Designer: Peter Beck
Publication Date: June 17, 2005
Standard (Include analysis skills): Standard 11.10.2: Examine and analyze the key events, policies, and court cases in the evolution of civil rights, including Dred Scott v. Sandford, Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Education, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, and California Proposition 209. Standard 11.10.4: Examine the roles of civil rights advocates (e.g., A. Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Thurgood Marshall, James Farmer, Rosa Parks), including the significance of Martin Luther King, Jr. 's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and "I Have a Dream" speech.
1. Key concepts (CA. Concepts Collection II)/Vocabulary: Segregation, facility, legal, illegal, sue, district court, appeal, majority opinion, dissenting opinions, appeal, affirm, precedent, Jim Crow, Civil Rights Act of 1875, judicial review, imposition, decreed, jurisdiction, prescribe(s), applicable, statute, coaches, guise, compel, conveyance, assemblages, tribunal, indissolubly, enactments, inheres, sinister, and judicial tribunal.
Learning Outcome/ “Big Idea”/ “Essential Learning” (Objective): The Fourteenth Amendment and the U.S. Supreme Court: Can the U.S. Supreme Court correct past mistakes?
EL/Inclusion Strategies: Admittedly, this lesson would be tough for EL students. It will be hard for ALL students because of the use of primary source documents. People don’t write or speak that way anymore. Also, the documents are separated by almost 60 years. This is one of the reasons vocabulary will be a big part of this lesson plan. To help EL students, I have highlighted vocabulary in the texts. We will use 1’ by 2’ cards to keep track of them, or perhaps build a word wall of some type.
Materials:
Excerpts of the dissent of Justice Harlan for every student
Vocabulary cards (1” x 2”)
Opportunities to Learn/Perform (Procedure):
What will students need to do to achieve knowledge and skills identified in standards and learning outcomes? They will be examining actual court cases (Plessy v Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education) as well as a dissenting opinion. This is what is asked for in standard 11.10.2. With the involvement of Thurgood Marshall in the Brown decision they will be learning the significant role civil rights advocates such as Marshall, the NAACP Legal Defense team, and Charles Houston played in advancing the cause of Civil Rights.
They will do this by first performing a short, written preview assignment in their Interactive Student Notebooks that will set up the problems faced by both Homer Plessy and Linda Brown. They will be “hooked” by a question that will be more pertinent to their lives in the 21st century.
The prior class students will be divided up into groups, or possibly individually, to look at the basics of Plessy v Ferguson and Brown v Board of Education. We’ll discuss the basics of those cases and how it compares to their preview experiences. Hopefully they’ll see the correlation.
On the right side of their notebooks, they’ll take some brief notes on : (See teacher background information)
· A quick one paragraph summary of both cases
· A brief overview of how the court system works and how a case can make it to the Supreme Court
· A more in depth view of the two cases
· Much of the vocabulary will be covered here with the cards
Next they’ll be broken into 11 groups (that way they’ll pretty much be in pairs, definitely no more than three). Five groups will look at Plessy v Ferguson, three will look at Justice Harlan’s Dissent (in Plessy) and three groups will look at Brown v. Bd. Of Education. Each group will have between 3 and 5 questions to answer.
Finally, they’ll use inside-outside circle to disseminate the information, before coming back together as an entire group to talk it out.
Technology Component: There really isn’t a technology component, but it could be made optional for students who wished to print up and bring to class the actual scans from the National Archives. Or, the teacher could just show it to the classes as a wrapup of some kind.
Note: When we were given this lesson, primary sources was repeated often. I assumed that we were supposed to do a primary source document based lesson. I figured I have technologied-out this year anyway, so maybe you’d let it slide.
Resources (Indicate primary sources): See sources listed under Materials.
Assessment (Description of 2 or more assessment tasks with specific directions, questions, and prompts):
Students, for their processing assignment in their notebook, will assume the role of a lawyer. Their task will be to file a Friend of the Court Brief explaining their position on either one of the cases (or both). They will have to cite evidence from the cases to support their opinions. They should also include two quotes (real or imagined) from sources they interviewed. It should be about a page to a page and a half in length.
1. Rubric
5 Exceptional Achievement
• Takes a strong, well-defined position
• Presents a well-organized, persuasive argument with accurate supporting evidence
• Deals with all significant issues and demonstrates a depth of understanding of important relationships
• Examines problem from several positions
4 Superior Achievement
• Takes a clear position
• Presents an organized argument with perhaps only minor errors in the supporting evidence
• Deals with the major issues and shows some understanding of relationships
• Gives consideration to examination of more than one idea or aspect of the problem
3 Commendable Achievement
• Takes a definite but general position
• Presents a somewhat organized argument
• Uses general terms with limited evidence that may not be totally accurate
• Deals with a limited number of issues
• Views problem within a somewhat limited range
2 Rudimentary Achievement
• Presents general and indefinite position
• Only minimal organization in presentation
• Uses generalities to support position
• Emphasizes only one issue
• Considers only one aspect of problem
1 Minimal Achievement
• Position is vague
• Presentation is brief and includes unrelated general statements
• Overall view of the problem is not clear
• Statements tend to wander or ramble