Which U.S. President did the most
to promote civil rights?
Author: Joyce Kasman Valenza
Background: A group of civil rights organizations recently met to establish an award to be presented in honor of the United States President who made the greatest contribution to promoting civil rights in our country. Congratulations! Believe it or not, they have selected our class to help. Your charge is to research and present the cases for the most worthy candidates. You are responsible for presenting the credentials of one worthy president to representatives of the committee.
Curriculum Area: Social Studies
Curriculum Connections: Language arts, Information Skills
Information Literacy Standards:
Standard 1; Indicator 2: Recognizes that accurate and comprehensive information is the basis for intelligent decision making
Standard 1; Indicator 3: Formulates questions based on information needs
Standard 1; Indicator 4: Identifies a variety of potential information sources
Standard 1; Indicator 5: Develops and uses successful strategies for locating information
Standard 2; Indicator 4: Selects information appropriate to the problem or question at hand
Standard 3; Indicator 1: Organizes information for practical application
Standard 3; Indicator 3: Applies information in critical thinking and problem solving
Standard 3; Indicator 4: Produces and communicates information and ideas in appropriate formats
Standard 5; Indicator 3: Develops creative products in a variety of formats
Standard 9: Indicator 1: Shares knowledge and information with others
Standard 9; Indicator 3: Collaborates with others, both in person and through technologies, to identify information problems and to seek their solutions
Standard 9; Indicator 4: Collaborates with others, both in person and through technologies, to design, develop, and evaluate information products and solutions
Grade Levels: 8-12 (may be adapted for younger students)
Prerequisites: An understanding of the use of primary sources in historical research, background in United States history, understanding of the concept "civil rights."
Learning Expectations/Outcomes:
Materials/Sources needed:
Strategies:
Activity 1: Introduction (Half a class period)
1: Begin class/library discussion of which presidents would make good possible choices. Record names of those presidents on the board
2. Discuss criteria for determining the level of a president's commitment to civil rights issues. How can we judge a president on these issues? Brainstorm some of the specific criteria and record on board.
Activity Two: Preliminary Research (One to two class periods)
1. Divide class into groups of four or five students
2. Explain tasks and remind students they will be evaluated on the basis of their organizers/scaffolds and their group work, as well as their final presentations.
Student tasks:
1. Reach group consensus on a definition on the term “civil rights.”
2. Create a chart for preliminary research which includes three presidents you believe are most worthy of the award and the criteria you believe would be most effective in analyzing their contributions. (See Preliminary Organizer or ask students to develop their own charts) The chart may include some of the criteria brainstormed by the class. Each group may develop additional criteria as they confer and research.
3. Search the Internet and print materials for primary and secondary source evidence to support the worthiness of each of the three Presidents.
(Students should begin their research with the group of selected Web sites, but may expand their search to subject directories and search engines. Before they begin searching you may choose to remind them of some useful search strategies:
Names and phrases are best searched as phrases:
Examples:
“civil rights” AND “president kennedy”
or
“civil rights” AND “john f. kennedy”
Also remind students of syntax differences between search engines
+”civil rights” +kennedy
1. Each group should reach consensus and select one of the researched presidents as a focus for their final research and presentation.
Activity Three: Final research (two class periods)
1. Create a new chart specifically designed to collect information about one president whose contributions you have chosen to explore. This chart will become an outline for your group's multimedia presentation.
Activity Four: Multimedia production (four class periods)
Create a multimedia presentation comprised of at least 10, but no more than 20 slides, which will persuade the committee of the worthiness of your President for the new Civil Rights Award.
Your slides should include the following:
Activity Five: Student presentations (two to three class periods)
Activity Six: Reaching a conclusion (half a class period)
Lead class discussion to determine which president should receive the award. Students should refer to specific evidence presented by the groups in their comments. End the unit with a vote on the most worthy candidate to recommend to the award committee.
Evaluation/Critique:
Checkpoints: Students' in process work will be evaluated using the organizers for collecting presidential information
Final product: Students' final work will be assessed through their multimedia presentation.
(See Task Assessment List for Evaluating the Presidents)
Comments/Tips/Follow-Up: Teachers may choose to focus on presidents of a particular decade or century. This project may be adapted for younger students by broadening its focus. Have students select the “best” president by first establishing criteria they believe will help them make their choice.