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Through Their Eyes: Perspectives on Slavery
Students write a personal account of slavery seen from the eyes of a slave trader, a slave plantation owner, a fugitive slave, or a working slave.
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Harlem Renaissance and Toni Morrison's Jazz
Students study the historical time of the Harlem Renaissance, including key events and figures. They read literature that weaves fiction and history and survey some of the references to the Harlem Renaissance in the novel, Jazz, by Toni...
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Happy Birthday, Martin Luther King
Students complete a variety of activities related to the book "Happy Birthday, Martin Luther King." They identify Martin Luther King's goals, discuss and write about things they hope will happen in the world for a class book, explore...
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Say It Loud!: A Celebration Of Black Music In America - Episode 3: Can I Get A Witness
Students identify many genres of music that influenced gospel and study examples of gospel music. They explain that gospel music is sacred and is usually performed with sincerity, dignity, and passion with vocal improvisation.
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Bad Brother
Students deal with the historian's dilemma of how to write about people in the past who committed wicked deeds. They analyze a well-known cartoon, "Satan Tempting Booth to the Murder of the President."
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Healthy Living: Diversity of Learners
Learners are drawn to those activities that are in line with their individual intelligences. They use classroom computers to find fruits and their names in other languages. Once a fruit is identified, students practice saying the name of...
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Crossroads Blues
The crossroads, and the decisions made and entities met there, are a common theme in literature, pushing readers to examine the choices and encounters that shape life experience. The theme has also been explored in blues music, most...
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Master Spy
Students explain that a code is a system of symbols, letters, words, or signals that are used instead of ordinary words and numbers to send messages or to store information. They practice deciphering a variety of secret codes used in...
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Colonial Life in Virginia
Fourth graders compare and contrast life in England with plantation life in America. They study the dependencies or mini-industries that could be found on plantations.
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Romare Bearden
Students identify artwork by Romare Bearden and to explain his techniques. They look for cut and pasted papers and images, paint, ink and pencil designs, shapes and spaces and the rhythms therein. They listen to music by looking at...
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Africa, A Look Through the Eyes of A Child
Second graders read literature about Africa, examine physical characteristics of the continent, explore animals native to Africa, and discuss distance between Africa and locations in the United States.
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Check My Writing: Diversity of Learners Adaptation
Students explore different spellings of the same words within the English language, as well as different words for the same thing with the international pen pal classroom. They become familiar with units of measure and time. Students...
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Alien Invasions
Students create an educational pamphlet on the origins, spread and impact of invasive plant species in their community.
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The Hurricane
Students analyze three different ways a story is told, determine truth and fiction in each story, and discover and apply techniques to narrate a good story.
Students listen to Bob Dylan's "The Hurricane" and watch the "R" rated movie,...
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Stateside Slavery
Students read "Slavery's Past, Paved Over or Forgotten" from The New York Times and discuss as a class. This activity is the introduction for researching a topic on the history of slavery in the U.S. Student groups present their...
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Women's History Week
Students investigate the contributions of women who influenced human rights in US history. They examine the influence Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth and Elizabeth Cady Stanton by participating in a jigsaw activity....
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To Tell the Tale
Students explore how themes common to the human condition can be found in literary and oral traditions across cultures. They compile traditional folk tales around these themes and write their own tales to reflect their own cultural context.
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All The Way to Timbuktu
Young scholars discuss the concept of historic preservation and relate it to their own families and communities. After reading an article, they discuss the efforts of Mali to preserve their history. Using the internet, they research...
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African Architecture
Seventh graders investigate cultural influences on architecture in Africa south of the Sahara. They compare the architecture to that in North America, Europe, Russia, and North Africa, Asia, and South America.
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Songs of Unrest - Lesson 4
Students identify popular songs from 1968 and make connections with the year's current events. They pretend that they are producing a new CD. The CD includes four songs that comment on today's social issues. They write the liner notes.
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Body Tracing
Young scholars pair up and trace each other's body outlines on roll paper with marker. Once complete, students fill in the inside of the figures with texture- lines, forms, shapes, colors, etc. Young scholars cut out the figure.
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Examples of Justice Systems and Practices in Western Africa
Tenth graders explore African belief systems. In this West African lesson, 10th graders research these belief systems. Students create a wooden figure that represents these beliefs.
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Creating and Evaluating Ethnic Advertising
Students examine the concept of ethnic advertising. For this African American history lesson, students watch segments of videos about the history of ethnic advertising. Students respond to questions that correspond to each...
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Making Cultural Connections
Learners explore cultures through storytelling. They read African folktales. Students discuss characteristics of folktales. They research and write a folktale that includes an animal. Additional cross curriculum activities are included.