Desegregation: Stories from Children’s Literature

Grade level: 🎓
Grades 6-8

Subject: 🕮
U.S. History; English Language Arts; Sociology

Literacy Skills: ✎
Video and Academic Secondary Sources; Reflection Writing

Time Required: 🕗
45 minutes

Lesson Pairing:
Primary: Unit 5: Life in a Multiracial Democracy
Secondary: Unit 1: Introduction

Reading comprehension is an important skill in school learning. Here we introduce children’s literature that might help students of upper elementary and middle grades think about kids’ experiences with desegregation in the 1950s and 1960s in the United States.

Students will explore children’s literature as a way to draw insights about young people’s experiences with civil rights and desegregation.

Scaffolds and accommodations to support learners

Reading support

While the texts might not be challenging for many students in grades 6-8, there should be attention to sense-making supports in any reading activity. Some examples are below:
- A graphic idea organizer or table, like the example below, can help students sort and keep ideas categorized so they can build their book trailer.
- Provide students with mentor texts or examples to support the development of their book trailer so they know what they are reading for. Setting a clear purpose is a primary reading support for learners.
- Using a note-taking strategy or group read-along strategies can help students make sense of what they are reading.

Who is in the book? And What are they doing?

When is the book taking place and What is happening in the book?

What insights about characters’ lives during these events are important for gaining interest from the audience and recognizing important themes?

Instructional activities sequence

(20 min.) Movie and Book Trailer Review

Review movie trailers from the past and present, and ask students to discuss the differences. The key outcome of this conversation is to describe what makes a good trailer. Some examples can be found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4Njg8PN700
Or by doing a quick movie trailer search for movies they might be familiar with from the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and today. Comparing four examples could help students really home in on what makes a good trailer. Possible guiding questions include:
- - How is the trailer organized? (the parts)
  - What shows up first, second, … last? (the order)
  - What media is included? (video, image, music?)
  - What elements made it effective or ineffective as a trailer?
(25 min.) Book Club (see materials list for possible book selections)

Students will be grouped with a partner or group of three. In these groups, they will read the book they choose or are assigned together then work on their book trailer. Individually, each student will prepare a one-page outline that summarizes the book and their perspectives/learning outcomes.

(30 min.) Book Trailer Design and Creation (more time may be needed depending on format and resources)

Students will work together on a piece of poster paper or computer(s) to develop a frame-by-frame (minimum of six frames) for a book trailer idea. Frame one and the last frame should be title and credits, respectively. The middle four frames should attend to the main goals of garnering interest and sharing themes they recognized.

(15 min.) Gallery Walk or Share and Tell with other groups

A whole group share/presentation is a great idea, but will require more time.

Assessment

Formative assessment could include observations during student discussions or key checkpoints when developing their book trailer.
Book trailer: Authentic assessment option is that students during their book clubs will develop a book trailer and individually a one-page outline of their summary and insights from reading and discussing their book with their group. Book trailers are like movie trailers but for a book instead. It’s a way to share some summary but also highlight key moments and outcomes. The goal should be:
- to build interest in the book among audience members and
- to think about and communicate important themes.
These book trailers could be made on poster paper with six or more frames (something used for production of video) or made with Movie Maker or iMovie software and videorecorded moments or images of the book or relevant historical images sourced and found in search databases.