While the Floyd Uprising is still recent enough to evoke students’ memory, alternatively, the Cold War is a daunting subject even for history scholars and the topic of unionism may seem abstract for high school students to understand. This unit’s content is very dense, and teaching strategies are going to be critical for the transfer of knowledge and hopefully, for students to take ownership of their learning. The reason why this unit was created was to help provide a through line from the recent past to the very distant past and to show how fractures and divisions between movements are not a recent development or a “new thing” that happened out of thin air. Group antagonisms are natural in social movements, and some may even argue that they are necessary for these movements to develop. It is important for students to understand the social conditions that gave rise to these groups, track the development of these groups, and analyze the relationships that exist between these organizations that had similar “big picture” visions of justice but contrasting strategies. These pursuits will be supported by the following teaching strategies:

1. Journaling
2. Timeline
3. Text Rendering
4. Pedagogical Similes
5. Three by 3’s
6. KWL Chart

This unit is created to support six 84-minute classes over the course of six weeks in A/B block scheduling. Due to the flipped classroom structure, it is expected that students will work on this unit inside and outside of the classroom.

Lesson 1: George Floyd Past and Present

Materials: 

• Powerpoint Presentation
• Notebooks for Journaling

Time: 54 minutes

Classroom Set-Up:  Students could work in rows, however, in my personal classroom set-up, students are in groups of six. Students may modify seating to work with pairs as they see necessary.

Lesson Structure:

Do Now (15 minutes): 

• Students will write about the following prompt(s):
  • Reflect on the murder of George Floyd, how has your reaction to his death changed as a child to a young adult?
  • Were you or someone you know involved in the George Floyd protests? Write about your experience as a short story.
• Students will have the opportunity to answer one or both of the following questions for the duration of the 15 minute period. Due to the culture of one’s learning environment, students may write for the allotted time or given the directions to write ten to fifteen sentences.

Group Discussion (25 minutes):

• Pair and Share: After the journaling, students will have the opportunity to talk with each other and to read their journal entries to each other. The listening student will write down three adjectives that describe the tone of the journal article while the student reads.
  • If the student does not want to read with another student, the author of the journal article will come up with three adjectives to describe the mood of the article
• The class will compile their chosen adjectives and by process of elimination and voting, choose their top three. Students will share their experiences with the George Floyd protests based on their relationship with the adjectives presented.
• Exit Ticket (14 minutes): What did you learn about your classmates? How did the lesson influence your perspective on the George Floyd Protests?

Lesson 2: Understanding the Cold War

Materials: 

• Powerpoint Presentation
• Note Making/Note Taking Form
• YouTube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6THwql5c6w

Time: 54 minutes

Classroom Set-Up:  Students could work in rows, however, in my personal classroom set-up, students are in groups of six.  Students may modify seating to work in pairs as they see necessary.

Lesson Structure:

• Do Now (15 minutes): Students will complete a KWL Chart on the Cold War. The teacher may create the option for students to complete the “K” (or “Know”) and “W” (“What I Want to Know”) section for students to do independently, or may assign students the option to complete the “K” section independently with the “W” section in pairs with a fellow student.
• Guided Practice (20 minutes): Students will watch a YouTube video on the development of the Cold War. Students will be expected to fill out a “Note Taking/Note Making” Guided Notes.
  • Teacher’s Note: Allow for extra time for students to make their final notes after the video.
• Group Discussion (10 minutes): Students will discuss their “Note Taking/Note Making” Chart with their classmates and discuss important facts and questions that stood out. They will complete the “L” section of their chart (What I Learned) during the classroom discussion.
• Exit Ticket (5 minutes): Students will complete one of the following similes:
  • If Russia is like a prowling lion, America is like ___________.
  • If the United Nations is a wrestling ring, the USSR is like ________ and America is like ______________.
  • The USSR wouldn’t forgive America and Britain for trying to destroy the Russian Revolution, America wouldn’t forgive the USSR for the Nazi-Soviet Pact. They are like___________.

Lesson 3: Timeline Assignment

Materials: 

• Construction Paper
• Markers, Pens, Construction Paper
• Chromebook
• Grass by Carl Sandburg

Time: 54 minutes

Classroom Set-Up:  Groups of six are necessary for this assignment

Lesson Structure:

• Do Now (15 minutes): Students will do a text rendering of the poem “Grass” by Carl Sandburg. Students will be instructed to highlight literary devices in order to determine the theme present in the poem.
• Students will be instructed to answer the following prompt: Do humans make time or does time make humans? How does the presence of grass challenge our concepts of history?
• Direct Instruction (10 minutes): The instructor will give an overview of the timeline that this unit will cover (1930’s-1955). Students will be tasked to name:
  • Six major political events (three from the USSR and three from the USA)
  • Three major literary works
  • Three media related works (music, movies, etc)
  • Three major “icons” (Very Important Person) during the time period
• Independent Practice: Students will be tasked to put these items on their Construction Paper and they will present to the class. Due to the intensity of the project, this project may take two days. Students will present their project to the class.
• Exit Ticket (10 minutes suggested): Students will choose one historical event, one media related work, and one “icon” that they did not have on their project that they learned from another group.

Lesson 4: African American Soldiers during WWII (Day 1)

 Materials: 

• Students will read “Song of Spain” by Langston Hughes
• Langston Hughes’ wartime reporting on African American soldiers during the Spanish Civil War

Time: 54 minutes

Classroom Set-Up:  Students could work in rows, however, in my personal classroom set-up, students are in groups of six.  Students may modify seating to work in pairs as they see necessary.

Lesson Structure:

• Do Now (25 minutes): The instructor will give a brief overview about the Spanish Civil War. Students will read and text render the “Song of Spain” by Langston Hughes. Students have the option to:
  • Write a poem that responds to the speaker of the poem.
  • Respond to the following prompt: What is the role of the worker in this poem? Why is it important that the poem is focused on the “worker” knowing the context of the Spanish Civil War?”
    • Students may opt to do this as a Pair and Share activity.
  • Independent Practice (25 minutes): Students will read the LiteraryHub article “When Langston Hughes Went to Report to the Civil War”. and answer reading questions related to the reading.
  • Exit Ticket (4 minutes): If you were to use one word to describe Langston Hughes’ attitude about his reporting, what would it be?

Lesson 5: African American Soldiers during World War II (Day 2)

Materials: 

• James Thompson’s Letter to the Pittsburgh Courier
• Powerpoint Presentation
• Excerpt from “Eyes Off the Prize” by Carol Anderson

Time: 54 minutes

Classroom Set-Up:  Students could work in rows, however, in my personal classroom set-up, students are in groups of six.  Students may modify seating to work in pairs as they see necessary.

Lesson Structure:

• Do Now (10 minutes): Students will read James Thompson’s Letter to the Pittsburgh Courier. At the door, students will pick up a number from 1-9. Students will read Thompson’s Letter to the Pittsburgh Courier. As the letter is “chunked” into nine sections, students will draw a picture capturing the main essence of the number that they took at the door.
• Guided Practice (20 minutes): Afterwards, students will vote for the best drawing in each number. After each drawing is chosen, the instructor will line the photos in order of the reading and then read the letter in sequence. Students will then write a short reflection (5-7 sentences) about what they learned about the political aims of African American soldiers.
• Independent Practice (20 minutes): Students will read an excerpt of “Eyes Off the Prize” that details African American WWII soldiers’ wartime experiences. Students will then compare and contrast the excerpt with James Thompson’s letter.
• Exit Ticket (4 minutes): Students will respond to the following prompt in two to three sentences: If you were an African American soldier fighting in World War II, how would you define Double Victory? Answer the question in three to five sentences.

Lesson 6: The Communist Party, Unionism, and the Civil Rights Movement WebQuest

 Materials: 

• Powerpoint Presentation

Time: 54 minutes

Classroom Set-Up:  Students could work in rows, however, in my personal classroom set-up, students are in groups of six.  Students may modify seating to work in pairs as they see necessary.

Lesson Structure:

• Direct Instruction (10 minutes): The instructor will introduce historical terms such as The Truman Doctrine, McCarthyism, and the major organizations (CIO, Negro National Congress, NAACP, CPUSA, Council of African Affairs, and UPWA) that played a role during the 1930’s and 1940s.
• Independent Practice: Students will do their webquest for the rest of the period. Students will then have to write a research paper focusing on the relationship of two of the aforementioned organizations and their development in the Civil Rights Movement.
• **Teacher Note**: Due to the highly independent nature of this assignment, it will be suggested that students have two days to complete their webquest, and three days to write their research paper. However, the timeline and page amount is at the personal discretion of the instructor and the needs of their school.

Lesson 7: George Floyd and International Support (Day 1)

 Materials: 

• Powerpoint Presentation
• “How George Floyd Died and What Happened Next”, video by The New York Times

Time: 54 minutes

Classroom Set-Up:

Lesson Structure:

• Do Now (10 minutes): Students will watch the video “How George Floyd Died and What Happened Next”. Afterwards, students will respond to the following prompt: After watching the video, what are some events that you learned about the murder of George Floyd that you did not know from before?
• Guided Instruction (35 minutes): Students are going to do an Iceberg project that examines the underlying causes of the George Floyd protest. Students will do independent research and then present their findings to the class.

Lesson 8: George Floyd and International Support (Day 2)

Materials: 

• Powerpoint Presentation

Time: 54 minutes

Classroom Set-Up:  Students could work in rows, however, in my personal classroom set-up, students are in groups of six.  Students may modify seating to work in pairs as they see necessary.

Lesson Structure:

• Direct Instruction (10 minutes): Instructor will present how different nations (Germany, Poland, and Italy) supported the George Floyd protests in relation to their own social issues.
• Guided Instruction (44 minutes): Students will research a country of their choosing and how they responded to the George Floyd protests of 2020. They will create a poster detailing their nation’s key protest organizations that took leadership during the George Floyd protests, how they used the George Floyd protests to elevate their social issue, and the challenges that they had while protesting.

Anderson, Carol. Eyes Off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944-1955 Cambridge University Press, 2003, https://proxy.library.upenn.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/books/eyes-off-prize-united-nations-african-american/docview/37788823/se-2 (accessed May 5, 2024).

Bruno, David Patrick. 2023. The end of solidarity: America’s postwar turn right and the decline of the CIO and new deal liberalism. Ph.D. diss., St. John’s University (New York), https://proxy.library.upenn.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/end-solidarity-america-s-postwar-turn-right/docview/2833534074/se-2 (accessed May 5, 2024).

Bunch, Ralph J. “Notes on the Third National Negro Congress,” April 28, 1940, Box 166, File “Carnegie-Myrdal Study Negroes in America, March 22-June 30, 1940,” Papers of the NAACP; Ralph Bunche, “Critique of the National Negro Congress,” 1940, Reel i, Bunche;A. Philip Randolph, “Why IWould Not Stand for Reelection for President of the National Negro Congress,” press release, May 4, 1940, Box 444, File “National Negro Congress: 1940-44,” Papers of the NAACP.

Caputo, Angela, Will Craft, and Curtis Gilbert. 2020. “What happened at Minneapolis’ 3rd Precinct — and what it means.” APM Reports. https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/06/30/the-precinct-is-on-fire-what-happened-at-minneapolis-3rd-precinct-and-what-it-means.

“THE CONSTITUTION OF THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL.” 1973. In Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: An Introduction to Their Lives and Work, translated by Joshua Kunitz. N.p.: Monthly Review Press.

Eisenhower, Dwight.1965. Waging Peace, 112

Gershon, Livia. 2022. “Internationalism and Racism in the Labor Movement,.” JStor Daily. https://daily.jstor.org/internationalism-and-racism-in-the-labor-movement/.

Gilbert, James. 2022. “African Americans and the American Labor Movement.” National Archives. https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1997/summer/american-labor-movement.html.

Greenberg, Cheryl. 1988. “The Black/Jewish Dilemma in the Early Cold War,” conference paper, American Historical Association—Pacific Coast Branch.

Green, James F. The United Nations and Human Rights (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1959), 17.

Heideman, Paul. 2020. “How McCarthyism and the Red Scare Hurt the Black Freedom Struggle.” Jacobin. https://jacobin.com/2020/05/mccarthyism-red-scare-civil-rights-movement.

Hirschfield, P.J. (2015), Lethal Policing: Making Sense of American Exceptionalism. Sociological Forum, 30: 1109-1117. https://doi.org/10.1111/socf.12200

Lang, Cady. 2022. “What the Artists Behind George Floyd Murals Around the World Want Us to Remember.” Time. https://time.com/6180773/george-floyd-murals/.

Lauren,Paul.1998. Power and Prejudice, 2.

McAdam, Doug. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930- 1970 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982).

Mendes, A. C. (2021). From “Crisis” to Imagination: Putting White Heroes Under Erasure Post-George Floyd. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 21(5), 394-400. https://doi.org/10.1177/15327086211028677

Milman, Noa, Folashade Ajayi, Donatella d. Porta, Nicole Doerr, Piotr Kocyba, Anna Lavizzari, Herbert Reiter, et al. 2021. Black Lives Matter in Europe: Transnational Diffusion, Local Translation and Resonance of Anti-racist Protest in Germany, Italy, Denmark and Poland. N.p.: Deutsches Zentrum für Integrations- und Migrationsforschung DeZIM e.V. https://www.rassismusmonitor.de/fileadmin/user_upload/NaDiRa/Pdfs/DeZIM_Research_Notes__06_-_Black_Lives_Matter_in_Europe.pdf.

“Modest Declines in Positive Views of ‘Socialism’ and ‘Capitalism’ in U.S.” 2022. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/09/19/modest-declines-in-positive-views-of-socialism-and-capitalism-in-u-s/.

Nichols, Lee. Breakthrough on the Color Front (New York: Random House, 1954), 9

Olusoga, David. 2020. “The toppling of Edward Colston’s statue is not an attack on history. It is history | David Olusoga.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/08/edward-colston-statue-history-slave-trader-bristol-protest.

President’s Committee on Civil Rights, To Secure These Rights (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office 1947), 146.

Rosa, H. (2019). Resonance: A sociology of our relationship to the world. Polity.

Skrentny, John David. “The Effect of the Cold War on African-American Civil Rights: America and the World Audience, 1945-1968.” Theory and Society 27, no. 2 (1998): 242.  http://www.jstor.org/stable/657868.

Common Core Reading Standards

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.1– Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 11-12 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.2– Determine two or more central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to provide a complex analysis; provide an objective summary of the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.7– Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.8– Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the strengths and limitations of each source in terms of the task, purpose, and audience; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and overreliance on any one source and following a standard format for citation.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.10– Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.1-Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.