Making Black History Month Relevant to Teens

Want to make your black history month studies more relevant to your students? Get them to think historically by getting them to “walk a mile in someone else's shoes.” 

Check out these great resources to get your kids talking about the Little Rock Nine- nine black students their age who were among the first to step foot in white schools after sixty years of “separate but equal” laws.

Start the discussion

Check out this Collaborize Classroom topic from the TregoED library “Put Yourself in the Shoes of the Little Rock Nine” which uses an interview with Melba Beals – as she describes her point of view as one of the Little Rock Nine students.

Follow it up with the free lesson:  “Desegregating Schools:  A Historical Perspective” from the SCAN library at TregoED.  Students will discuss the issues of desegregation through the eyes of Linda Brown, parents, community members and local police as they work to resolve the problems that occurred when the schools had to desegregate with “all deliberate speed.”

More Resources: 

Primary documents:

African American History Month resources

NY Times historical front pages

Children’s nonfiction titles:

Primary Source books, articles, etc.  

Online curriculum:

 Choices in Little Rock

Background information:

 On the Front Lines with the Little Rock Nine

Relevance and rigor:  the key to keeping kids engaged and thinking!

6 New Ways to Look at Pearl Harbor

“Successful problem solvers are the ones that can look at a problem from a new angle, consider alternate points of views and deal with several sources of information all at once.”  (Habits of Mind # 4 - Think flexibly.)  Why not take a look at these resources and use the power of personal accounts and different perspectives on Pearl Harbor to help your students practice flexible thinking.

#1.  Visit this site to provide a wide range of perspectives from personal accounts to maps and photographs to establish the logistics of the attack on Pearl Harbor. http://www.reacheverychild.com/feature/pearl_harbor.html

#2 Consider why the Japanese would want to attack the US  http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/13/g35/legacy.html consider why the Japanese would want to attach the US

#3 Have students look at these primary documents, oral histories and survivor accounts and describe the perspective of the writer. http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/teach/pearl/opening.htm

#4 – Compare text book accounts between a Japanese text book and their own. http://www.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/18arizona/18putting.htm -Activity 2

#5 – Look at different perspectives from eyewitness accounts. http://www.discoveryeducation.com/teachers/free-lesson-plans/pearl-harbor.cfm 

#6 – Try the free lesson “A New Approach to Remembering Pearl Harbor” using the SCAN tool at www.tregoED.org .  Register (it’s free) and set up the lesson, send students to the unique url to help them understand the merits of looking at history from all perspectives as they discuss the new visitor’s center at Pearl Harbor featuring the Japanese perspective.  Based on this article - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42862187/ns/travel-destination_travel/t/pearl-harbor-museum-now-shows-japanese-perspective/