Problem Statement

I teach a full year African-American history course to 9th graders at an inquiry and project based school. At my school, we have grade-wide themes and essential questions that help drive the curriculum in all courses. For 9th grade, the theme is identity and the essential questions are: Who am I? How do I interact with the environment? How does the environment affect me? This is an important piece of context for this unit as it centers questions of identity and will ask students to engage in inquiry throughout in a project-based format.

I usually approach the curriculum for the course both thematically and chronologically by identifying themes and essential questions for key periods in African-American history. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s-60s would come at the end of the year, a time when everyone is tired and curriculum planning can feel rushed and uninspired. Building this curriculum is an opportunity to create a Civil Rights learning experience for students that is highly engaging and honors the work of freedom fighters. Our seminar leader, Karen Redrobe, early on has presented us with the question: “how do you teach something that is ongoing as ongoing?” This question stuck with me and so I used my time in the Teachers Institute of Philadelphia looking for an answer. I decided to rethink the chronological ordering of my course. Instead of starting an in-depth investigation of the CRM of the 1950s-1960s at the end of the year, in the fourth quarter, I envision this new unit to begin in the second quarter and extend into the third quarter. I will center this movement as a case study within the Black Freedom Struggle that extends from the 1400s through to the present. The overarching understanding goal for students is that the Black Freedom Struggle consists of threaded movements that are active today. To get this understanding, I plan with a scaffolded sequence of ideas in mind. Starting with the concept of the ‘single story.’

The title of this unit is a reference to Chimananda Ngozi Adichie’s Danger of Single Story Ted Talk. I start off the year in my 9th grade African-American history course with a study of Adichie’s idea. It is one of our guiding course concepts. Thinking about the power of narrative helps us understand the development of dehumanizing systems of slavery, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration. The single story idea also encourages students to consider the question: “what story or perspective am I missing?” when reading sources or learning about a new time period. This question will guide us towards a rich exploration of the Black Freedom Struggle in the face of the popular narrative of the CRM of the 1950s and 60s that dominates our collective memory.

Students will often say that they “learn the same thing” every year in history class. Through further questioning, I understand them to mean that they have heard the same stories over and over again, and this is especially true of their understanding of the Civil Rights Movement. MLK, Rosa Parks, and Ruby Bridges feature strongly in their dominant narrative. This dominant narrative, importantly, makes the CRM an important feature in their mental map of United States history. This is valuable. However, overall, one of my goals as a history teacher is to replace what seems to be straightforward stories and labels with complexity. I hope to make complexity more attractive; as students might understand themselves as complex individuals they can then afford the past the same approach. This unit seeks to move students beyond the single story of the Civil Rights Movement that most of them have encountered.

My students represent the racial, ethnic, cultural, economic, and educational diversity of Philadelphia. This is a gift and a valuable challenge. In their written reflections, students often talk about not wanting to offend others by saying the wrong thing. Many white students express not having experiences with race in their lives. Both of these comments reflect developing racial literacy. At the same time, I have a few students of all racial identities that are very knowledgeable and confident when talking about race and can push the conversation into areas that others would find uncomfortable. The challenge as a teacher is to provide all students the opportunity to move along their racial identity and literacy journey, no matter where they are.

Dominant Narrative of the Civil Rights Movement

In this section, I will summarize the essay titled “The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past” by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall. In it she unpacks the uses of a dominant narrative of the CRM while also establishing a more complex narrative that is able to speak to the “challenges of our time.”^[1] While this summary only scratches the surface of that complexity, I hope that it clarifies what I mean by the single story of the CRM. It is necessary for educators to deepen their own understanding of the dominant narrative in order to teach this unit effectively.

The Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 60s brings to mind the powerful oration of Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her bus seat, and hundreds of Americans meeting for the March on Washington. There are also images of violence and white mobs during protests and tragedy in the assassination of MLK. Successes such as Brown vs. The Board of Education, Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act will also feature prominently in this narrative. Hall notes the political uses of the dominant narrative by the New Right, “an alliance of corporate power brokers, old-style conservatives, and ‘neoconservatives,’” as a way to put the onus of the racial inequality on black individuals and not on a system of white privilege. In simple terms, the argument used by the New Right was that the CRM, which had become more focused on structural inequality, was a movement about color blindness and that goal was achieved, making racism a thing of the past.^[2]

Hall traces the roots of the structural inequities that became central issues in the CRM and are issues that present challenges today. The racist welfare systems of the New Deal, including the G.I. Bill of Rights, impacted the ability of African-Americans to accumulate generational wealth and social capital.^[3] Hall reframes segregation as a tool for white supremacy and specifically as a tool for racial capitalism. The dominant narrative seeks to place the end of legal segregation as the victory instead of a dismantling of one of the tools for maintaining black people as a source of cheap labor in the South.^[4]

Defining the start of the CRM is up for historical debate. Hall outlines the “decisive first phase” of the movement as the coalition building that comes out of the 1940s. The coalitions included “laborites, civil rights activists, progressive New Dealers, and black and white radicals.”^[5] These coalitions had many labor and civil rights successes that “contributed to the movement’s momentum, but also met fierce resistance, as the long backlash accelerated.”^[6] The Cold War backlash changed the context for the movement when it entered the “classical phase” in the 1950s. The dominant narrative ends the classical phase with the Civil Rights and Voting Rights act. Hall emphasizes the movements of movements that rise out of the classical phase as well as the work done to enact the changes established by the new laws. She moves the attention away from the typical desegregation cases like the Little Rock Nine, and tells stories of a successful 2 way busing program in Charlotte, NC followed by the long story of how desegregation efforts have been abandoned and how resegregation is presently increasing. The economic justice dimension is one that is ignored by the dominant narrative but that Hall seeks to restore.

Some of the essential questions that this essay generates for this curriculum are: What is the single story of the CRM movement that we are taught in larger society? What purpose does that single story serve? When did the CRM begin and why is this an important question? Did the CRM have an ending? Through the exploration of these essential questions students will begin to question stories of change that present straightforward and sanitized narratives.

Unit Design

Essential Questions and Understandings

• What is freedom? What does it mean to be free? What rights and opportunities does one need in order to maintain and defend their freedom?
• What does it mean to be equal? Is equality essential for democracy?
• How should a democratic society respond to violence and terror? What power do bystanders and upstanders have in the response?
• Are laws enough to create and sustain change?
• Why has democracy been called a “work in progress”? What can individuals do to help bring about a more just and equal society?
• To what extent is the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s an operating manual for successful social change?
• Is history something we use to instruct our lives?

Content Goals

The thematic goal for this unit is to study African-American history through the lens of the Black Freedom Struggle (BFS) as an ongoing part of history. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s will be our anchor. Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Movement (EOTP), the 14-part documentary series that gives a comprehensive look at the CRM through the perspective of its participants, will guide us through the movement. Each week will focus on one of the fourteen episodes. In general, each week will include a lesson that unpacks the episode, a lesson to unpack the issues in a pre-CRM historical context, and a lesson to unpack the issue in a contemporary context. For example, “Episode 6: Bridge to Freedom” tells the story of the Selma campaign for voting rights. A lesson that week could focus on the passing of the 15th amendment in the Reconstruction era and another could look at how mass incarceration has impacted voting rights today. Through this process, this unit focuses on the goal of teaching civil rights as ongoing.

To support students’ understanding of the ongoing nature of the struggle for civil rights, I will use the following timeline created by Teaching Tolerance.^[7] The timeline visualizes Michelle Alexander’s thesis in The New Jim Crow that racial caste has been disrupted and rebuilt throughout U.S. history.  It is important for students to understand the dynamics of power that contribute to systems of oppression and exploitation. However, it is an injustice to students if we do not apply the lens of power to understanding resistance and change. I have found it helpful for students to zoom out and study the larger picture and to see that resistance has always existed even if progress cannot be represented as a straight line.

A resource like his helps students investigate the changes and continuities in the Black Freedom Struggle while also identifying the movements that make it up. I especially like this chart because it leaves the present and future open for students to place themselves in. The ongoing nature of the Black Freedom Struggle becomes clearer.

I plan to dedicate two academic quarters to an investigation of the Black Freedom Struggle. This will require organizing this course of study into mini-units or modules in order to regularly assign summative assessments that’s connected to both content and skill-building goals. The rest of this subsection will be a general overview of each EOTP episode as well as a description of topic ideas for lessons that align with the content goals of this unit. I will briefly explain topics that help students break down the single story of the CRM, unveil the ongoing nature of the BFS, and explain the actions that built and disrupted racial caste and racial hierarchy throughout U.S. history. These topics are meant to clarify these goals as well as provide educators with ideas. However, the thinking here is by no means exhaustive. Teachers will need to make decisions about which topics to cover within the context of their goals and students’ needs.

Episode 1 is titled “Awakenings,” spans from 1954 to 1956, and “focuses on the early years of struggle for black freedom, including the lynching of Emmett Till, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and the formation of the SCLC.”^[8] This episode presents the opportunity to discuss the single story of Rosa Parks as an elderly woman who was physically tired one day and had the courage to give up her seat. Instead, students will learn the truer story of Parks who was being strategic and using tactics of civil disobedience for a larger goal. The lynching of Emmett Till can generate a lesson on the use of violence in upholding white supremacy during the racial caste systems of slavery, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration. Lastly, the formation of the SCLC allows us to introduce the long history of organizations that have formed around human and civil rights, including but not limited to the American Anti-Slavery Society, the NAACP, the Universal Negro Improvement Association, Congress of Racial Equality, Black Panther Party, and Black Lives Matter. These organizations have been vital to moments in our history when racial caste has been disrupted.

Episode 2 is titled “Fighting Back,” spans from 1957 to 1962 and “traces the African American community’s rejection of “separate but equal” education.”^[9] This episode focuses on a topic that is close to home for students: their education. Historically, we can study how education has always been an institution that has been used to entrench racial caste. From the laws that prohibited enslaved people from being taught to read to the unequal funding of schools. Resistance to these also rises to the surface. Enslaved people often learned to read and write and during Reconstruction Black communities started their own schools as one of the first acts of freedom. Those schools became the basis for the first public school system in the south. The question to explore in the present is, to what extent has “separate but equal” education been disrupted?

Episode 3 is titled “Ain’t Scared of Your Jails,” spans from 1960 to 1961, and “focuses on the participation of young people, including the formation of SNCC, college students’ participation in lunch counter sit-ins, and the Freedom Rides.”^[10] This episode presents two topic opportunities. It allows us to unpack civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance as a tactic in the BFS as well as the role of young people in movements. Students can make connections to how young people participated in 2020 uprisings. What is at stake for people in different stages of their life? What do young people bring to a movement? How do they see the fight for civil rights now that they have the historical context of a racial caste system that has been continuously disrupted and rebuilt in U.S. history.

Episode 4 is titled “No Easy Walk,” spans from 1962 to 1966, and “examines the emergence of mass demonstrations, documenting the march of Alabama school children against the spray of fire hoses and the historic 1963 March on Washington, DC.”^[11] In this episode, we learn of the mounting pressure for President Kennedy to ask congress to act on a civil rights act. A related historical topic to explore could be how abolitionists impacted President Lincoln who also experienced mounting pressure to make ending slavery a Civil War aim.^[12] Similarly, we can unpack the 2020 uprisings by discussing the demands on federal and local governments. Understanding the various levers of power and how the BFS has approached change at various levels.

Episode 5 is titled “Mississippi: Is This America?,” spans from 1962 to 1964, and “focuses on the extraordinary personal risks that citizens faced as they assumed responsibility for social change, particularly during the 1962-64 voting rights campaign in Mississippi.”^[13] In this episode, we can use the concept of Freedom Summer to consider other efforts to address years of injustice. For example, the Freedmen’s Bureau operated during Reconstruction to address the needs of newly freed people. Students can compare and contrast the efforts of the Freedmen’s Bureau and Freedom Summer. Another lesson could ask students to design a modern day Freedom Summer. After five episodes, this gives students an opportunity to apply their knowledge of the ongoing BFS to present day issues that have historical roots.

Episode 6 is titled “Bridge to Freedom,” covers 1965, and “opens with the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery and explores the drive to make voting rights a national issue.”^[14] The previous episode begins the discussion of voting rights in the CRM and episode 6 tells the story of the campaigns that continued to push for a comprehensive federal law. This is a time to make voting rights the week’s topic. This calls for a lesson on the 15th amendment from Reconstruction as well as the continued disenfranchisement of a larger portion of the population through mass incarceration.

Episode 7 is titled “The Time Has Come,” spans from 1964 to 1966, and examines Malcolm X and his influence, the struggle to develop new goals and create new strategies in the post-voting rights era, and the call for ‘Black Power.’”^[15] This episode provides us with an opportunity to make the Malcolm X vs MLK single story more complex, especially because in it we see King being “tired of violence” and letting “my oppressors dictate what method I should use.” One way to approach this is to dissect demands like “Freedom Now” and “Black Power.” What do those mean and what approaches to change do they represent? We can then compare that to the demands reflected in “Black Lives Matter.”

Episode 8 is titled “Two Societies,” spans from 1965 to 1968, and “explores the civil rights movement in northern cities, including the 1967 uprising in Detroit.” This episode allows us to address the single story of a CRM focused on the south. A look back at the complicity of the north in slavery and the racial discrimination experienced by free African-American communities. For example, in Philadelphia we can learn about Octavius Catto who was a Black man who fought for civil rights in the pre and post Civil War era. He helped to desegregate street cars and organized for the adoption of the 15th amendment in Pennsylvania. He was assassinated by white Democrats on election day a year after the 15th amendment was adopted.^[16] His story highlights the long fight for civil rights in the north. This episode also presents a connection to the 2020 uprisings. Students can compare and contrast the context for the uprisings in Chicago and Detroit and those around the country in 2020.

Episode 9 is titled “Power!,” spans from 1966 to 1968, and “traces the political path to power for Carl Stokes, the founding of the Black Panther Party, and the education experiment in New York’s Ocean Hill-Brownsville neighborhood.”^[17] This episode presents an opportunity to unpack the single story of the Black Panther Party. This could start with a look at the full name created by the founders, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, the “Black Panther Party for Self Defense.” Additionally, the Party’s Ten-Point Platform allows us to compare and contrast demands by other organizations across the Black Freedom Struggle.

Episode 10 is titled “The Promised Land,” spans from 1967 to 1968, and “illustrates connections between the war in Vietnam and poverty in the US, analyzes the positions of Martin Luther King Jr., and discusses King’s assassination.”^[18] This episode allows us to take a deeper look at the relationship between poverty, economic inequality, and civil rights. We can take a look back at the demands for land redistribution after the Civil War and the resulting sharecropping system. Additionally, the system of slavery allows us to explore the intertwined roots of racism and capitalism. This episode tells the story of the Memphis sanitation workers so one possible modern day connection can be the demands made by sanitation workers in Philadelphia during the coronavirus pandemic.^[19]

Episode 11 is titled “Ain’t Gonna Shuffle No More,” spans from 1964 to 1972, and “chronicles Muhammad Ali’s career, describes the movement at Howard University for black studies, and documents the National Black Political Convention at Gary, Indiana.”^[20] This episode highlights stories that show the many ways that Black Americans sought to determine their own identity. We can look back to art from the Harlem Renaissance to explore the ongoing nature of this part of the struggle. It would also be appropriate to look at the historical moment in Philadelphia when high school students walked out in 1967 to demand, amongst other things, Black studies in their schools. This is the beginning of what became the African-American history graduation requirement in Philadelphia. In fact, the 2020 uprisings has ignited the fight in other schools and districts for Black studies courses and requirements.

Episode 12 is titled “A Nation of Law,” spans from 1968 to 1971, and “examines the government’s response to the Black Panther Party in Chicago and the FBI’s covert program to disrupt and neutralize black organizations, including the Black Panthers.”^[21] Through this episode, we can explore the relationship between racism and the criminal justice system. Historically, we can look at the convict leasing system of the Jim Crow era that criminalized black and poor people and capitalized off their labor. The CRM helps us look at the role of political dissenters in a democracy. And today, we can once again unpack the mass incarceration system in light of the demands coming out of the 2020 uprising to defund and abolish the police. Angela Davis acts as a guide between the CRM era and the present given her long fight for prison abolition.

Episode 13 is titled “The Keys to the Kingdom,” spans from 1974 to 1980, and “describes the desegregation and busing of Boston Public Schools, assesses the success of affirmative action in Atlanta, and examines the case of medical student Alan Bakke.”^[22] This episode presents us with a moment in the curriculum to unpack two complex programs aimed at correcting historic injustices: school desegregation and affirmative action. We can explore the resistance to these programs, misunderstandings attached to them, and local examples. Students might want to explore whether or not segregation in Philadelphia’s schools are still a problem.

Episode 14 is titled “Back to the Movement,” spans from 1979 to the mid-1980s, and “contrasts Miami and Chicago in the early 1980s, traces the election of Harold Washington as Chicago’s first black mayor, and explores themes of power and powerlessness.”^[23] With now several years after the classical age of the CRM, we have an opportunity to compare and contrast the movement in a different decade. Given that this is the last episode, we can also compare and contrast the movements of the Black Freedom Struggle in several ways.

Goals for Skill-Building

Students will be able to think and write historically. There will be modules in this unit that asks students to investigate a central historical question and answer it with primary and secondary source evidence. For example, on the week that we watch “Episode 8: Two Societies” of Eyes on the Prize, students will explore the CRM in northern cities. In our ‘look back’ lesson, we can answer the historical question: “Why did African-Americans migrate to northern cities?”

Students will be able to evaluate Eyes on the Prize as a source. As with sourcing any primary or secondary source, students will identify who made the film, the purpose behind it, the sources used to create the film, the perspectives included and excluded. Henry Hampton, the executive producer of the series, struggled with the idea of bias and whether or not the filmmakers, many of them who were deeply involved in the CRM, could create a balanced documentary. On the other hand, they recognized the importance of storytelling to keep the vision of movements alive. This background into the creation of the documentary series will help my students as budding historians.^[24] As Louis Massiah noted in his visit to our TIP class, documentary is a historical tool but it’s not history.^[25] Still, the makers of EOTP were guided by journalistic principles that required strict fact checking. For example, one of their principles was that “every assertion of fact, no matter who said it, would be confirmed from two primary or secondary sources.”^[26] Students will practice their ability to evaluate film as they consider the choices that the filmmakers made and the impact that those choices have on them as viewers. Equally important, they will be able to judge the trustworthiness of historical documentaries as sources.

Students will be able to analyze the impact of choices made by filmmakers. As part of analysis of the Eyes on the Prize each week, I will ask a student to pick a clip and to analyze the choices made by the filmmaker and how that impacted how they understood the episode. Each student will submit their own video clip analysis. This assignment centers student voice in our discussion of the documentaries. It also gives each student practice with film literacy that they will apply in their culminating film project.

Students will be able to engage in meaningful and productive discussions. My approach to teaching students discussion skills is highly influenced by my colleague and educator, Matt Kay. In his book Not Light, But Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom, Kay writes about building the ecosystem for successful race conversations. Part of this is to teach students to understand listening as a skill that they can work on and not in the academic or disciplinary sense, but with guidelines: listen patiently, listen actively, and police your voice. These guidelines are practiced early in the year and referred to explicitly in order to help build safety in the class. The ecosystem is also supported by giving time connection and gratitude with and between students, the development of own interpersonal facilitation skills, giving structure to dialogic curriculum, and establishing a purpose of our conversations about race.^[27]

Mid-Unit Project

After watching episode 7 of EOTP, we will pause our progression to complete a mid-unit summative assessment for this unit. The project is a research project that asks students to address the single stories of the CRM and the BFS. Students will pick a topic that was addressed in EOTP or that they think is missing from the narrative, conduct research on the impact of their topic on the CRM, and create a profile on their topic. We will compile our profiles to make a book titled, “The Danger of a Single Story of the Civil Rights Movement: Expanding the Narrative.” Potential topics include individuals such as Bayard Rustin or Ella Baker, or groups such as CORE or Deacons of Defense and Justice, or events such as the Americus Movement.

Culminating Project

The culminating project for this unit will address the goals related to content and skills outlined above. In this project students will create their own documentary film. Students will conduct interviews of individuals about their memories of or participation in freedom struggles and/or movements. The interviews will be used to generate questions and historical context research. These interviews and research will be used to create a film that addresses the complexity of movements and expands the single stories of movements. At the same time, the project asks them to become historians by conducting original research that answers a historical question. Finally, by engaging in conversations through interviews students will also move along in their understanding of how race impacts all people and how to maneuver through discomfort in a conversation about race. Many students may incorporate Philadelphia history into their projects which allows for local research.

A long-time goal of mine has been to collaborate with local archives and this project would be an opportunity to do so. I would like to engage with Temple University Urban Archives, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the Library Company. Additionally, I would like students to see their films as contributions to an archive on historical memory in Philadelphia created by students that take my course every year. I envision that each new group of students could use the films created by previous classes as sources for their projects. I wonder if this would allow for deeper insight, connections, and complexity around the story of movements in Philadelphia. In the end, what gets archived can eventually become stories that are told. This is evident through the rich archival footage used in Eyes on the Prize. My students can participate in the unsilencing of their own stories and those of their communities. In Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Saidiya Hartman discusses the role of the archive in silencing aspects of the past, “Every historian of the multitude, the dispossessed, the subaltern, and the enslaved is forced to grapple with the power and authority of the archive and the limits it sets on what can be known, whose perspective matters, and who is endowed with the gravity and authority of historical actor.”^[28] By creating sources that will be archived, students will be making a statement about whose perspective matters. I anticipate that by actively engaging in this archival process students will be able to make connections between the archive, the creation of history, and how we learn from the past.

Recurring Reflective Activity: Creating an “operating manual”

In True South, Jon Else recounts the making of the Eyes on the Prize series and the questions that the filmmakers asked themselves as they struggled to develop a narrative: “Without ever saying so, we could present the civil rights movement as an operating manual for successful social change in the future.”^[29] This quote has inspired the larger purpose behind this unit. In a previous subsection, I cited Matt Kay’s work on leading meaningful conversations. Part of an ecosystem that lends itself to consistent success in conversations about race and racism is always having “clearly recognized — and respectable — purposes.”^[30] Those purposes should lend themselves to solution and action.

Students and I will ask ourselves to what extent the CRM is an “operating manual” for social change. Students will keep a Google doc that includes short vignettes for their own operating manual. After each episode students will write one or two vignettes that describe “how-tos” for movement building and social change. For example, after watching episode 6 on the Selma campaign and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, students might note the use of national and international press to put pressure on politicians and to gather physical support from allies. Regularly we will collect the best vignettes for our class generated manual.

The purpose of this operating manual is to help students truly work with the often repeated idea that we learn history so that we know how to address social problems in our current moment. In their culminated project students will create documentaries. They will apply their knowledge of the operating manual when analyzing the content of their interviews and the historical research they do to accompany it. Through this process students will deepen their understanding of the relationship between individuals and movements.

I envision that this operating manual will also extend into the final quarter of the year and beyond the unit outlined here. Here is list of extension activities or projects that other educators might find useful: students create a game around a social issue that they want to solve, this game uses strategies, tactics, and ideas from the operating manual to achieve change in their game; students design a movement that addresses a social issue using the operating manual as their guide; students evaluate a current movement using the operating manual; students work collaboratively to create an action that addresses a social issue pulling from their operating manual.

^[1] Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, “The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past,” The Journal of American History 91, no. 4 (2005): 1234.

^[2] Hall, “The Long,” 1237.

^[3] Hall, “The Long,” 1242.

^[4] Hall, “The Long,” 1243.

^[5] Hall, “The Long,” 1245.

^[6] Hall, “The Long,” 1248.

^[7] Southern Poverty Law Center, “Rebirth of Caste Handout,” Teaching Tolerance, accessed April 14, 2020, https://www.tolerance.org/classroom-resources/tolerance-lessons/slavery-as-a-form-of-racialized-social-control.

^[8] “Eyes on the Prize Study Guide,” Facing History and Ourselves, accessed July 21, 2020, https://www.facinghistory.org/books-borrowing/eyes-prize-study-guide?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=89344292&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-81kaaqu_i9bgsQCv1zJ-EYf7ZsB91vTo2UoTcyk8hz-2KokEE0vsqCl_ldRzQObHpuncEdxWB-iRH0O0vgvOSjUJ2znWAbolZ8POABObbuFucT-v0&utm_content=89344291&utm_source=hs_email#block-bean-eyes-on-the-prize-video-coll-0.

^[9] “Eyes on the Prize,” Facing History and Ourselves.

^[10]  Ibid.

^[11] “Eyes on the Prize,” Facing History and Ourselves.

^[12] Manisha Sinha, “Abolitionists and Reconstruction,” lecture presented at People’s Historians Online, July 10, 2020, video, posted by Zinn Education Project, July 15, 2020, accessed July 21, 2020, https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/ph-online-abolitionists-reconstruction/.

^[13] “Eyes on the Prize,” Facing History and Ourselves.

^[14] Ibid.

^[15]  Ibid.

^[16] Aaron X. Smith, “Murder of Octavius Catto,” in Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia, last modified 2015, accessed July 21, 2020, https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/murder-of-octavius-catto/.

^[17] “Eyes on the Prize,” Facing History and Ourselves.

^[18]  Ibid.

^[19] Juliana Feliciano Reyes, “‘Black lives matter at work’: Philly sanitation workers rally for safer conditions on the job,” The Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, PA), June 9, 2020, accessed July 21, 2020, https://www.inquirer.com/jobs/labor/sanitation-workers-protests-philadelphia-20200609.html.

^[20] “Eyes on the Prize,” Facing History and Ourselves.

^[21] Ibid.

^[22] Ibid.

^[23] Ibid.

^[24] Jon Else, True South: Henry Hampton and “Eyes on the Prize,” the Landmark Television Series That Reframed the Civil Rights Movement (New York, NY: Viking, 2017), 95.

^[25] Louis Massiah, “Televising the Civil Rights Movement” (lecture, Cinema and Civil Rights Teacher’s Institute of Philadelphia Seminar, Philadelphia, PA, February 25, 2020).

^[26]  Else, True South, 102.

^[27] Matthew R. Kay, Not Light, But Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom (Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers, 2018).

^[28] Saidiya Hartman, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2019), xiii.

^[29] Else, True South, 95.

^[30] Kay, Not Light, 116.

Discussions

Students will build understanding through a dialogic environment in partnered, small group, and whole class settings. Discussion allows students to process information and to challenge each other’s thinking.

Film Clip Analysis

We will take clips from Eyes on the Prize to analyze the choices made by the filmmakers. This strategy will sharpen students’ film literacy skills which they will apply in the creation of their own documentaries. Examples of film clip activities will be: writing notes while watching clips of things they notice and then discussing the choices the filmmaker made and impact on the viewer; comparative clips of individuals across different films to highlight the choices that filmmakers make around the same story (for example, Malcolm X or Shirley Chisholm); and comparative clips of aspects of movements (protests, discussions between leaders, reflections from participants). Our seminar leader modeled this for us. A useful strategy that builds student confidence is to discuss the film clips without technical terms at first.

Historian’s Debate

This is a strategy developed by the Foreign Policy Research Institute. The goal is to make high caliber historical scholarship exciting and accessible to students and teachers. This strategy asks students to develop historical argumentation skills. The structure goes as follows: students are presented with a difficult question that connects the past and the present, this is then narrowed down to a central historical question, students are provided with background knowledge in the form of a brief lecture, they are then presented with two arguments (responses to the the question) and multiple documents representing various historian’s claims, students map the documents to the arguments, finally, students discuss and unpack the the central historical question in light of the claims presented.^[1]

Students will engage in historian’s debate as a scaffold. This strategy exposes students to history as a discussion and not as a single narrative. This gives students models for how to generate their own historical claims from primary sources. They will be asked to do this in their documentary projects as they extrapolate research questions from analysis of interviews.

Reading Like a Historian

The Stanford History Education Project (SHEG) created this approach to history education that asks students to think and write like historians. Students are presented with a historical question that requires primary and/or secondary sources to answer. The teacher curates a set of sources (often excerpted and modified for student accessibility) that students use to answer the historical question. Students are asked to apply sourcing and corroboration techniques before coming to a conclusion. I would use some lessons from SHEG’s database. I will also create my own Reading Like A Historian lessons for topics throughout this unit.

Photograph and Art Analysis

I was inspired by Kevin Quashie’s use of photographs to generate reflection on the existence of interiority and quiet in individuals living their everyday lives but also in the moments in which we observe resistance and action. In The Sovereignty of Quiet, Quashie presents his readers with the image of Tommie Smith, John Carlos, and Peter Norman from the 1968 Olympic games in Mexico City.^[2] This is one photo that I could use practice photo analysis but also to consider the interior life that is not often discussed. Quashie pushes his readers to use frameworks other than resistance to understand black life. As students prepare to interview for their documentary projects, I would like for them to listen for moments of quiet and interiority in their interviewees responses.

Collaborations with Community Organizations

I would like to partner with archives in Philadelphia. Some archives have education departments that can support student research. There is also potential to get support to create my own digital archive.

I also would like to partner with Scribe Video Center. One idea is to develop an interviewing workshop.

Lastly, I would like to bring in visitors. I would interview them in front of the class as models for their own projects. I would also model the filming/recording process. I can use this footage to create a version of the project alongside them so that they get guidance throughout this complex task.

^[1] “Teaching Critical Thinking Skills through Historical Inquiry.” Foreign Policy Research Institute. Accessed April 14, 2020. https://www.fpri.org/lux-critical-thinking/.

^[2] Kevin Quashie. The Sovereignty of Quiet: Beyond Resistance in Black Culture. (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2012.), 1-3.

Lesson Plan # 1: Review of Eyes on the Prize “Episode 6: Bridge to Freedom”

Materials needed

• Copies of study guide (see Appendix B)
• Copies of quiz (see Appendix C)
• Link to Eyes on the Prize “Episode 6: Bridge to Freedom”: https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/video/eyes-prize-bridge-freedom-1965?token=15258672
• Rubric and instructions for scene analysis (see Appendix D)

Timeline for completion

For homework, students will have one week to watch Eyes on the Prize “Episode 6: Bridge to Freedom” and to complete the study guide in preparation for the quiz on the episode. Reviewing the episode as a class can be completed within 1 class period. This lesson was created with a 65 minute class period.

Stated objectives

Students will watch and take notes on episode 6 of Eyes on the Prize.

Students will identify the events that pushed the Civil Rights Movement forward in 1965.

Students will practice writing vignettes for the operating manual for social change.

Students will practice analyzing a scene from a documentary.

District, state, and national curriculum standards addressed

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.1

Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.2

Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary that makes clear the relationships among the key details and ideas.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.1.C

Propel conversations by posing and responding to questions that probe reasoning and evidence; ensure a hearing for a full range of positions on a topic or issue; clarify, verify, or challenge ideas and conclusions; and promote divergent and creative perspectives.

Evaluation Tools

See study guide, quiz question, and rubric for scene analysis in the appendix. The rubric is meant to provide qualitative feedback at this point in the unit as students are practicing the film analysis skills.

A step-by-step guide to completion

1. Students prepare to take the quiz by reviewing their notes and the study guide.
2. Students will take the quiz. Option to make this an open notes quiz to encourage note-taking.
3. Review the quiz answers briefly.
4. A student will present their scene analysis. This student will have been identified the week before and will prepare ahead of time.
5. Teacher leads a whole class discussion based on student presentation. Ask students to share positive feedback, what they noticed about the scene that was not mentioned by the presenter, and how the presentation impacted their perspective.
6. Students share their vignettes for the operating manual for successful social change in small groups. Students decide which of the vignettes they think should be added to the classwide operating manual and share this selection with the entire class along with their justification.

Lesson #2: Voting Rights Today

Materials needed

• Slides for mini-lecture on legacy of Voting Rights Act and felony disenfranchisement
• Posters

Timeline for completion

This lesson is designed to be completed within one 65 minute class period.

Stated objectives

Students will consider the idea proposed by Congressman John Lewis, “Do everything possible to help people vote, not to stop them from voting.”

Students will understand the ongoing nature of voting rights protection and activism.

District, state, and national curriculum standards addressed

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.7

Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well as in words) in order to address a question or solve a problem.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.1.C

Propel conversations by posing and responding to questions that probe reasoning and evidence; ensure a hearing for a full range of positions on a topic or issue; clarify, verify, or challenge ideas and conclusions; and promote divergent and creative perspectives.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.1.D

Respond thoughtfully to diverse perspectives; synthesize comments, claims, and evidence made on all sides of an issue; resolve contradictions when possible; and determine what additional information or research is required to deepen the investigation or complete the task.

Evaluation tool

Students will be evaluated using an exit ticket reflection.

• Compare and contrast the Voting Rights Act era and to today.
• Ask students to reflect on their own perspective shifts
  • I used to think….Now I think….

A step-by-step guide to completion

1. Start with a four corners debate on the following statement: “All people, even babies, should have the right to vote.”
   1. On its surface, this statement seems ridiculous but it can open up students to debating the ways that democracies decide who and who does not receive the right to vote.
   2. By moving to different corners of the room or through a show of hands, ask students to demonstrate if they strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree with the statement. Most students will likely say that they disagree with this statement. It will be up to the teacher to provide arguments for the ‘agree’ perspective. Some of those arguments could be:
      1. If we put limits on our youngest then we should put limits on our eldest. It is known that older voters who need a lot of physical and mental support enter voting booths with aids who help them vote. There is an argument to be made that our youngest will need the same type of support both physically and mentally. If we do no not limit voters based on ability to cast their own vote when they are older, why should we do this when they are younger?
      2. The impacts of our votes will shape the lives of babies for the rest of their lives. Older people have less years at stake. It might mean that babies without speech and ability to form political ideas yet will essentially give parents a double vote. However, is it not true the parent will vote in their child’s best interest? Eventually, however, it is possible to translate the differences between candidates to children as they grow older. Just because this is difficult and requires more resources does not mean that we should not expand voting.
2. Explain to students that in this lesson we’ll be exploring the legacy of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and a major voting rights issue that we have today. Give context with mini-lecture. Use the following resources to construct the mini-lecture.
   1. Selma Online: https://www.selmaonline.org/chapter-7
   2. Zinn Education Project: https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/the-voting-rights-act-ten-things-you-should-know/
   3. The Sentencing Project: https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/felony-disenfranchisement-a-primer/
   4. The Sentencing Project: https://www.sentencingproject.org/issues/felony-disenfranchisement/
3. Poster Discussions
   1. Students will have poster discussions in small groups in order to encourage full participation and to generate lots of ideas.
   2. Put each question on a large poster with space for students to write their ideas.
   3. You can have the posters on the walls or on tables and have students walk around writing their responses silently. Or you can have the students stay seated and have the posters move from table to table.
      1. In a country with a history of racist outcomes in it’s institutions, should limits on voting be legal?
      2. What is the purpose of taking away the right to vote of those convicted of a crime? Do you think taking away the right to vote is effective? Are there any hidden reasons?
      3. What are the challenges to creating a movement that tries to restore voting rights for convicted felons?
      4. What are the arguments for allowing those in prison to vote? What are the arguments against?
   4. After students are done generating ideas on posters. Assign each poster to a group. The group reviews the responses and identifies the strongest arguments and weakest arguments to present to the class.
4. Closing reflection on an exit ticket. Have a few students share their responses with the class.
   1. Compare and contrast the Voting Rights Act era and to today.
   2. Ask students to reflect on their own perspective shifts
      1. I used to think….Now I think….

Works Cited

Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd. “The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the

Past.” The Journal of American History 91, no. 4 (2005): 1233-263.

Else, Jon. True South: Henry Hampton and “Eyes on the Prize,” the Landmark Television

Series That Reframed the Civil Rights Movement. New York, NY: Viking, 2017.

“Eyes on the Prize Study Guide.” Facing History and Ourselves. Accessed July 21, 2020. https://www.facinghistory.org/books-borrowing/eyes-prize-study-guide?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=89344292&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-81kaaqu_i9bgsQCv1zJ-EYf7ZsB91vTo2UoTcyk8hz-2KokEE0vsqCl_ldRzQObHpuncEdxWB-iRH0O0vgvOSjUJ2znWAbolZ8POAObbuFucT-v0&utm_content=89344291&utm_source=hs_email#block-bean-eyes-on-the-prize-video-coll-0.

Feliciano Reyes, Juliana. “‘Black lives matter at work’: Philly sanitation workers rally for safer conditions on the job.” The Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, PA), June 9, 2020. Accessed July 21, 2020. https://www.inquirer.com/jobs/labor/sanitation-workers-protests-philadelphia-20200609.html.

Hartman, Saidiya. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2019.

Kay, Matthew R. Not Light, But Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers, 2018.

Massiah, Louis. “Televising the Civil Rights Movement.” Lecture, Cinema and Civil Rights Teacher’s Institute of Philadelphia Seminar, Philadelphia, PA, February 25, 2020.

Quashie, Kevin. The Sovereignty of Quiet: Beyond Resistance in Black Culture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2012.

Sinha, Manisha. “Abolitionists and Reconstruction.” Lecture presented at People’s Historians Online, July 10, 2020. Video. Posted by Zinn Education Project, July 15, 2020. Accessed July 21, 2020. https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/ph-online-abolitionists-reconstruction/.

Smith, Aaron X. “Murder of Octavius Catto.” In Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. Last modified 2015. Accessed July 21, 2020. https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/murder-of-octavius-catto/.

Southern Poverty Law Center. “Rebirth of Caste Handout.” Teaching Tolerance. Accessed April 14, 2020. https://www.tolerance.org/classroom-resources/tolerance-lessons/slavery-as-a-form-of-racialized-social-control.

“Teaching Critical Thinking Skills through Historical Inquiry.” Foreign Policy Research Institute. Accessed April 14, 2020. https://www.fpri.org/lux-critical-thinking/.

Annotated Bibliography

Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow : Mass Incarceration in the Age of

Colorblindness. New York: New Press, 2010.

Teachers can use this book to deepen their knowledge and understanding of the racial caste system that the Black Freedom Struggle has responded to over the course the last 200 years.

Anderson, Carol. White rage: the unspoken truth of our racial divide. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016.

Teachers can use this book to deepen their knowledge and understanding of White resistance to disruptions in the racial caste system that is visualized in the timeline featured in the narrative of this unit.

Digital Library of Georgia. Civil Rights Digital Library. Accessed March 2, 2020. http://crdl.usg.edu/?Welcome&Welcome.

Students can use this database for research purposes during projects and in-class activities.

Emery, Kathy, Sylvia Braselmann, and Linda Reid Gold. “Freedom School Curriculum.” Education and Democracy. Accessed March 2, 2020. http://www.educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/A_02_Introduction.htm.

There is an activity mentioned in the curriculum that asks students to create a Freedom Summer program for 2020. This source can be used by the teacher to give students examples from the 1964 Freedom Summer and Freedom Schools.

Film Foundation. The Story of Movies. Accessed April 14, 2020. https://www.storyofmovies.org/.

This source provides teachers with resources for teaching film literacy.

Hampton, Henry, Steve Fayer, and Sarah Flynn. Voices of freedom: an oral history of the civil rights movement from the 1950s through the 1980s. New York: Bantam Books, 1990.

This source provides transcripts of oral histories. This will serve as a resource for students as they complete research for their mid-unit project. This will also serve as a resource for teachers who want to supplement their lessons with primary sources.

Library of Congress. “Civil Rights History Project.” Library of Congress. Accessed March 2, 2020. https://www.loc.gov/collections/civil-rights-history-project/.

Students can use this database for research purposes during projects and in-class activities.

Menkart, Deborah, Alana Murray, and Jenice View, eds. Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching. N.p.: Teaching for Change, 2004.

This source is a resource guide for teachers seeking ideas for lessons to complement the Eyes on the Prize documentary. This book also serves a resource for topics for student projects.

Selma Online. Accessed April 14, 2020. https://www.selmaonline.org/.

This source can be used for lessons related to episode 6 of Eyes on the Prize.

Temple University. “Civil Rights in a Northern City.” Temple University Libraries. Accessed March 2, 2020. http://northerncity.library.temple.edu/exhibits/show/civil-rights-in-a-northern-cit.

This source provides primary and secondary sources on the Civil Rights Movement in Philadelphia. This is of particular interest for teachers who may implement this unit in this city.

University of Washington. Mapping American Social Movements. Accessed March 2, 2020 https://depts.washington.edu/moves/index.shtml.

Students can use this database to identify social movements inside and outside of the Black Freedom Struggle. This is especially valuable for students in their culminating documentary film project as they might interview individuals with experiences or memories from movements that we have not studied in class.

Williams, Juan. Eyes on the prize: America’s civil rights years, 1954-1965. New York, NY: Penguin, 2002.

The source is mainly for teachers to use to deepen their knowledge and understanding of the events covered in the Eyes on the Prize documentary series.

Common Core Standards

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.1

Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole.

Students will meet this standard when completing their scene analysis, in daily discussions, during historians debates lessons, Reading Like a Historian lessons, and in their projects.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.2

Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary that makes clear the relationships among the key details and ideas.

Students will meet this standard when completing their scene analysis, in daily discussions, during historians debates lessons, Reading Like a Historian lessons, and in their projects.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.7

Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well as in words) in order to address a question or solve a problem.

Students will meet this standard in discussions, during historians debates lessons, Reading Like a Historian lessons, and in their projects.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.1.C

Propel conversations by posing and responding to questions that probe reasoning and evidence; ensure a hearing for a full range of positions on a topic or issue; clarify, verify, or challenge ideas and conclusions; and promote divergent and creative perspectives.

Students will meet this standard when completing their scene analysis, in daily discussions, during historians debates lessons, and Reading Like a Historian lessons.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.1.D

Respond thoughtfully to diverse perspectives; synthesize comments, claims, and evidence made on all sides of an issue; resolve contradictions when possible; and determine what additional information or research is required to deepen the investigation or complete the task.

Students will meet this standard in daily discussions, during historians debates lessons, Reading Like a Historian lessons, and in their projects.

Appendix B

Study Guide for Eyes on the Prize // Episode 6: “Bridge to Freedom” (1965)

Brief Overview of the Historical Context for Episode 6

Instructions: read this overview before watching the episode. Star anything that is new to you. Then preview the questions in the rest of the study guide.

Episode 6 concludes the saga of black Americans’ struggle for a comprehensive voting rights bill. The history of voting in the United States includes politicians and citizens limiting the rights of others based on who was understood to be a citizen that had political rights by those in power. The history of voting also includes movements for expanding the right to vote. The U.S. Constitution gave states the power to manage voting. From 1789 to the Civil War, states across the country did a few things. Some expand the right to vote to all white men, even those that do not own property. Some who had given free African-Americans the right to vote and even some women took those rights away. However, after the Civil War there was a push by Black and White activists leaders in Washington D.C. to expand rights for African-Americans. Along with amendments to the Constitution to end slavery (13th) and to ensure equal protection under the law (14th), the 15th amendment expanded the right to vote to all men regardless of race. This meant that states no longer had the power to create discriminatory voting laws based on race. That’s right, states still had the power to keep women from voting. However, through this fight for the 15th amendment we see the rise of the women’s suffrage movement. It would take another 50 years to pass the 19th amendment in 1920 which finally gave women the right to vote across the country.

White resistance to the 15th amendment appeared through the use of loopholes. Southern states began to pass laws that were disproportionately applied to Black citizens. Some of the most common laws used to disenfranchise (take away the right to vote) Black people were poll taxes and literacy tests. They required people to pay a fee in order to register and/or to prove that they could read and write. As a result most African-Americans in the south could not vote. In addition to these laws, violence was used by White vigilante groups to intimidate Black people that tried to register to vote. It was these laws and violence that civil rights groups were trying to change in order to ensure the right to vote.^[1]

Complete the following sections after (or while) watching the documentary.

• What were the events highlighted in this episode? Write down the dates and groups involved.
• Pick 2 of the following questions to answer: (These questions are from the Eyes on the Prize study guide written by Facing History and Ourselves.)
• What different strategies did activists in Selma use to draw national attention to discrimination in voting rights?
• How did nonviolent direct action force people in Selma and around the country to assess their accepted customs and their consciences? What role did the press play?
• What choices did local and national leaders make in response to the events in Selma?
• Why did activists demand federal intervention in Selma?
• How effective were the nonviolent tactics in Selma? How did they help reshape American democracy?
• Write a vignette from this episode that you would include in the operating manual for social change. For example: The Albany Movement in Georgia consisted of a few organizations working together. MLK and the SCLC were invited to join the campaign. However, they didn’t expect that the Chief of Police, Laurie Pritchett, did his own research on the tactics used by the movement to put pressure on leaders to change the laws. Pritchett knew that the protestors wanted to fill the jails and get national attention. So instead, he used jails in surrounding areas so that the jails would never fill and he acted non-brutally to the protesters to avoid national attention. This is known as one of King’s greatest defeats. But the SCLC took these lessons to their next campaign.
• Free Space: use this space to note ideas, reflections, and questions that came to you as you watched the documentary.

Appendix C

Quiz for Episode 6: Bridge to Freedom of Eyes on the Prize^[2]

1) What was one of the critiques that SNCC had of the SCLC?

1. SCLC’s use of nonviolence
2. SCLC relied too much on a charismatic leader (correct answer)
3. SCLC’s relationship with the president

2) Why did Selma’s leaders call on the SCLC to help the movement there?

1. SNCC was tired and had little money (correct answer)
2. They lost hope in SNCC
3. They were tired of the arrests

3) Why was Selma chosen as a place for potential success for a voting rights campaign?

1. Sheriff Clark of Selma was known to use violence (correct answer)
2. There was already a lot of media attention on Selma
3. SNCC invited the SCLC to help

4) Which group marched in Selma and inspired others to march for voting rights?

1. Children
2. Reverends
3. Beauticians
4. Teachers (correct answer)

5) What was the planned route for the march for voting rights?

1. Selma to Montgomery (correct answer)
2. Selma to Birmingham
3. Selma to Lowndes County

6) Why did the march grow from 600 to 2,000 the second time around?

1. Media attention of the violence on peaceful marchers generated outrage (correct answer)
2. MLK was marching so people wanted to join him
3. Governor Wallace said there would be no protection

7) What did NOT occur after the murder of white Reverend James Reeb?

1. Protests across the nation
2. Upset that this death got more attention than the murder of a black marcher
3. Governor Wallace resolved to protect marchers in the future (correct answer)

8) President Johnson urged congress to pass a voting rights law.

1. True (correct answer)
2. False

9) When were the marchers able to successfully complete the 5 day march?

1. After the courts allowed them (correct answer)
2. Governor Wallace provided protection
3. When MLK decided it was safe

10) After the success of Selma, the Civil Rights Movement continued to operate in the way it had for many more years.

1. True
2. False (correct answer)

Appendix D

Instructions for Scene Analysis Assignment:

Thank you for your effort in this assignment! It provides you with valuable practice analyzing a scene. Your presentation will also teach others how to engage in the process themselves. And, of course, there is the perk that you are excused from this week’s quiz.

Follow these steps:

• As you watch this week’s documentary, pick a 2 to 4 minute scene to look at more closely.
• Rewatch your selected scene and write down everything you notice. (what is included, which elements are paired, what your eye is drawn towards, what do you hear, transitions, etc)
• Go through your notes and write down 3-5 analyses. What is the impact of the choices made in that scene? What is the meaning that is conveyed by the choices made by the filmmaker?
• Select 2-3 analyses to share with the class and your final reflection. How did this analysis impact your understanding of the documentary?

Rubric:

Exceeds expectations: The work is detailed and accurate. The student evaluates the choices made by the filmmaker to convey meaning.

Meets expectations: The work is accurate. The student explains the choices made by the filmmaker.

Approaches expectations: The work provides clear evidence from the documentary. The student spends more time describing than analyzing.

^[1] Written by Pearl Jonas based on prior knowledge.

^[2] Questions and answers generated by Pearl Jonas for this unit.