A Civil Rights Leader Presentation

1. Tell students that "civil rights" are political and social freedoms and equality.
2. Ask students: What are some civil rights? Brainstorm a list and document students’ ideas.
3. Ask students to think of historical and current civil rights issues and movements. Brainstorm a list and document students’ ideas.
4. Some ideas may be the right to vote, the right to a fair trial, the right to government services, the right to public education, and the right to use public facilities.
5. You may take a moment to show students the First Amendment and elicit from students or explain what the words mean.
6. You can also show the articles of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights or view this illustrated booklet version and assign pairs or groups to prepare a one or two-word summary of each of the articles (there are 30).

Tell students that they are going to learn about one civil rights leader and then research and present on a world Civil Rights Leader of their choice.

Teach biography vocabulary and simple past tense, which allows students to practice speaking and writing about their own biographies.

Use some of the following questions to create an interview handout providing space to write answers, which students will use for classmate interviews:

Biography Information Practice

Write your answers to these questions in complete sentences. Use "I" to start each sentence.

Then ask and answer the questions in complete sentences with your group members. Help your group members use the correct verb tense (past).

1. When were you born?

2. Where were you born?

3. Where did you grow up?

4. How many brothers and sisters do you have? What are their names? Where do they live? What is your position in your family (only child, the oldest, middle, the youngest)?

5. When did you get your first job? What was the job?

6. When did you learn to drive?

7. When did you immigrate to the USA?

8. Are you married? If so, when did you get married? What is your spouse’s name?

9. Do you have children? If so, when did you have your first child? How many children do you have? What are their names and ages? Do they live with you? If you don’t have kids, talk about your pets.

10. When did you start school here?

11. Are you a United States citizen? If so, when did you become a citizen?

12. What is a cause, organization, or movement that is important for you? (e.g., the environment, education, equal rights, PTO, etc.). Do you participate in this cause, organization, or movement? If so, how?

13. What is a plan you have for the future?

1. Have students predict by answering the questions on the handout "What do you know about Gandhi?" You can document their responses and return them to them after the video by writing them on the board, on a Google Doc, or by using a poll (Zoom poll, Mentimeter, Polldaddy, etc.).
2. Have students practice listening by watching a History Stop - Short History Documentary video on Gandhi Biography in 5 Minutes | Who Was Mahatma Gandhi? (4:36). Distribute the Gandhi Bio Video handout. Have students preview the questions to focus their listening. Play the video or have students watch the video independently for homework. Have students check their answers with classmates or check as a whole class.
3. For reading practice, download and distribute the text you selected, appropriate to your students’ level. Model previewing and predicting and metacognition by looking at titles, pull quotes, text features, and images. Then model think-aloud.
4. Ask students to read again. Then preview the questions and read again in small groups to work on answering the questions together. Check the answers together in class after students have checked with classmates.
5. Pull high-frequency AWL words from the text using AWL Highlighter (Use this tool to highlight words from the AWL (Academic Word List).  If you want to use the gap fill maker, you will need to input and highlight the text first. You may also like to try the AWL tag cloud, which is a companion to this page. For a more detailed look, including the number of words and percentages, try the Vocabulary Profiler).
6. Ask students to talk in groups to fill out a chart to determine which words to explicitly teach: List of words with a checkbox for each word - "I have never heard or seen this word"; "I have seen or heard this word but don't know what it means"; "I think I know a meaning for this word. It means..."; "I can explain this word and use it in a sentence." Have students compare and explain words they do already know in small groups. This activity could also be conducted as an online poll or Google Form, but conducted this way will allow students to communicate and peer teach.
7. Debrief with students, and eliminate those words that everyone knows.
8. Have students write the target vocabulary words in vocabulary notebooks: Model how to copy the original sentence from the source, determine the part of speech, write related words (those in the word family), come up with a definition, write an original sentence about themselves using the target vocabulary (or draw an image), and then use thesaurus.com to list two or three synonyms and antonyms. Follow up with having students post to a Padlet wall.
9. Make (or have students make) Quizlet flashcards for retrieval practice. Run a Quizlet Live game in class.
10. Write (or have students write) conversation questions with the target vocabulary. Then have them ask and answer these questions or make surveys or polls and report findings. Follow up by having students contribute to a discussion forum with their answers to the questions.
11. Use the AWL Highlighter to make a gap-fill exercise. There are three types:

• a simple gap fill, with blanks only (you will need the words above to complete it)
• a headword gap fill, in which each of the academic words will be replaced by the headword (or by another word form if the replaced word is itself a headword)
• a word family gap fill, in which each of the academic words will be replaced by another word from the same word family

 12. Next, assign or allow students to choose individually, in pairs, or in small groups a word or two to post onto a Padlet wall with a definition, their original sentences, and an image, video, or GIF.

  13. Have students take an online quiz in the LMS, if you use one, on the vocabulary. It can be fill-in-the-blank, T/F, multiple choice, or a variety of questions for students to demonstrate their understanding of target AWL vocabulary.

1. Help students brainstorm and compile a list of civil rights leaders from around the world as a topic list to assign to students or to allow students to choose from.

2. Prepare a note-taking form to include the following information and/or questions, as desired:

• Full Name
• Date of Birth
• Place of Birth
• Date of Death (if deceased)
• Cause of Death
• Occupation(s)
• Main accomplishment(s)
• Other Interesting Information
• Conclusion: What I Learned or Why People Admire this Person

1. Who is someone you consider a civil rights leader?
2. Where does your civil rights leader live? / Where did he or she live? When did he or she live? (if no longer alive).
3. What did this person do (what was the cause he or she advocated for)? / What has your hero done? 
4. What are three words you use to describe this civil rights hero?  Explain each characteristic/trait with an example.
5. Why did you choose this person?  Why is this person important to you?  How has he or she made a difference in your life or in the world?  If you could say one thing to this person, what would you say and why?

OR 

1. What is the current state of the civil rights issue this person was fighting for?

Choose the Web sites you will have students use to gather information, which may be any of the following, and make sure that they are not blocked at your school:

• Wikipedia
• Biography.com
• Simple English Wikipedia
• Google

Introduce the assignment:

1. For this project, you will make a class presentation on someone you think is a civil rights hero.
2. Have students prepare their visual aids using Google Slides or PowerPoint.
3. The following is a template for a Google Slideshow: template and a sample slideshow.

Or give students choices with these options:

  4. You will make a presentation and have the option to express yourself creatively with any one of the following:

• a poster or infographic using Canva
• a song
• a magazine cover using Canva or Big Huge Labs
• a movie trailer using Biteable
• a Google Slideshow
• a digital movie using Adobe Express

1. Provide feedback on students’ work.
2. Then have students share their presentations in class.
3. Use a rubric or checklist to provide an evaluation or have students conduct peer feedback or self-evaluate with a form using Google Forms or a survey tool in your learning management system.

Students will be able to use a variety of skills: determine central ideas or themes in oral presentations and spoken and written texts, introduce and develop an informational topic with facts and details, carry both short sustained research projects to answer a question, gather information from multiple print and digital sources, and deliver oral presentations that integrate graphics or multimedia.