students’ progress on their collaborative
paper. Look for students identifying facts from the text that are relevant and working together to
combine ideas to form a new understanding of a topic. If students are not doing this, the teacher
can step in as stated in the second step of the lesson and provide a model for the students.
An informal assessment of journal entries will also be made when the teacher reads students’
thoughts. The teacher should look for extra comments that the students made, or a particularly
thought out answer to the discussion question as signs of improvement. Improvement can also
be measured through looking at past journal entries. The teacher can write encouraging
comments to the students and constructive feedback. This will give students a bit of scaffolding
in their journal entries because they will be provided with suggestions from the teacher as a base
of how to set up their thinking. The journals are also an informal assessment for the teacher to
see if the students are reading the text and/or if they understand what is happening in the book.
Lesson Plan 7
English Education
Pre-Service Teacher Information
Name: Kristin Chang (Katie Fuchs, Meredith Molnar)
Course: English 319: Introduction to English Education Methods
Unit of which this lesson is a part (if applicable): One Person CAN Make a Difference
Lesson Background Information
Grade Level: 9th Grade High School Students
Learning Goal: Students will learn about someone around their own age who made an impact
in the Civil Rights Movement.
Necessary Materials: Handout of excerpt from the Claudette Colvin book, YouTube videos
Lesson
1.
The teacher will start class off with a YouTube video of Rosa Parks. This will connect
the students to someone famous from the Civil Rights Movement that they may already know
about. The link is, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4OTdlXN66Y. The teacher will then
ask the class to raise their hands if they had previously known of Rosa Parks. Answers may
vary. This will take about 3 minutes.
2.
The teacher will then ask if anyone has heard of a person called Claudette Colvin.
Answers may vary but probably most of the students have not heard of her. The teacher will
review the YouTube clip and say that Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give her bus seat to
a white person on December 1, 1955. The teacher will go on to ask the students how many
people would have done what Rosa Parks did. Answers will vary. Go on to say that a student
just like them did refuse to give up her bus seat nine months before Rosa Parks on March 2,
1955. Her name was Claudette Colvin, a fifteen year old girl stood up for what she believed in.
The teacher will go on to say that Claudette’s action was instrumental in sparking the Civil
Rights Movement. This statement will make the students readjust their original schema of the
beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, of Rosa Parks, and of the age which it takes to do
something important. This will take about 2 minutes.
3.
The teacher will then handout the sheets with the excerpts from the Claudette Colvin
book. Students will have 15 minutes to quietly read the handout. The teacher will be at the front
of the room to watch the class and go to anyone with a question or who is confused. She will
also make sure that students are reading quietly and staying focused on the task.
4.
After students have read, go into a large group and take some polls on what they read.
Ask the students if they caught what age Claudette was when she was arrested. They should
respond with fifteen. Now, take a poll of the class and ask how many students are 13, 14, 15,
and 16. Answers will vary, but most should be around 14 or 15. Ask the class to look at those
numbers and compare their own age to Claudette’s silently. Now take a poll on how many
people ride the bus to school, walk, ride a bike, get a ride, or drive. Answers will vary. Most of
the students will probably ride the bus. This will take about 5 minutes.
5.
Now go into a large group discussion based off of the handout they read and the polls that
were just taken. Ask the students this question. What would you do if someone came up to you
on the bus and tried to force you to give up your seat? Give them think-time, but if no one
responds within a reasonable amount of time, then give them some options such as not give up
the seat, give up the seat, say no, start to cry, complain, or get your friends to back you up. Now
ask, how would you feel if you got a detention for not giving up your seat on the bus? Again,
give them a chance to respond, but if they do not then give some options such as angry, sad,
indignant, unfair, or defiant. Now when students respond with specific emotions, ask them to
elaborate. Why would you feel angry, sad, etc.? If they are struggling, ask others to help them
out. If needed provide suggestions such as because it was unfair, because someone else got my
seat, because I’m just as good as they are, or because they were being mean. Make sure that the
students are not only responding to the teacher but to each other as well. This should take about
15 minutes.
6.
After the group discussion, have the students pull out a sheet of paper and write down
something from today’s class. Tell them it can be anything from a fact they learned, something
about the discussion, something they thought was interesting, or anything that they learned about
in class that they want to share. Tell them to make it at least three sentences long. Have them
turn their write ups in at the end of class. This should take about 5 minutes.
Assessment
The teacher will informally assess the students and how they are making connections to the text,
the YouTube clip, the polls, or their lives in the large group discussion. This assessment will tell
the teacher if she needs to provide more instructions or help the students more with the
discussion questions. She would be able to do this by giving them choices to start out with in
order to provide more scaffolding for the students. As the conversation starts to pick up, she can
slowly withdraw her voice and let the students take over while giving helpful comments such as
repeating what someone said, asking if the class agrees with the student’s statement, or posing
other questions like why do you feel that way?
The writing that the students do at the end of class will also be an informal assessment as to what
the students learned in class. The teacher will read over these afterwards in order to see if the
students connected themselves to Claudette or realized that she was an example for their age
group etc. The teacher will also gain the knowledge on how much each student comprehends the
Claudette Colvin text and can make plans to either clarify or move on in the next lesson that
deals with this text.
Lesson Plan 8
English Education
Pre-Service Teacher Information
Name: Kristin Chang (Katie Fuchs, Meredith Molnar)
Course: English 319: Introduction to English Education Methods
Unit of which this lesson is a part (if applicable): One Person CAN Make a Difference
Lesson Background Information
Grade Level: 9th Grade High School Students
Learning Goal: Students will continue discussing Claudette Colvin and make connections to
TKM and the YouTube links in order to understand the impact that one person can have on
others.
Necessary Materials: Journal, Handout sheet of Claudette Colvin book excerpt, YouTube links,
1st Draft of Collaborative Paper due (one copy for the teacher)
Lesson
1.
Start the class off by having students write in their journals. Tell students that they are to
write about this question. In this part of the book, Jem and Scout find out that Atticus is the best
shot in town. Later on, Atticus makes Jem go read to Mrs. Dubose, a mean old lady. She dies
right after and Atticus tells Jem, “I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the
idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you
begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what” (112). How does this tie in
with Mrs. Dubose and why does she have “real courage” as Atticus puts it? Give the students 10
minutes to write in their journals and remind them that the teacher is not searching for a right
answer, but only their opinion and support from the text or their experiences.
2.
Now have the class watch a YouTube clip about Claudette Colvin. The link for the clip
is, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ir28CMKRQY. After they watch, have students
participate in a large group discussion by asking the students how they felt about this clip. Their
feelings might include pride because of their age similarity, anger at the people who believed that
segregation was right, or they might not care or know what they think. Also, ask them, what do
you think this YouTube video was trying to portray? What is its main theme? The teacher may
get answers such as, how people stood up for what they believed in, that the Civil Rights
Movement started with Colvin and not Rosa Parks, that even children can make a difference in
society or change rules or laws that have been in place for a long time, or they might not know
what to say. If needed, the teacher can help the students by asking them to expand on why they
feel a particular emotion or ask them to tell what evidence they heard in the video to support the
theme that they chose. This should take about 10 minutes.
3.
Now hand out the next sheet with the Colvin excerpt. Have the students read quietly for
ten minutes. Then tell them to think about these questions as they’re reading. How does this
make you feel? Would you have been able to testify like Claudette did?
4.
Now watch the second YouTube clip and ask them to think about these questions as they
watch. What does this video make you feel? Is Claudette inspiring? What do you think of her
advice at the end of the piece? The link for the clip is, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOpqtdd8nw&feature=related. After watching the clip, discuss the questions that the students
were to think about. Ask them if they have ever been in a situation where they had to stand up
for what they believed in. Also ask if what Claudette did was comparable to what Scout did
when she stood up to the mob. Compare and contrast. This discussion will go to the end of
class. This should take about 15 minutes.
5.
Collect the 1st draft of the collaborative papers from each small group at the end of class.
Assessment
Students will be informally assessed on their journal entries. The teacher is to read the entries to
make sure that the students are starting to make connections to the text and understand the
overall idea that one person can make a difference.
The large discussion throughout the class about the Colvin excerpt and the YouTube videos will
also serve as informal assessments for the teacher to deduce if the students understand the
concept of one person impacting others. The teacher may also look for evidence that the
students are making connections and thinking about others’ opinions and either incorporating
them into their own or not accepting them because of evidence that they provide. This is also a
good chance for the teacher to see how students have developed in interacting with their peers.
Lesson Plan 9
English Education
Pre-Service Teacher Information
Name: Kristin Chang (Katie Fuchs, Meredith Molnar)
Course: English 319: Introduction to English Education Methods
Unit of which this lesson is a part (if applicable): One Person CAN Make a Difference
Lesson Background Information
Grade Level: 9th Grade High School Students
Learning Goal: Students will receive teacher feedback on how to improve their collaborative
papers in order to strengthen their understanding of how to pull information together to make it
coherent and unbiased. Students will continue to work collaboratively to create new meanings
with their writing so that their points are clearer and no trace of bias can be found. Students will
also learn that writing is not only done once, but is a process of writing and revising.
Necessary Materials: 1st Draft Paper with comments that teacher will hand back to students
Lesson
1.
The teacher will have read the 1st drafts the previous night and made comments and
suggestions on the papers as to what the group is doing well and what they should work on for
revisions. The teacher will look for evidence of bias in the writing and the organization of the
piece. She won’t judge on a rigid format, but rather how the evidence is organized and if it is
presented clearly.
2.
The teacher will tell the students that she will call groups up in order to give feedback.
Each session should be about 5 minutes long. She will hand back their papers and call them up
one by one. While she is conferencing with one group, all other small groups must get together
and go through the teacher’s comments and suggestions. Groups must brainstorm how to
include the suggestions of the teacher in order to change their writing. Students are to keep a
record of what their group talks about and any disagreements or resolutions that they come to.
This will be handed in at the end of class. Instructions and handing back papers to students
should take about 2 minutes.
3.
The teacher will then start to call up the groups and will discuss the good writing
techniques that the students are using along with what they need to improve on in terms of
opinions biasing the paper and clarity. Answer any questions that the students may have. After
a group receives their constructive feedback, they are to go and discuss what they can do in order
to revise the piece, like the other groups are doing. They should discuss and make changes as
well. This revising process will take the rest of the period which is about 43 minutes.
Assessment
Journals again will be informally assessed to see if students are making connections between the
TKM text and other texts that have been presented in class or their own experiences. The
specific question for today will show how far students are in first comprehending the text, and
second in how a person can make a difference to themselves, such as Mrs. Dubose did. This is
also a way to assess whether the students have read the assigned chapters.
Students will also be informally assessed on how well they work in groups during the hour. The
teacher is preoccupied with meeting with the small groups to discuss their papers, so the notes
that students are to take about their discussion during class time will take the place of the teacher
walking around the classroom making sure that students are on task. The teacher will read what
happened in each discussion and see if groups are coming to collaborative meanings. She will
also evaluate the changes that the groups are implementing.
The first draft of their collaborative papers will be graded but only with the requirement that they
have a first draft. The content will be assessed informally through the meeting with the students
and the feedback that the teacher gives. This also allows the teacher to see how far groups are in
this project and where a lot of groups may be struggling or if the students are finding this too
difficult, too easy, or just average. The teacher can then make small readjustments in this
assignment and plan on scaffolding more or less for the students.
Lesson Plan 10
English Education
Pre-Service Teacher Information
Name: Kristin Chang (Katie Fuchs, Meredith Molnar)
Course: English 319: Introduction to English Education Methods
Unit of which this lesson is a part (if applicable): One Person CAN Make a Difference
Lesson Background Information
Grade Level: 9th Grade High School Students
Learning Goal: Students will discuss TKM in order to interact with one another and change
their opinions to include the thoughts and ideas of others.
Necessary Materials: Journals, TKM books
Lesson
1.
Start the class by having students write in their journals. Ask them this question. What
do you think is the most important part of this section and why? Try connecting it to your own
experiences, past discussions we’ve had in class, the Civil Rights Movement, or the Claudette
Colvin excerpt. This will take 10 minutes.
2.
Put students into small groups of four (with one group of three) and have them each take
a turn to say what they thought the most important part was in the section and why. After they
share, the other three students are to ask more questions and contradict the other person’s
statements. The person who shared is to provide more evidence to support their claim if
possible, and if not then ask what the others thought the most important part was. Each student
will take a turn sharing and being questioned. In the end, the groups must collaboratively decide
on what they thought, after their discussion, was the most important part of the book. They need
to decide why and again connect it back to what they have been learning or their own
experiences. They also need to provide evidence from the text that shows why it is important
(the evidence can be from either this section or any other section up to this point). During this
time the teacher will walk around and provide scaffolding in the form of comments to students in
order to help them deepen their thinking processes and provide more useful evidence for their
arguments. The teacher will answer any questions and make sure everyone is focused on their
task. This will take about 15-20 minutes.
3.
Everyone will stay seated with their small groups. Each small group will now share the
event that they thought was the most important in the section. They will now be questioned by
other groups as to why they thought that. The group sharing will provide their evidence from the
text and whatever else they have to connect it to from our discussions etc. Other groups will
share and be questioned until all small groups have had a turn. This should take about 5-10
minutes.
4.
Now as a large group, the whole class is to think together and agree on the most
important thing that happened in the section. They need to weigh each small group’s answer and
the evidence behind each one. The majority of the class must be in agreement on the most
important thing. They will then decide what it is while the teacher writes it up on the board.
Then the class needs to provide evidence again as to why this is more important than anything
else. At the end of the class the students will have constructed the most important thing in the
text with evidence to support it without help from the teacher. The teacher is able to ask probing
questions and contradict students in order to see if they can provide evidence, but otherwise the
teacher is to have students interact with each other and come up with a meaning on their own.
This should take about 5-10 minutes.
Assessment
Journals will be an informal assessment of how the students are doing with making connections
from class/their lives to the text. The specific journal entries for today should give the teacher an
indicator of whether or not students are able to pick out information from the text and support it
with evidence in the text as well. It will also indicate whether or not the students are able to sort
through the information and find something important in the text and again be able to support it.
This informal assessment also spills over into the small group and large group discussion.
The discussions will both be an informal assessment of how well students are working with each
other and whether or not they are able to incorporate multiple ideas from different people into
one common concept first in the small groups and then on a large group scale.
Lesson Plan 11
English Education
Pre-Service Teacher Information
Name: Kristin Chang (Katie Fuchs, Meredith Molnar)
Course: English 319: Introduction to English Education Methods
Unit of which this lesson is a part (if applicable): One Person CAN Make a Difference
Lesson Background Information
Grade Level: 9th Grade High School Students
Learning Goal:
Necessary Materials: TKM books, copy of 1st Draft of Collaborative Paper that teacher
commented on, notes taken from Lesson 9 that will be given to the small groups by the teacher
Lesson
1.
Start the class with Journal entries from students. They were to have read chapters 15-16
in TKM for today. Ask the students a specific question for writing today. The question is,
Scout, Jem, and Dill spy on Atticus when he is talking to the mob outside of the jail. They run to
him and refuse to leave. Scout then finds Mr. Cunningham in the crowd and starts talking to
him. She somehow convinces him and the rest to leave. How does Scout, a little girl, get the
mob to leave? Why do they listen to her? Provide support from the text in your thoughts. The
teacher is to remind the students that there is no right answer. She wants them to explore all and
any possibilities. This will take 10 minutes.
2.
Have the students assemble into their small groups for the collaborative paper. Then,
number the students off in each group. Have the same numbers then form different groups so
that each group now has one member from the different collaborative groups. Have the students
discuss what they are doing in their own groups, making sure that each student has a turn to say
something. Tell the students to discuss if their group is getting along, if they have the same or
different ideas, what works in their discussions and writing and what doesn’t work. This activity
is for students to learn what works or does not work for other groups. It is also an opportunity
for all students to discuss with peers other than the ones in their group and to informally analyze
the progress of their groups. Remind students that they are not to complain or gossip about
someone in their group. This is a time to tell someone else what they think is wrong or right in
their groups and to receive advice on how to fix it. The teacher will walk around during this time
listening in on students’ conversations and offering suggestions or comments to make students
think about a situation more deeply or to guide them to a new way of thinking when needed. She
will answer any questions that the students may have. Give the students 15 minutes to discuss
with their temporary group.
3.
Have students reform their collaborative paper groups. Tell them to briefly discuss what
they are doing wrong or right and how they can do better or keep doing what they are doing.
Have each student relay the advice from others on how the group can work better. Give the
students 5 minutes to share briefly with each other.
4.
After the mini-discussions with their group, tell the students to keep revising and writing
their collaborative paper. They must finish the second draft in class today if they do not want to
work on it outside of class. Announce that each group member must have a (written) copy of
their paper for the peer-edit session tomorrow. Tell the groups to keep in mind the suggestions
discussed in order to work together better. Also, give the students back the notes that they took a
few days ago on how they want to revise their papers. This should give the groups guidelines
and/or a structure so that they are able to revise relatively easily. The teacher should walk
around the room at this time and answer any questions that a group has. If a group is struggling
with editing their paper, the teacher can step in and help them brainstorm different ideas. She
should not just give them an answer. The teacher will also make sure groups are focused and on
task so that they will be able to finish their second draft in time. This will take 15 minutes.
Assessment
Students will be informally assessed on their journals to see if they are able to understand
characters within the text, their actions, and their motives. This will also serve to tell the teacher
if they are able to pick out specific examples from the book to support their claims. This is a
way to tell if the students have read the chapters assigned to them for today as well. It will give
the teacher an indication of where each student is in the organization of thoughts and on
developing those thoughts or relating them to other things.
The teacher will informally evaluate the students’ conversations as they talk to people on how
their group is interacting and working together. She will listen to see if students are able to
objectively analyze their groups’ working environment and if they can provide suggestions for
other groups. This will serve as a marker for each student on their level of discussion and of
analyzing discussion as well.
A final informal evaluation will take place when the teacher walks around and listens to groups
during their revising process. The teacher will be able to learn which groups are working well
together and which are struggling. She will also listen and look for signs that groups are
implementing suggestions of other people in order to work better together. She will know how
far each group is on their revision process and will be able to help the groups who are struggling.
Conceptual Unit-Lesson 12
Pre-Service Teacher Information
Name: Katie Fuchs (Kristin Chang, Meredith Molnar)
Course: ENGL 319: Introduction to English Education Methods
Unit of which this lesson is a part: Conceptual Unit –“One person CAN make a
difference”
Lesson Background Information
Grade Level: 9th grade
Learning Goal: To provide students with constructive feedback that will foster further
development of the writing process, as well as teaching them to be critical and helpful editors.
Necessary Materials: Document camera, a computer lab for students to work on peer
reviews and revisions of their paper, along with graded first drafts of student papers, Peer
Review Handout.
Lesson:
1. Explain to students that the goal of today is to give the students a chance to edit each
other’s paper so they can see what other student writing looks like, as well as showing
them some tools that they can use to provide constructive feedback. They will also be
working with specific criteria that directs their attention to areas of the paper that they
should be working on, as they are areas the teacher will be grading on. Students should
have been presented with a rubric for the assignment when it was first introduced, so the
lesson operates under the assumption that students already know what content is being
evaluated. This lesson is to teach them how to be constructive critics that provide helpful
feedback, while looking for the specific areas of the paper on which they will be graded.
2. Hand out the Peer Review Handout and the Peer Review Assessment sheets.
3. Using the document camera, go through the criteria on the Peer Review Handout.
Students are expected to have a basic knowledge of MLA citation from a writing exercise
done earlier in the year. Spelling and grammar should also have been covered earlier in
the year. However, a review of MLA and the proper inclusion of quotes along with
supporting sentences (at least two lines of your own writing for every quote…) should be
reviewed when reading over the Handout with the students. Some structuring of
constructive feedback will be necessary, but it will be assumed that students have an
knowledge of peer editing from past experience in this class. A review of the types of
feedback you are looking for while going over the handout should suffice. The Peer
Review Assessment sheet is for the student to assess the value of the feedback they have
given. Make it clear to students that they will be assessed on the thoroughness of their
feedback. Answer any questions students might have regarding the handouts.
4. Split the students into their small groups of two-three. Present them with copies of
another group’s essay (members of group A and B will peer edit each other’s papers to
make discussing the changes they made easier for a later exercise). Again, explain that
they should be constructive with their feedback, doing as thorough and kind of a job as
they would want whoever is editing their paper to do. Allow them 15-20 minutes for
editing.
5. Have the students return the copies to their respective groups. Give the groups time to
discuss what they chose to edit and why. Have students fill out the assessment half sheet
and turn it in with their edited copies at the end of class.
Assessment
I will asses students on their comments, as well as the assessment half sheet that the students
will fill out. I will assign a small grade for the peer-edit, but the size of the score will be
dependent on how cooperative the students were during class, as well as their grasp of what
was expected from the peer edit.
PEER REVIEW HANDOUT
Basic Criteria for Grading:
While peer editing your papers, look for the things outlined below. These are some of the
things I as the teacher will be looking for in your papers when I grade them, so finding and fixing
them now will help you!! Be sure to be kind in your corrections, do not overwhelm the paper
with red pen, instead, explain to the person whose paper you are editing what you would like
them to do so that they can fix it. Peer edit as you would want your paper to be peer edited.
Citations:
-does the paper properly include quotes according to MLA formatting?
-Are quotes supported with explanation?
Depth of Ideas:
-Is the paper simply information, or does it include ideas and other personal
responses?
-Are the quotes explained or are they just thrown into the paper?
Formatting:
-
Is the paper set up so there is an introduction, a body, and a conclusion?
Should any of the body paragraphs be switched around?
Are topic sentences used?
Is everything mentioned in the introduction addressed in the body?
Spelling/Grammar
- look for proper use of commas and apostrophes,
- Are there spelling errors or improper grammar usage?
Use of Formal Voice
-No I, me, we… this is a formal writing assignment and as so it should not
include personal opinions or examples such as “I think” or “When this happened to
me…”
PEER REVIEW ASSESMENT:
On a scale from 1-10 (1 being the worst and 10 being the best) asses the value of
the peer-edit done on your paper:
I feel that I received constructive feedback: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
The changes made to my paper were helpful: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
The comments on my paper were clear and easy to understand: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
I feel that the Peer-Edit done on my paper was helpful: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Conceptual Unit-Lesson 13
Pre-Service Teacher Information
Name: Katie Fuchs, Kristin Chang, Meredith Molnar
Course: ENGL 319: Introduction to English Education Methods
Unit of which this lesson is a part: Conceptual Unit –“One person CAN make a
difference”
Lesson Background Information
Grade Level: 9th grade
Learning Goal: To guide students to an understanding of TKM through facilitated
discussion revolving on student’s thoughts and ideas while searching for deeper meaning within
the text that is supported by quotes and factual evidence.
Necessary Materials: Student writing journals, projector, computer, and screen.
Lesson:
1. Begin class by reviewing some of the key points of the reading (ch. 17-19). Key points
should include observations on Mayella’s beating and Tom’s crippled arm, the fact that
Bob Ewell is left handed, a discussion on why Mayella would be afraid of Atticus or why
she thinks he is teasing her, Dill getting sick at the conclusion of the trial, the reactions of
other characters to the trial… This should be done as a simple summary to help review
the reading before students write in their journals. If responses are slow in coming,
writing the responses on the board and mapping out the events of the three chapters may
be helpful.
2. Hand out student journals and give them 15-20 minutes to respond to your prompt. The
writing prompt will be displayed on the projector screen and will be left up the entire
time. The prompt will be: What was your personal reaction to the trial? Were Atticus’
questions fair? How was Tom Robinson treated during the trial by Atticus, the
prosecuting attorney, the jury, and the spectators? Why do you think Dill got sick?Who
do you think is guilty? What really happened the day of the ‘rape’? Students should be
familiar with this format for their writing journals and know that they can chose to
respond to any or all of the questions, or they can write a response to any question they
may have had while reading.
3. At the end of the given time, have students break into small groups of four or five. Tell
students to share with their group members what they wrote about. They should discuss
amongst themselves for about 10 minutes. At this time, students are simply sharing and
discussing, so the teacher is simply there to keep the peace or provide a guiding question
for a group. The teacher should circulate the room writing down some things being
mentioned in the small groups that you would like to share with the class during the last
portion of the discussion.
4. When the ten minutes is up (or the groups begin to get off topic) have the groups return to
their seats for an all class discussion. The teacher will call on the groups she wrote down
as having insightful discussion and ask them to share specific points from their discussion
with the class. The class should be allowed to expand and elaborate on these ideas,
moving to other points of discussion when one group’s ideas have been discussed.
5. End class by reminding students that the final drafts of their papers will be due on Friday
and that tomorrow is a work day, which means they will be in a lab.
Assessment:
I don’t plan to give a grade for in class discussion, but I will be looking at student journals to
assess whether they did the reading and for comprehension.
Conceptual Unit-Lesson 14
Pre-Service Teacher Information
Name: Katie Fuchs (Kristin Chang, Meredith Molnar)
Course: ENGL 319: Introduction to English Education Methods
Unit of which this lesson is a part: Conceptual Unit –“One person CAN make a
difference”
Lesson Background Information
Grade Level: 9th grade
Learning Goal: To allow students the time they need to implement writing skills and to
further the writing process.
Necessary Materials: computer lab
Lesson:
1. Begin class in the classroom so that you can instruct students on proper etiquette for the
computer lab. They are expected to work for the entire hour and there should be no
talking. If some students are done with their papers, they can have the hour to read and
may go to the library to do so. No one is allowed to play games on the computer, check
their e-mail, or go on social networking cites (Facebook or MySpace). If they cannot
follow these rules, work days can and will be taken away, and students will be expected
to complete papers and projects outside of class time.
2. Escort students to the computer lab. They have the rest of the hour to work on their
papers or silently read. Circulate the room answering questions and giving advice when it
is needed. Also, it is important to enforce the rules made in class for the computer lab.
3. At the end of class, remind students once again that the paper is due in class tomorrow
and that they must read ch. 20-22 and be prepared to discuss the trial.
Assessment:
I don’t plan on giving points for the day. Assessments will come from student work handed in
tomorrow as well as the progress made on the papers.
Conceptual Unit-Lesson 15
Pre-Service Teacher Information
Name: Katie Fuchs (Kristin Chang, Meredith Molnar)
Course: ENGL 319: Introduction to English Education Methods
Unit of which this lesson is a part: Conceptual Unit –“One person CAN make a
difference”
Lesson Background Information
Grade Level: 9th grade
Learning Goal: To construct a higher level of thinking in students through an in depth
analysis and discussion of the trial scene in TKM and from the movie.
Necessary Materials: projector and screen for YouTube video
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eACIg-KWsMg&feature=fvsr;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K93GKBCjsXQ ;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0NbTCYfU24&NR=1 ) of Trial. Student writing journals.
Lesson:
1. Begin class by collecting student essays. Then review and clarify the readings for the day.
Students should have a clear understanding of what happened during the verdict (that
Tom Robinson was convicted, not Bob Ewell, that the Jury stayed out longer than Atticus
expected). They should also understand that Judge Taylor appointed Atticus to Tom
Robinson’s defense and that Atticus could have turned him down, and that Bob Ewell has
a personal agenda against Atticus.
2. Ask students to spend 10-15 minutes writing in their journals in response to the following
prompt questions which will be displayed on the screen: Why did the jury take so long to
come to a decision? Why does Bob Ewell hate Atticus so much? What are your
predictions for the rest of the book? Are Jem and Scout going to be any different now?
What kind of impacts did the trial have on them and on Maycomb? These questions
should provide a basis for the students to look at some of the complex themes in TKM
such as the racial divide in Maycomb and the impact it has on the trial, the individualism
Atticus displays in his defense of Tom, and the significance of the jury staying out so
long (turning point for racial discrimination).
3. When students are finished, have them turn to a partner and have a mini discussion on
what they wrote. Let them hash out their ideas while you circulate and hear what the pairs
are saying, collecting guiding points from what you hear. Use these points to help guide
the large group discussion at the end of class.
4. Ask students to return to their seats for the viewing of the YouTube clips. Pause
periodically to point out the characters as students have not viewed any other clips and
will not be able to recognize them.
5. After the movie, ask students to discuss whether their views of certain events have
changed. Did the movie strengthen or weaken what they thought and wrote about in their
journals? Were the characters portrayed differently than they had imagined? Why were
they acted in the ways they were acted? Did the result of the trial affect them differently
than it had in the book? End class by collecting journals and reminding the class to have
chapters 23-25 read by Wednesday and that you will be introducing a poetry project on
Monday.
Assessment:
I will assess the writing in the student Journals for comprehension and the ability to grasp
complex themes within the book. I will also compare the journal entry of today with that of
next Monday to see if students are developing an awareness of deeper meanings within text
or if I need to re-structure or re-teach the lesson.
Lesson 16:
Lesson Background Information
Grade Level: 9
Learning Goal: Interact with other students in a positive, respectful way. Read a schedule and plan
what needs to be done to reach the end goal by laying out clear, ordered steps. Work collaboratively
with partners to share information and create a plan for the project. Recognize strengths and
weaknesses in their own writing in order to improve future writing.
Necessary Materials: Unit Calendar, To Kill A Mockingbird, revised paper drafts.
Lesson
1. Once class is settled, the first thing I would like to do is to make sure that any questions about the
paper, journals, readings, or poetry project are answered. As the class is getting settled, I will have them
take out their unit calendars. I will ask, “We have just over a week left in our To Kill A Mockingbird unit.
Does anyone have any concerns about where they are at right now?” I will take any questions, most
likely about the papers, when revisions are due, how to stay on track with the poetry project, and
perhaps about when they are supposed to finish reading the book. Most of the questions will be
answerable from the syllabus, so I will take the question and then ask the class if anyone knows the
answer to the question. Getting and giving answers between students will help them to realize that
they can depend on each other and help each other out with many of their concerns. (8 minutes)
2. Now we will be looking at the drafts of the paper, which I will have looked at over the weekend and
made comments on. I will hand back the drafts to each group and have them wait to ask questions until
everyone has their drafts back and I have given instructions for the next part. (2 minutes)
3. Today we will be working together to think about what we can do to revise our drafts. Remember,
this was only a rough draft. It is helpful to have other people read over your work so that you know how
to fix it. If you don't know the revisions, the paper will never get better and you won't learn how to
improve. This is not only true with papers, but with letter-writing, emails, and all kinds of writing that
you will do in the future. When people give you feedback, it is not supposed to be mean. It is meant to
help you see something that you didn't see when you were writing the paper. Like we've been
discussing throughout the unit, everyone sees things differently. When one person makes a mistake,
another person can be there to help fix it and notice what the other person does not. (It is important for
students to learn that drafts help them to produce better writing, and also for them to see that even the
writing process fits in with the lesson of listening to others' ideas.) (3 minutes)
4. What should you look for when revising someone's paper? I will take answers from the class and
write them down on the board. Some answers might be grammar, spelling, purpose, length, content,
whether it makes sense, whether it is concise, format, wording, sentence structure, intro and
conclusion, accuracy, and any other things they can think of. Of course, the students' wording of these
concepts might be different from my own, so I will try to write it in their own words and have them
explain to the class if it is a concept that might be difficult for others to understand. (8 minutes)
5. When we have as exhaustive a list as we can get, I will let students have a couple of minutes to read
over their papers and look at my comments and also review what they produced. (3 minutes)
6. I will ask students what the 3 most important things are. In other words, what are you most
concerned about in your paper? I will have students (in their paper groups) write the three most
important things from the board on the back page of their paper. Since we will have gone over what
each of these revision concerns mean, anyone who revises their paper should know what they mean. (2
minutes)
7. Next, I will pair up two groups to look over each others' papers. They will be instructed to trade
papers with the other group and read over their drafts. They should make comments as necessary on
the other group's draft, paying close attention to the top 3 concerns that the writer listed on the back of
the paper. I will tell them that they have 5 minutes to do this activity. Talking is encouraged; it does not
have to be silent in the room. In fact, they will need to share the draft so they can either take turns
reading parts of the paper or all read it silently together. After reading each others' drafts, they should
talk with each other and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of their partner's paper. They should try
to address the specific concerns listed on the back page. (8 minutes)
8. Now I will have 2 groups of partners pair up to form bigger groups. They will have some time to sum
up their concerns about their own papers and discuss what the most common problems with the papers
were. They will be encouraged to ask and answer each others' questions during this time. (8 minutes)
9. The last 8 minutes will be devoted to paper revision time. Students will sit with their groups and talk
about what they need to change, while noting down these changes on the draft. They should be
prepared to get their revisions in by Friday. (8 minutes)
Assessment
Today's formal assessment carries over from previous days. The students are getting their papers back
today, which will give them their “final” grade that they earned from it. Any revisions will be worked on
today and can alter the final grade that they receive. The major assessment will be informal, and I will
be looking for the ability of students to ask each other questions and provide insightful answers. They
should be able to look at the syllabus and display a good idea of what is expected of them for the rest of
the semester. I will be expecting to hear some responses from everyone in the class about what they
are concerned about in their papers. I will also be walking around and making sure that everyone is
contributing to making comments on the other group's paper.
Conceptual Unit-Lesson 17
Pre-Service Teacher Information
Name: Katie Fuchs (Kristin Chang, Meredith Molnar)
Course: ENGL 319: Introduction to English Education Methods
Unit of which this lesson is a part: Conceptual Unit –“One person CAN make a
difference”
Lesson Background Information
Grade Level: 9th grade
Learning Goal: To teach students to work in a collaborative setting while exploring
poetry and the Harlem Renaissance.
Necessary Materials: document camera, projector and screen for YouTube
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFxpb-cg6LM ), Poetry Project Handout, names of poets in
a hat, computer lab.
Lesson:
1. Today’s lesson falls on a bit of a catch-up day. If there is anything in the unit so far that
has made us fall behind or we need another day of re-teaching, today would be the day to
do it. The following lesson plan would take place in its entirety if the make-up day wasn’t
needed.
2. Begin class by asking students what they know about/think of poetry. They should bring
up some interesting things from past classes, or talk about Dr. Sues rhymes and
Shakespeare and other types of poetry that they have previously encountered. Direct their
attention to song lyrics as poetry. Ask them about the emotional appeal of poems. Songs
can be especially good at bringing out the emotion in people, but how do words portray
emotion? Ask them to think about what exactly makes poetry an effective channel for
emotions.
3. Show YouTube clip and explain in a little more detail some of the things that were
brushed upon in the video (migration and industrialization of cities like Harlem, the
movement itself creating awareness of the black community…). Hand out Poetry Project
handout.
4. Go over the instructions and outline your expectations for the project. Explain that
guidance on the paper will come tomorrow when they have a work day, but that today
they should focus on selecting their poems.
5. Break the students into groups of four or five that you have chosen based on student
ability (ZPD). Then assign each group a poet by pulling the name out of a hat. Be sure
that every student in the group knows what their poet’s name is and has it written down
before heading to the computer lab.
6. Have students select a poem by their author and print it off. Remind them that they
should like the poem they select as they will be working with it for the next week and
reading it aloud to the class.
7. End class by reminding students that you will be returning their papers tomorrow and
they have the opportunity to revise and return them to you at the end of the week.
Tomorrow students should bring their selected poems to class and expect to start work on
their papers. They also need to have chapters 23-25 read by Wednesday.
Assessment:
There is no formal assessment for today. Students will show me that they comprehend the
assignment by selecting an appropriate poem within the given time and listening attentively
during class. Based on their behavior, I will modify my lesson or adapt tomorrow’s lesson to
any teaching gaps that may have occurred.
POETRY PROJECT:
In this project, you and two or three partners will be working to find poems from the Harlem
Renaissance. After you have been assigned a poet, you will be responsible for finding four
poems by your poet to be read aloud to the class. Your group will also be responsible for a 1-2
page paper that explains what you believe the poems express and why the poet wrote them. The
paper will be a group effort that includes the ideas of everyone in the group. Both the paper and
the presentation of the poems will be graded on the following criteria:
Paper Rubric:
Collaboration- your paper must be written as a group. No single person is responsible for
writing the paper. It should include and interpretation of each poem as well your interpretation of
the poet’s reason for writing it. Worth 10 points. In order to receive full credit, your group must
demonstrate that you have worked together and the paper should include interpretations
discussed above.
Content- your paper should include an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. There should be a
body paragraph for each poem which includes its interpretation and the author’s reason for
writing it. Worth 10 points. In order to receive full credit, the paper will be structured as
discussed above and will include separate paragraphs for each poem analysis.
Grammar/ Spelling- your paper should have as few spelling errors as possible. Any more than
four and I will ask you to correct them. Grammar is the same. Any more than four and you will
be expected to change them before turning it in. Worth 10 points. In order to receive full credit,
students will need to proofread their work. Again, as stated above, if the teacher finds more than
four errors, the paper will be given back to the group to be fixed before turning the paper in again
for full credit.
Presentation Rubric:
Rehearsed- I am not expecting a perfect performance, nor will you be graded on eye contact.
However, you will be expected to read the poem aloud to the class with a good flow to your
words; this should not be the first time you read it aloud. Reading the poem in your head is not
the same as reading it to the class, practice with your group and with your friends!!! Parents
and siblings also make great audiences. The presentation is also worth 10 points and will be
added to your paper score. In order to receive the ten points, your group must perform the poems
with a good flow. Again, make sure you practice!
Potential Poets:
Langston Hughes
Georgia Douglas Johnson
Countee Cullen
Alice Dunbar Nelson
Claude McKay
Gwendolyn Bennet
Sterling Brown
Sterling Brown
Jean Toomer
Jessie Redmon Fauset
Arna Bontemps
James Weldon Johnson
Lesson 18:
Lesson Background Information
Grade Level: 9
Learning Goal: Write own thoughts about a designated topic, bringing in ideas from a variety of
texts to support points. Show depth in thinking about and analyzing a topic within a text. Work
collaboratively with partners to share their individual findings with the rest of the group. Integrate
other types of literature to the topic at hand to make connections and gain a fuller understanding of
a genre.
Necessary Materials: To Kill a Mockingbird, Students must bring journals, access to the lab which
will be arranged ahead of time, text of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18.
Lesson
1. Before class, I will have written the prompt on the board but covered it with the projector screen or
paper so that students will not get distracted.
2. Today's class will start with the class getting in order. Any announcements that have come up will be
made at this time. (2 minutes)
3. Since a reading was due for today, we will start the day with a journal. The prompt will be, “In
chapter 25, we learn about Mr. Underwood's editorial in the paper. He wrote about the trial and Tom's
death. How do you think he feels about Maycomb? Cite examples from the book. How might he be
able to affect more change by what he is writing? Try writing your own editorial about the events of the
past few chapters. What would you want to say to the people of Maycomb?” (15 minutes)
4. Yesterday, we started talking about the poetry project. We have been exploring a little bit of Harlem
Renaissance poetry, but today we will talk about some other types of poems. First, we're going to look
at a very famous poet named Shakespeare. Has anyone read Shakespeare? What do you think his
poems are like? Let's take a look at one of his very popular ones.
5. I will hand out copies to each student of the Sonnet and then ask for 7 volunteers to each read 2 lines.
If no one volunteers, I will pick advanced readers who I think would not be as embarrassed to read in
front of the class as students who may not be as confident in their reading abilities. They will read, and I
will ask them to try to pick up on any accented words, and even exaggerate the accents if they want to
do so. (3 minutes)
6. Now we will discuss the “meter” of the poem. Does anyone know what meter means? Most students
probably do not, but someone may have the answer or something close to it. We will expand on it, and
I will explain that Shakespeare often used “iambic pentameter” which means that there is one non-
accented word and then one accented one. I will illustrate this by having them read along as I read
aloud a few lines from the sonnet, heavily exaggerating the accented words. We will talk about how the
poem rhymed, and I will ask for a few examples of rhymes from the poem. How often do you see the
rhymes? Where are they? Do you like the rhythm of this poem? We won't focus on the meaning of the
poem right now; we will focus on the structure. (10 minutes)
7. Now let's do a fun little writing activity. We'll be writing some fast, informal poems. Everyone should
take out a piece of paper. Look around you, or think of something that's on your mind. You don't have
to think to hard about this. It will go very quickly. You should write down two lines of “poetry,” that you
will make up. (I will give an example of making up poetry lines quickly by looking around the room and
observing something that they can also observe so they know how to do this activity. This will also show
them how quick and informal it is, and it might take away some anxiety to have me give an example
first.) You will write your two lines, one a couple of lined spaces below the other. Then, fold over your
paper so only the second line of poetry is showing. Every other row will pass to either the left or right
and then behind so that it zig-zags through the room. Each time you pass the paper, the next person
will have to write the next line of poetry based off of only your second line. That person will then fold
over so that only their line is visible, and so on. At the end, we will open up the paper and see what our
poems look like! (4 minutes for instruction and questions)
8. We will do this activity. Students will have 30 seconds before they need to pass the paper again.
After 4 minutes, they must stop writing and keep the poem that they have before them at their desk. (4
minutes)
9. Now students will get into groups of 4-5 and share their poems aloud to each other. They will likely
be very random and not make much sense, but it will give them an idea of how poems can either be free
form and flowing like these ones, or very structured like Shakespeare's sonnet. They will use this
experience while looking at Harlem Renaissance poetry to distinguish between types of poetry
structures. (5 minutes)
10. We will move to the lab and have a little bit of the remaining time to work on finding poems. Since
each student only needs to find one poem, they should be able to find something either today in the lab
or at home. This is a short time, but should be enough to complete the task. Students should be very
focused in the lab and shouldn't waste this valuable time. (10 minutes)
Assessment
I will be walking around the room assessing whether or not the groups will be able to meet their goal of
being ready to perform and hand in their papers early next week. I can answer any questions and make
suggestions about how the students can manage their time more wisely. The journals will provide a
more formal assessment, as I can view what they are writing and read their evolving views about the
novel. They should see that Mr. Underwood has an unfavorable view on Maycomb, and that it directly
relates to the events of the trial and the mistreatment of Tom and other African Americans in the South.
In keeping with the concept of the unit, the students should also be using the additional texts we've
looked at to see that Atticus, as one man, has affected the town and sparked a visible change. Students
should also see that Mr. Underwood is also just one man, but his writing in the newspaper can reach out
to the entire population of Maycomb. Students should be participating in the discussion of
Shakespeare's poem and the writing activity.
Sonnet 18
William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Lesson 19:
Lesson Background Information
Grade Level: 9
Learning Goal: Contribute to a discussion by expressing individual thoughts. Ask questions that are
valuable and relevant to the task. Receive information from both the teacher and other students.
Work collaboratively to plan out a performance, and write about a designated topic using support
from texts they have found through their exploration.
Necessary Materials: Any materials that students have acquired in working on their poetry projects.
Youtube video (Performance of Countee Cullen poem):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dii71cmHN3g&feature=related (from beginning to 3 minute
mark), access to computer lab.
Lesson
1. Before class, I will have a youtube video set up on the projector.
2. When the class has gotten settled, I will make any announcements for the day, and let them know
what we will be doing this class period. Today is the last in-class work day for your poetry projects.
Most of you should have your poems picked out, and should know a little bit about your author. (2
minutes)
3. Since you will need to perform your poems next week, let's look at an example of some modern poets
reading the poetry of a Harlem Renaissance writer, Countee Cullen. I will show the clip and stop at the 3
minute mark. (3 minutes)
4. (Now we will move into a short discussion.) You have probably discovered many things about the
Harlem Renaissance period through your research of your poets. Let's talk a little bit about the things
you've all discovered so that we can all get a feel for how to perform the poems next week. When did
the Harlem Renaissance start? Why was it necessary? Were there any other people speaking out
besides poets? How much do you think your poet influenced the Civil Rights movement? Did you find
any names of other poets or activists who made an impact during that time?
5. Students are free to raise their hands and answer questions. As they submit answers, I will take notes
on the board in front of the class so that both visual and auditory students will gain from what is said.
This discussion is meant to encourage the students to share what they've learned to other students. It is
also a way for students to learn not only from the teacher, but from their peers. I will encourage
students to ask any questions of their own that they have, and ask questions of other students as well. I
will remind students that since they are working on their poetry papers today, the information we've
discussed might be helpful for their reflections. (15 minutes)
6. We will now go into the computer lab. Students should be done finding their poems, and should now
be focusing on their papers. Groups can decide whether they want to gather around one computer and
write together, or take different paragraphs and share with the group when they are each done typing. I
will have them take the first 5 minutes of this time to make a game-plan. The rest of the time will be
spent either at the computers or away from the computers but still in the lab, rehearsing their
performances. (25 minutes.)
Assessment
Today will be a very informal day, as it is devoted mostly to letting students work independently. The
discussion early in class is also an opportunity for them to gain information about poetry and how they
can perform their poems. Students should have information readily available from their research on the
Harlem Renaissance that they can share with the class during discussion. They should also have
developed some relevant questions, which would show that they are thinking about the time period as a
complex issue. I should see hard work in the computer lab, with a productive planning time with their
groups. I will walk around the lab throughout the class period to answer any questions and to observe
the students' work.
Lesson 20:
Lesson Background Information
Grade Level: 9
Learning Goal: Analyze a text to make connections to the real-world, including making personal
connections to their own experiences. Explore a limited topic with peers in order to come to a
conclusion that everyone can agree on and understand. Organize thoughts so that each person
within a group can present a piece of information to the rest of the class.
Necessary Materials: To Kill A Mockingbird book, Student journals, students must bring paper
revisions.
Lesson
1. Before class, I will write out a couple of discussion points from today's reading on the board so that
they will be available visually for the class. When the class gets settled, I will give any announcements
and answer any questions pertaining to the schedule, paper revisions, the poetry project, or our reading
schedule. Students may be nervous about the poetry performance on Tuesday. They have the weekend
to finish up any work they need to do, so it may be helpful for them to get some ideas on what they can
work on and how to best use their time. At this time, I will let them know that I will give them time at
the end of the class to meet with their groups and plan how to tie up any loose ends and whether they
would like to meet over the weekend. (3 minutes)
2. I will now ask students to take out their journals. Before directing them to the prompt, I will ask any
general questions about the reading. There may be some confusion because of how quickly these short
chapters are moving along. I will also ask them how they think their journals have gone so far. We are
now coming close to the end of our journals, and I will ask if the class has any suggestions of things they
would like to write about along with the regular prompts. (3 minutes for questions and answers)
3. Students will begin writing their journals. In chapter 26, Jem gets upset when Scout mentions the trial.
Why was he so upset when reminded of what happened? Think of a time when something happened
that you didn't want to talk about later. How did it feel when people talked about it afterward? Do you
think it's better to talk things through when they bother you, or just try to forget about it? (10 minutes)
4. We will now have our discussion for the day. Today will be a small group discussion. Each group of 56 students will get a different question about the reading. They will become the “experts” on that part
from the book and will lead a short (5 minutes) discussion about their topic. The groups will have a
mixed level of reading proficiency students. This way, students who may have had a harder time with
the book will still gain insight into the text by listening to it explained by their peers in relatable
language.
Group 1: Scout says that Miss Gates was speaking out about how unfair the Hitler's persecution of Jews
is. Why does she get upset about her teacher's statements? What do you know about Hitler? We've
talked about the Civil Rights movement. Can you think of other times when a minority was treated
unfairly?
Group 2: Bob Ewell is starting to look like a very dangerous character. What has he done that has made
him look this way? Do you think that people are misjudging him like they did to Tom, or does he
deserve their dislike? What do you predict will happen, if anything, with the Bob Ewell situation?
Group 3: On their way home from the play, Jem and Scout seem to get attacked by someone or
something. When you first started reading, what did you think was happening? Why would anyone
attack young children like Jem and Scout?
Group 4: During Scout's play, she sleeps through her cue and ends up coming onto stage too late.
Everyone laughs, and she is very embarrassed. Why do you think that Harper Lee included this moment
in the novel? What does this tell us about Maycomb's expectations for children? Can you think of other
embarrassing moments that might happen to someone as a child?
5. Each group will talk about their question for 10 minutes. Then we will come together as a whole and
each group will take turns summarizing the answers they thought up for their questions. They must
address all parts of the question and can conclude by asking questions to the rest of the class. (Small
group for 10 minutes; large group for 20 minutes)
6. For the last 3 or 4 minutes, I will let students get into their poetry groups and go through strategies on
how they are going to finish up their projects. They must also hand in their paper revisions before they
leave the classroom. I will let them do this until the bell rings. (3-4 minutes.)
Assessment
Today's assessment will depend on the journal and discussion. The journal should pertain to the prompt
and provide insights into the student's thinking about the novel. I hope to see other texts entwined with
their analysis of To Kill a Mockingbird, including their own experience.
For the discussions, each group's members should submit a thought when presenting to the large group.
I will walk around the classroom and make sure that while they are all discussing in their small groups,
everyone is talking at some point and that the conversation stays centered on the topic at hand.
Lesson 21:
Lesson Background Information
Grade Level: 9
Learning Goal: Write about characters from the book and how they have changed over time in
order to appreciate the theme of growing up and realizing that people can change for the worse or
better. Contribute to a collaborative discussion in which students share their individual thoughts
and respect and value the thoughts of others.
Necessary Materials: Student journals, To Kill a Mockingbird.
Lesson
1. At the beginning of class, I will get students settled down. We will recap Fridays's discussion points
and I will discuss the progress on the final revised papers. (2 minutes)
2. Our first activity will be the journal for the day. This will be the last journal entry for a Mockingbird
reading assignment. These last few chapters were short and may have seemed to go by really quickly.
The prompt for today is, “After the incident with Bob Ewell, Atticus and Heck talk about what happened.
Atticus thinks that Jem may have killed Bob, and doesn't want Jem to get away with what he did, if he
had done it. Would it be hard for Atticus to say something like that? If Jem were guilty, he would be in
a lot of trouble. Why wasn't Atticus worried about that? What was Heck's reasoning behind saying that
Bob fell on his knife, even though he know Boo killed him? What would you have done?” (15 minutes to
write)
3. Since this is the last journal and the topic is pretty big, I will put students into small groups of about 3
to discuss what they wrote in their journals. They should share what they think about the two major
questions (Why wouldn't Atticus want Jem to be safe from the law, and Why did Heck say Bob's death
was an accident?) After the briefly discuss those answers about events from the text, students should
talk about what they would have done in Heck's situation. Was it right for him to lie about what
happened? How could that make things even? What would you do? Is it ok to lie sometimes? (10
minutes)
4. Now we will move to a big group discussion. We will go over the ending with Boo. After all we've
learned about Boo, what was true? Who ended up being trustworthy, and who was just a gossip? Why
wasn't Scout afraid to talk to Boo after all of the bad things she has heard about him? Can you
remember a time when you finally found out that someone wasn't as bad as you thought they were at
first? (8 minutes)
5. Then we will move onto general book discussion questions. I would like to talk about who the
“mockingbirds” in the book were, now that we've finished. First of all, what does “mockingbird” refer
to, according to Atticus and Aunt Maudie in chapter 10? Who could that refer to? Answers will likely be
Tom Robinson and Boo Radley. If they do not make the connection to Boo, I will point to the fact that
he was made out to be something that he really wasn't, and that the same thing happened to Tom.
Next, we will talk about whether the students liked the book or disliked it, and why. This question will
probably get the most answers, and conversation going between students, so I will try to leave the most
time for this one. (15 minutes)
Assessment
The journal will provide a more formal assessment. I will be looking for relevance to the prompt, an
improved writing style from the first journal, more developed thinking, and connections to earlier parts
in the text and to our outside texts. I will be looking for positive interaction in the journal discussion,
and input from each student in the big group discussion that will show deep thinking about the concepts
of our unit and within the book.
Lesson Plan 22
English Education
Pre-Service Teacher Information
Name: Kristin Chang (Katie Fuchs, Meredith Molnar)
Course: English 319: Introduction to English Education Methods
Unit of which this lesson is a part (if applicable): One Person CAN Make a Difference
Lesson Background Information
Grade Level: 9th Grade High School Students
Learning Goal: Students will perform their poems in front of their classmates and discuss the
qualities of the poem in order to broaden their classmates’ opinions about an important
person/poem that influenced the Civil Rights Movement.
Necessary Materials: Harlem Renaissance Poems, group write-up assignment about poems
Lesson
1. Teacher will start the class by introducing Poetry Reading Day. The students will be
ready with their poems to read out loud to the class. The teacher will explain that after
each group reads their poems, they are to tell a little bit about the poems, author, and why
they chose those specific poems. The groups can have their paper up with them in order
to help them tell the class about the poems. Each person in the group must read one
poem and help in explaining why that poem was chosen so that all members can
participate. This should take about 5 minutes.
2. After explaining the instructions, the teacher will ask for volunteer groups to go. If there
are no volunteers, then pick a group. The students will go to the front of the classroom
and read off their poems. Afterwards they will tell why they picked those poems. The
rest of the class is to then engage in a discussion as to the strengths and weaknesses of the
poem in consideration of whether the poem makes an impact on people or not and how
well it does this. The teacher will tell them to think about this before the poems are read
and to take into consideration why the students picked the poems. The teacher will sit in
the back of the room and have the group who is reading the poem lead the discussion.
She will interfere as little as possible and let students interact with each other. If they are
getting off topic, the teacher can focus them in again on the poem subject being
discussed. By removing herself from the discussion, the teacher is now letting students
take control by taking away the last bit of scaffolding. The students should now be able
to sustain the conversation themselves, consider others’ opinions, and incorporate them
into an all-encompassing statement. This activity is the end of the unit on “One person
CAN make a difference,” and as such, the students will be at a level that they are able to
actively participate in discussion and guide the discussion as well. The students will be
able to interact with one another and at the end will form a whole class consensus based
off of everyone’s opinions on whether or not the poems have impact on other people.
The readings and discussions will take the rest of the class period and will probably spill
over into the last day. This will take at least 40 minutes.
Assessment
Students will be formally assessed on the group paper that they hand in for the Harlem
Renaissance Poetry that they picked. The rubric is given in a previous lesson that introduces the
project.
Students will also be informally assessed on their ability to lead and participate in a discussion.
While students are discussing a group’s work, the teacher will be watching for connections that
students make to what they’ve learned, to the world, to their own experiences, and to their
classmates’ comments. At the end of each discussion, the teacher will assess if the students
come to a general agreement on the works of a group as a result of the information that the group
presents and of the opinions from the discussion.
Conceptual Unit-Lesson 23 (end of unit)
Pre-Service Teacher Information
Name: Katie Fuchs (Kristin Chang, Meredith Molnar)
Course: ENGL 319: Introduction to English Education Methods
Unit of which this lesson is a part: Conceptual Unit –“One person CAN make a
difference”
Lesson Background Information
Grade Level: 9th grade
Learning Goal: To conclude the unit in a way that provides students with closure.
Necessary Materials: document camera projector, projector screen, computer, unit
calendar, Poetry Project Evaluations
Lesson:
1. Resume yesterday’s poem presentations with the remaining groups. When they are done
congratulate the students and ask if they have any final questions. Have them fill out
group evaluation forms for the poetry project and turn them in while picking up their
writing journals.
2. Have the students write a reflection in their journals of what they learned in this unit.
Provide the Unit Calendar so the students have a visual of what they have done in the
unit. Ask them to focus on 1-3 things that they really enjoyed, and 1-3 things that they
really disliked about the unit. Ask them to tell you what they would change or what they
would do to make this unit better. Tell them to be honest as this is for you so that you can
make changes and improvements! They shouldn’t fear negative repercussions. Students
will then turn their completed journals in. Completed journals are worth 40 points.
3. Finish class by having students turn in journals and any last minute late work. If there is
extra time, you may begin introducing the new unit.
Assessment:
The students’ journals will provide me with a good idea of what worked and what didn’t with
this unit. With them I will be able to reconstruct my lesson plans and make it better for future
use.
YOUR NAME HERE:________________
GROUP POET:____________
POETRY PROJECT EVALUATIONS:
Put the name of your group members in the corresponding blanks. Underneath, tell me in 2-3
sentences how you feel this group member did. Did they participate fully? Were they ‘pulling
their weight’? Be honest. Also, provide me with the grade letter you feel this member deserves.
Member 1________
Letter Grade_____
Member 2_________
Letter Grade______
Member 3__________
Letter Grade______
Member 4__________
Letter Grade______
Member 5___________
October
Monday
Intro
-Unit
-Harper Lee
-Civil Rights
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Ch. 1-3
Friday
Ch. 4-5
Introduce Journal
Entries
-Civil Rights
-In-class Journal
-Review
-TKM Discussion
Introduce
Collaborative Paper
-YouTube/
Discussion
-In-class Journal
-TKM Discussion
Leading goal
(1/2/3/)
Ch. 6-9
Leading goal (1/2/3)
Goal 3
Goal 3
Goal 3
-In-class Journal
-Small Group Paper
Workshop
-Claudette Colvin
Excerpt/Discussion/
Multimedia
Goal 3
Leading goal (goal 1)
Ch. 9-11 (Part 2)
Ch. 15-16
-In-class Journal
-Claudette Colvin
Excerpt/Discussion/
Multimedia
-1st Draft Paper Due
Goal 2
Ch. 12-14
-Paper
Workshop/Feedback
Day
-In-class Journal
-TKM Discussion
Goal 2/3
Goal 3
Ch. 17-19
-In-class Journal
-Paper Workshop
Day
-Peer-Edit Papers
-In-class Journal
-TKM Discussion
Goal 3
Leading goal (goal 2)
Ch. 20-22
-Paper Workshop
-Group Discussions
-In-class Journal
-Trial Discussion/
YouTube
Goal 2/3
Goal 1
FINAL Paper due
Goal 1
Ch. 23-25
Ch. 26-28
-Revision Day
-Papers Handed
Back
-Read/ discuss
Introduce Poetry
-In-class Journal
-Poetry and
Structure
-Find poems
-Poetry Exploration
Day/Multimedia
- Write Paper/
Practice Poems
Goal 2/3
Leading goal (2/3)
Goal 2
Goal 3
-In-class Journal
-TKM Discussion
Poetry
Reading/Discussion
Day
Goals 1/3
Goal 3
Poetry
Reading/Discussion
Day
-In-class Journal
-Reflection of Unit
Were the goals met?
Ch. 29-31
-In-class Journal
-TKM Discussion
Paper Revisions Due
Goal 1/2/3
Goal 1: Look at how characters develop throughout a text and how their opinions and thinking
change after different experiences that they’ve had.
Goal 2: Look at an issue and be able to distinguish fact from fiction while presenting others with
these facts in order to influence or change their understanding of a topic.
Goal 3: Students will be able to discuss important topics while hearing different opinions, which
will then lead them to create a collaborative and individual understanding in large discussions,
small discussions, and group work.
Kristin Chang
Reflection
Creating a Conceptual Unit plan has been one of the hardest assignments that I have ever
undertaken. As I worked on this unit, however, I found that I enjoyed making lessons and
including the ideas that I learned in our class. Even though I found it extremely difficult to plan
for all of the different factors that go into teaching, I feel that it came together nicely. I worked
with Katie and Meredith, and while our differences in opinions were hard to untangle and
include together, I am glad that I had the experience of planning this unit with them. As we
planned the unit, I tried to adhere to my philosophy of teaching English by giving students
scaffolding in which they learn to write and analyze texts better. Also, I wanted them to be able
to take the skills that they learned in class and apply them to other classes or experiences. I
wanted the material to be meaningful to them and something which they can use in real life, not
just in class.
In our class, we learned that writing is a process in which a person can continually
improve, and I feel that we incorporated this idea into our unit by including a collaborative paper
in which the students were asked to create a first draft, revise it after conferencing with the
teacher, peer-edit and talk to their peers on how to improve, and then hand in a copy of their best
work. We show our students that even after a paper is turned in, the writing process is not over
by asking them to revise once more after we give them their “final” paper back. Again, it is an
ongoing process in which to improve their skills.
Discussion is a big part of our unit, which I think is good for students. However, it was
difficult to teach meaningful discussion as we learned about it in class. We tried many different
methods of how to get students to discuss meaningfully, such as a variety of big group and small
group discussions, asking questions that are meaningful to students’ lives, and trying to get the
students to interact with each other. It was hard thinking of different ways to do this, but I feel
that, on the whole, our discussion should propel our students to interacting with each other and
creating new meanings out of others’ opinions.
I think my philosophy of reading was the hardest topic to teach in the unit plan. I think
that reading should help students gain new knowledge and help them to understand the world
around them. However, since there was a diverse mix of students in the class, it was hard to
figure out what texts would be right and if the students would be able to find meaning or if they
would think a text would be too hard and give up. Initially, I was not concerned about this, but
since our level we are teaching is ninth grade, and we have a couple ELLs as well, I began worry
about which texts to use and what would be too hard or too easy. I think To Kill a Mockingbird
was the right choice for a main text. It is tough to get through for ninth graders I feel, but it is
right at the level where they are able to learn and improve their reading skills. I think our group
did a good job with having students look at characters, their relationships with each other, and
how they evolve throughout the book. I feel that the students will be able to take this skill and
use it when the read future books, articles, or other things.
As I was creating my lesson plans, I realized more and more that ninth graders will need
more structure than I was giving them. Therefore, I made a decision to give them that structure
with their journals. I still wanted the journals to be somewhere where they can express their
thoughts freely, but in order to get the students to better develop their thoughts, I decided to ask
more specific things. In doing this, I still let the students explore their opinions, but I gave them
a specific context in which to do it so that they would not feel overwhelmed. I also made sure
that the students knew they were not being judged on their answers, giving them a free reign on
their true feelings. I feel that more scaffolding will let the students grow more in their writing
process and also help them think more critically about the texts that they are reading while still
giving them room to make choices themselves on what they want to focus on within the context.
Finally, it was hard to stick to our unit goals that we had decided on in the Rationale. I
think that our goals were good for what we wanted to teach, but once we started planning each
lesson, it was hard to remember our overarching goals and to incorporate them into what students
would learn. Even with some sub-goals that lead to our main goals, it was hard to bring the
whole unit together under our three initial goals. I still feel that I could use some work on
bringing the unit full circle so that all of the lessons and their sub-goals flow into the one concept
and the goals for the unit. However, I think that all of us in this group have made substantial
progress in planning for the goals instead of just planning individual lessons that might have
something to do with one another.
After all of this planning and re-planning and writing of the Conceptual Unit, I feel that I
have accomplished a lot. It was hard to try to incorporate all of what we have learned in class,
but in doing this unit, I think I’ve gotten better at looking at all of the factors that affect teachers,
students, lessons, and learning. I believe that I still have a long way to go before I completely
know what I’m doing, and maybe I will never get there, but I intend to keep learning from every
lesson and unit that I plan, just as I have learned in my/our process of writing this Conceptual
Unit. One down and infinity more to go!
Meredith Molnar
Eng 319
29 November, 2010
Conceptual Unit Reflection
While writing up the proposal for the conceptual unit, I felt that I had a very large, daunting task
ahead of me. I had decided to work with partners so that the unit would incorporate the different
perspectives of three future teachers; moreover, I felt it would be a bit less terrifying to work with
others than to work by myself. I found that it was still a rather challenging project, but it taught me a lot
that I can grow from as I continue on my path toward becoming an English teacher.
Our major unit text was To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. We chose this text originally
because it was a book we were all very familiar with, and we were simultaneously working with the
same text with an actual 9th grade class. Before finalizing this decision, we had to think about whether
the text would be relatable to the students in our class. We decided that there are many different
cultural issues in the book, as well as issues on race, gender, socioeconomic status, and many other
things that are present in a high school student’s life. While developing our lesson plans, the text fell
into place very well with what we wanted the students to bring away from the text. The story centered
on several people who needed to make their stories and voices heard in order to make a difference, and
that is also what the author did in writing the novel. I feel that the students in our class will have a
plethora of examples from which to learn the major goal of making a difference and respecting others’
voices.
I felt that we could incorporate some of the discussion points that we used with the “real” 9th
graders in our hypothetical classroom. As I worked on discussion times for some of the lessons, I found
that I could take the more successful topics from the online discussion and use them in my lessons. I
was able to reflect on a previous experience to enhance the potential success of the unit. All of my
education classes thus far have emphasized reflection as a useful tool to improve one’s teaching. It was
a good experience for me to be able to use my previous teaching practices in my future lessons. Part of
what made that experience was in choosing a text that was familiar to me. I had read the same text as a
9th grader, so I was able to recall the points that were important and interesting to me at the time and
apply that insight to the 9th grade class that I would teach. I had also worked with the Getting Away with
Murder: The True Story of the Emmett Till Case before, which helped me to learn which texts would be
intriguing to the age group I would be teaching.
The goals we chose were mainly influenced by readings that my partners and I had done for the
English 319 course and knowledge we had about teaching standards. We looked up the most recent
standards for English, and found that there was an emphasis on being able to make and support claims
in writing. The first writing standard for 9th graders states that students should be able to identify
“precise claim(s), distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and create an organization
that establishes clear relationships among claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence.” We tried to
incorporate this, especially the use of supporting evidence, in our collaborative paper. Students were
asked to look at texts (that we would provide) and find the most useful and unbiased information to
describe an event in history. I feel that our project addressed this standard because much of history is
up for debate as time passes and first-hand accounts become handed-down and less accurate. People
will make claims about events in history, and students will need to identify those claims as possibly
biased. They will also need to understand that different people will have different perspectives on
historical events. As we developed the project, we decided that students would work together on this
paper, bringing home the point of finding evidence for claims even more strongly. While students work
to meet the requirements of the paper, they are actually putting these ideals into practice by working
together and listening to each others’ perspectives on history.
Our lesson plans focus largely on the concept of scaffolding the students’ learning. We had our
students go through the book a few chapters at a time, and focused on providing supplementary texts
that would increase their learning bit by bit. Our first discussion questions focused mostly on setting
and characters, which gave the students a smooth transition into discussing the text. As the lessons
progressed, we looked more at the actual development and growth of the characters, which takes a lot
more thought and reflection on the students’ part. I feel that by providing simpler questions at the
beginning and building off of previous discussions, students will be able to make a smooth glide into an
understanding of the book.
A major part of many of our lessons was the discussion time. When planning the unit, we
decided that it would be very beneficial for students to discuss the text. Not only would this give
students the opportunity to listen and learn from each other in their own style of language, but they
would also have the chance to hear from different ranges of reading proficiencies. A student who has a
hard time understanding the text will be able to hear from a peer who uses similar language but might
have a better understanding of the text because he or she is at a higher reading level. We thought
about Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development, and expected that using this tactic would yield positive
results. I feel that we ended up relying on this idea in more than just our discussions and that it worked
really well for our unit. It is important for students to hear each other out, especially when the concept
of the unit depends on people speaking up and making their voices heard. A very useful tool in our
discussions was varying the format of discussion times. Sometimes, discussion was done with a single
partner or in small groups. Other times, there was a whole class discussion, and there were also
discussions in which the group became a “panel of experts.” This variation provided students with
different learning styles the opportunity to take part in the type of discussion that they prefer. It also
provides the teacher the valuable insight into which types of discussion are more successful and should
be used in the future.
Overall, I feel that this unit gave me the chance to put my teaching philosophy to use. I have
always felt that a good teacher needs to focus on the success of his or her students’ learning and
understanding of the material. Many times, it was tempting to take the easier route and go with what
was most comfortable for me and to make decisions based on what I felt would be easiest to teach.
Many times, I had to check myself and continually ask, “Does this help my students learn?” If the
answer was “no,” there was no way I could leave it in my lesson. Doing so many lessons helped me to
develop the habit of making sure that everything I said and did in the classroom would facilitate my
students’ learning. Although it was a difficult task, writing this unit with my group was very beneficial
for me in developing my teaching philosophy.
Katie Fuchs
ENGL 319
Carmen Manning
Conceptual Unit-Reflection
This was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. It was terrifying, grueling, and
very challenging, and I am not about to tell you that this was always a good thing. However,
making all of these lesson plans and actually thinking like a teacher really helped me confront
many of my fears of becoming a teacher. This unit seemed like a herculean task at first. I was
terrified by the idea of having to come up with actual plans for an actual unit. I had no idea what
I was doing and there were just so many of them that had to be done in such a short period of
time! But now that everything is done (with the exception of this reflection) I can look back and
appreciate what my group mates and I were able to accomplish these last few weeks.
It was reassuring to have group mates that were at the same place as me, all three of us
facing a daunting task and all of us clinging to our shared knowledge. Our Unit Rational was
really enlightening though, I think we all got the sense that we really did have some idea of what
we wanted and how we should go about doing it. That was very reassuring. We all had different
ideas of course, but having some basis for how to start was great. We all had a very similar
approach to teaching English at least. We all agreed with the teachings of KK and L, Beers, and
Vygotsky that knowledge needs to be constructed. We structured our unit so that students were
often partnered together and offered them exploratory exercises that would allow them to
develop their own ideas and to question their preconceptions about English and the material they
encounter both in and out of class. We wanted them to work in groups where the individuals
challenge each other to think in different ways and not always rely on the teacher to spoon feed
them answers. We also wanted the classroom to be a safe environment where the students felt
they could share their opinions and ideas without fear of ridicule from their peers. We thought
KKL’s idea of a writing journal was a great way to give students a voice before speaking in a
way. They were able to get their thoughts in order before sharing them with the class, or they
were able to write their ideas down and know that the teacher would be reading the journals,
having their voice heard by at least one person even if they didn’t speak up in class.
Incorporating the Wisconsin teaching standards into our conceptual unit was the most
difficult part of this assignment. I was not familiar with the standards before working on this
project aside from hearing them mentioned in class, so the idea of ‘teaching to the standard’ was
really new. I didn’t understand that all of the cool new ideas I wanted to include in my lessons
had to tie to the standard in some way. They couldn’t just be in the lesson; they actually had to
mean something. They couldn’t stand alone as a really fun and unique activity, it had to teach
towards a goal. That is how the Harlem Renaissance Poetry got included and reshaped several
times. I was extremely excited about this activity as I really love this time period and I think the
poetry is one of its most interesting products. However, I had a lot of trouble making it into an
activity that taught towards a goal. I wanted it to be fun and exciting for the students and not
stuffy or boring like it was when it was introduced at my high school. It was with the help of my
brilliant partners that we came up with the idea of a culminating product that would use the
poetry to further our Unit’s overall goal of realizing one individual’s ability to make a difference
while also teaching them how to work collaboratively and identify poetic structures.
All in all, I feel that this project has been a great success, whether or not the end result is
exactly as it should be. We worked really hard on our plans and on coming up with solid
teaching techniques. We explored what it really means to think and plan like a teacher. We even
learned a little about what it may be like to someday collaborate with peers in our futures as
teachers of English. All of this has been a highly valuable experience for me, and despite the
stress and sleepless nights, I have to say that I am glad that this was pushed on me. It really did
change the way I view myself as a person and has helped me realize that teaching is what I want
to do with my life, and although it may seem a little daunting now, in a few years I will be
looking back on those sleepless nights being thankful that I listened to what those books said and
that I actually did what Manning told me.