Constitution USA

On Tuesdays on WGBY at 9:00pm, starting May 7,  you can breathe new life into the traditional civics lesson with Constitution USA with Peter Segal.  Traveling across the country on a Harley Davidson to find out where the U.S. Constitution lives, Peter Segal looks at how it works and doesn’t work, how it unites us as a nation, and how it has nearly torn us apart.  Watch a preview.

A vast digital library of classroom resources, PBS LearningMedia is continuing to add new content from Constitution USA.  Here are just a few highlights for grades 9-12:

Separation of Powers The framers of the Constitution feared too much centralized power, adopting the philosophy of divide and conquer.

Federalism Federalism is one of the most important and innovative concepts in the U.S. Constitution, although the word never appears there. Federalism is the sharing of power between national and state governments

Rights What is a right, and where does it come from? A right is a power or privilege that is recognized by tradition or law.

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More PBS Resources for Black History Month

Celebrate Black History Month in your classroom this February by highlighting the African American artists, educators, icons  and influential leaders who have impacted our nation’s history and culture. Use PBS LearningMedia to enhance your lessons with interviews, historic images and videos.  If you’ve yet to do so, remember to register online for free, full access to the library.

Duke  Grades 1-4 | Animated Storybook | Icons in Music:  Introduce young students to the toe-tapping genres of ragtime and jazz through the story of iconic musician, Duke Ellington.

Rosa Parks  Grades 3-12 | Interview | Civil Rights Icons:  Enhance classroom discussion around the Civil Rights Movement with this interview of Rosa Parks, and ask students to examine her role in the struggle for racial equality.

Picturing America – Jacob Lawrence and Martin Puryear  Grades 6-12 | Video | Icons in Art:  Invite students to uncover the driving themes behind the paintings in Jacob Lawrence’s “Migration Series” and the elements influencing Martin Puryear’s sculpture work.

Remembering Civil Rights Leader Dorothy Height  Grades 6-13+ | Video | Civil Rights Icons:  Meet the woman President Obama hailed as the “Godmother of the Civil Rights Movement.” Ask students to consider her impact on the rights of African Americans and women.

Deconstructing the Documentary  Grades 9-12 | Collection:  Invite your class to experience Bordentown, the remarkable all-black boarding school described as a “unique educational utopia.”

Lucy Laney  Grades 9-12 | Video | Icons in Education:  Laney, an influential Jim Crow-era educator, believed it essential to cultivate the minds of her students in order to develop future intellectual leaders. Invite your students to consider her philosophy of education.

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Lesson Plans: Martin Luther King, Jr.

PBS NEWSHOUR EXTRA offers news for students and teacher resources for grades 7-12.  Here are some of its lesson plans about or related to M. L. King Jr., all of which have additional resources for extension activities:

“I Have a Dream” As a Work of Literature  Students study Martin Luther King Jr.’s landmark speech and discuss the rhetorical influences on King’s speech, the oratorical devices that King uses in delivering his speech and the speech’s similarities to and differences from other literary forms.

The Freedom Riders and the Popular Music of the Civil Rights Movement  Musicians and artists played active roles in spreading the message of leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and artists like Sam Cooke. This lesson focuses on one case study, the story of the Freedom Riders, college students who in the spring of ‘61 challenged the existing segregation laws in the American South with an assertive yet non-violent strategy.

What is the Role of Civil Disobedience Today?  Students come to understand the practice of civil disobedience in view of the death of Rosa Parks and the 50th anniversary of her landmark act. They also examine civil disobedience’s history and explore whether it is a viable form of protest in today’s world.

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Lesson Plan Feature: Underground Railroad: The William Still Story

Tonight at 10pm, WGBY will air Underground Railroad:  The William Still Story, the story of one of the most important yet largely unheralded individuals of the Underground Railroad.  Still was determined to get as many runaways as he could to “Freedom’s Land,” smuggling them across the US border to Canada.

To accompany this dramatic story, PBS offers a selection of standards-based lesson plans such as the following for grades 6-8:

Hidden Messages in Spirituals:  Students come to understand the concept and historical context of spirituals by reading and listening to them to discover the meaning of the secret messages found in the lyrics.  They then compose a personal spiritual that includes a line from a known spiritual.

Social Media and the Underground Railroad:  Students explain the significance of studying, recording, and publishing history, recognize the dangers and benefits of personal record keeping (public vs. private sharing), and understand social media as an effective, but sometimes dangerous, messaging tool.

To Follow or Not to Follow?:  After defining the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, students explore the claims of law on personal conscience (right vs. wrong) and consider the relationship between individual rights and the rule of law in contemporary society

We hope you look at these and other lessons from William Still’s story as well as other lessons from Black History month programming on WGBY.

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Program Feature: Daisy Bates on INDEPENDENT LENS

On Thursday, February 2, at 10pm, WGBY will air Daisy Bates:  First Lady of Little Rock on Independent Lens as part of WGBY’s Black History Month programming.

An illegitimate child living in a segregated Arkansas sawmill town and  self-taught after the eighth grade, Daisy Bates was hardly born to make history.  Yet in 1957 she became a household name when she fought for the right of nine black students to attend the all-white Central High School in Little Rock. As head of the Arkansas NAACP and protector of the students, her instant fame proved fleeting, and she paid a large price for her attempts to remain relevant.

Daisy Bates’s contributions — as a newspaper publisher in Little Rock and NAACP leader — remain little recognized outside of Arkansas today. Nearly crippled by a series of strokes, she was never able to tell her own story on film.  The Independent Lens documentary raises persisting questions ripe for the classroom:  What motivated Daisy Bates? Was she a self-sacrificing heroine or an opportunist driven by a need for validation?  Supporting a policy that put teenagers on the frontlines of the school desegregation battle, was that policy morally right?  In addition to film clips, you can find a discussion guide  with background on featured individuals and other relevant topics for discussion.

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Classroom activities to highlight The Civil Rights Movement

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we chose to highlight one of PBS Teachers thematic teaching units for today: The Civil Rights Movement in American Literature.

This series of activities are designed for students in grades 3-5. Two or three book suggestions are included in each activity. The first book in the list is at a lower reading level than the second or third. You also may choose other books in order to adjust the activities to your students’ reading level. 

Each activity is accompanied by additional online resources to explore The Civil Rights Movement deeper.  Here’s just one activity that explores the power of speeches:

Have students read and/or listen to the following speeches (either in small groups or as a class):

• Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream”:
• Lyndon B. Johnson signing in the Civil Rights of Act of 1964:
• Fannie Lou Hamer on the roots of her activism:
• Philip Randolph, African-American civil rights and labor leader:
• Malcolm X, the Ballot of the Bullet

Instruct students to analyze the speeches with some of the following questions (see full activity for complete list):

• Who is the orator’s intended audience?
• What is the purpose of the speech? What is its primary message?
• What aspect(s) of the Civil Rights Movement does the speech address?
• What does the speaker encourage the audience to do and/or consider?
• What was the impact of the speech? Or, how do you think the intended audience and other listeners received and reacted to the speech?

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Innovative Teaching of African and Mexican American History

Hispanically Speaking News this month reported on an innovative way to teach history — telling African and Mexican Americans’ stories in newspaper format on the internet.  The Black Chronicle follows the stories of African Americans, beginning in 1778 when Rhode Island slaves fought in Colonial armies for the promise of  freedom, through the Civil War when more than 400,000 black men fought in Union Armies.  Stories continue though  lynchings and start of the NAACP in the early 20^th century,  WWI and WWII contributions of African Americans, and Rosa Parks’ 1954 refusal to move to the back of the bus.

La Cronica, in English and Spanish, begins in 183 and continues through major periods of Latino history:  the Mexican American War of 1846, the New Mexico range wars of the 1870s, the farm and mining immigrations, the Civil Rights movements led by Caesar Chavez, and the 1969 walk out of Latino high school students in Los Angeles over more than a century of discrimination.

Project creator Robert Miller, former Director of Educational Publishing at  PBS station Thirteen/WNET in New York, spent two years doing research in the world’s finest collections of black history for Black Chronicle. Receiving partial funding from the Ford Foundation, he next developed La Cronica in Los Angeles with teams researching libraries and historical societies  throughout the Southwest.

Both projects appear on a new Web site, www.ourthistoryasnews.org.

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Freedom Riders Special Edition

American Esperience’s Freedom Riders has recently been nominated for 3 Emmys for Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking, Outstanding Picture Editing for Nonfiction Programming, and Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming.   Working with Teachers’ Domain, the PBS series has created a Freedom Riders Special Edition of digital resources for middle and high school students and educators that will enhance the use of Freedom Riders in the classroom.  Among video segments from the documentary appropriate for grades 6-12:

The Inspiration, describing the influence of India’s Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolent tactics on the struggle to end illegal discrimination against African Americans in the United States

The Young Witness, showing the response of a young Alabama girl who witnessed an attack on the Freedom Riders

Freedom Riders Create Change, highlighting the impact of the 1961 Freedom Rides on the efforts to end racial segregation and discrimination in the United States

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FREEDOM RIDERS Website: Communication Arts’ Webpick of the Week

For  powerful themes like tolerance, dignity and courage, the Freedom Riders website continues to be a valuable interdisciplinary resource.  Due to web design based on a combination of superior aesthetics, technical expertise, functionality, and overall site experience, the Freedom Riders site  is Communication Arts’ Webpick of the Week .

With 945,000 page views since its late October launch, the Freedom Riders website  supports the documentary film that premiered on 16 May 2011 and celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides and the group’s historic role in the American Civil Rights movement.

Working within PBS guidelines, the site presents massive data in a comprehensive and easy-to-digest way.  In addition to the main film, the site has 12  short films, more than 30 video interviews and commentaries, over 500 searchable historical photos and includes the only complete online roster of all 400 freedom riders.  Also available are clips not included in the final film, interactives (an animation of the riders and a timeline of events surrounding the rides), short films and the blog from the 2011 Student Freedom Ride.

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iCivics: Lesson Plans and More

Concerned that students need information and tools for civic participation and that civics teachers need better materials and support?   Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor addressed these very concerns and last year founded icivics.org, a nonprofit group that teaches students civics through Web-based games and other tools.

The web-based education project teaches students civics and inspires them to be active participants in our democracy.  From pages of engaging lessons plans, here are three to check out:

•  So You Think You Can Argue prepares students for persuasive writing by introducing them to the concept of making an argument. Students discover there’s a difference between “arguing” and making an argument in support of a position, and that making an argument is a learned skill that doesn’t depend on how you feel about an issue.
• I Can’t Wear What?   Students meet Ben Brewer and find out what happened the day he decided to wear his favorite band t-shirt to school in violation of a new dress code rule. Students read a summary of a Supreme Court case to figure out the “rule” that applies to Ben’s problem. This lesson lays the groundwork for students to write two short persuasive essays—one arguing each side of the issue.                                                         
• Lookin’ for Evidence: In order to build arguments for their essays, students examine evidence about whether band t-shirts were disruptive at Ben’s school. Students think critically to filter out evidence for and against each position.

In addition to lesson plans such as these, this exciting site provides games on topics like citizenship and partnership, separation of powers, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and a teachers’ link to a state curriculum finder, curriculum units and outlines.

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