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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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ABCD Model for Writing Objectives: Course Design Resources

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Writing samples and annotation for writing

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Week 10 March 26  Teaching Literacy in Visible Learning Classroom RICA

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Week nine  March 12  Teaching Literacy in Visible Learning Classroom RICA

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Beyond the Bubble by Stanford History Education Group is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

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It's time to improve literacy skills during social studies instruction and ensure that readers of all abilities have what they need to access grade-level social studies concepts.

Join us on Thursday, December 7 for a look at scaffolded materials that provide extra literacy support while building key social studies concepts and skills.

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Newsela | Content and assessment platform

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Content Aligned To National & State Standard, Flexible To Support Relevant Curriculum. Find the Perfect Piece Of Content For Lessons. Go beyond the book.

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TN Science and Social Studies Writing Rubric

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This writing rubric was created to be student friendly based on the writing rubric used by the state of Tennessee to score grades 3-5 social studies constructed response questions. ...

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A native of the Magnolia State, Jessica Dickens grew up just a short drive away from one of the most infamous events of Mississippi Freedom Summer: the 1964 disappearance and murder of three civil rights workers on their way to investigate a church burning. She's also a graduate of one of Mississippi's segregated high schools-part of a group of all-white private schools established in the 1950s to thwart school integration.

Yet even with her personal ties to civil rights history, the central figures in Dickens's history lessons in her early teaching years in Mississippi were Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks-two of the most memorable leaders from her own schooling, and staples of U.S. history textbooks. It was only with exposure to fresh thinking through a teaching fellowship on civil rights history-and after uncovering her state's untold stories-that the 11-year veteran began to shift her teaching approach.

"I realized we were providing an extreme disservice... by teaching the whitewashed version of [civil rights] history," Dickens said, calling that realization her "turning point."

It's a common oversight in America's classrooms. The story of the civil rights movement, as told and retold, generally includes only well-known heroes, heroines, and watershed moments from 1954 to 1968: Brown v. Board of Education, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, the Montgomery bus boycott, sit-ins, and nonviolent black protests. In assessing states' curriculum standards, a 2014 report from the Southern Poverty Law Center concluded that coverage of the movement was "woefully inadequate" and focused on "a small group of charismatic leaders" and "a series of dates, names, and actions." Five states-Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Oregon, and Wyoming-neither covered the movement in their standards nor provided supplemental materials to teach it.

But a new push is underway among educators like Dickens to correct this narrow view. Prompted by a curiosity about the period's subtleties and complexities, teachers across the country are modifying their curricula and abandoning their textbooks to teach a more accurate history that commonly goes untold: the role of grassroots activists and women, nuanced portraits of leaders like Parks and King, and racial and social justice battles that link the past to contemporary issues of inequality.

"It's very difficult to get down to the nitty-gritty in the few days that some teachers have to cover this content, but still, you can present the 'I Have a Dream' speech as the centerpiece, or you can present the story of Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, Gloria Richardson, or other on-the-ground activists," stressed Aaron Broudo, a U.S. history teacher at Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School in New York City. "It's a choice of where you start, and where you start has a lot to do with the way you're conceptualizing the role of civil rights curriculum in a student's education."

Debunking Common Myths

Motivated by a desire to deepen his historical knowledge, Broudo recently joined more than two dozen middle and high school teachers at Duke University for a three-week summer institute led by veterans of the civil rights movement and recognized experts on the black freedom struggle.

Textbooks were spurned in favor of primary documents-including original curriculum from the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Schools, numerous in-depth readings on little-known activists of the era such as Amzie Moore, and recorded interviews and archival video footage from civil rights organizers like Ella Baker. Throughout the seminar, a bottom-up teaching of history was emphasized, aimed at debunking many of the common misperceptions and misunderstandings about the period.

Even though participants had sought out the experience, many were still surprised by what they learned-specifically the roles of black churches, youth, schools, families, and grassroots organizations in furthering the movement. In particular, many were unaware of the significance and leadership of black women, which Judy Richardson, codirector of the institute, said is among the most underreported angles in history lessons.

In the mass action against Montgomery's bus system, "women put the leaflets out, they're the ones who tell the black community that Mrs. Parks has been arrested and suggest a boycott of the buses," and yet "the traditional narrative is only men," said Richardson, a veteran of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a prominent group formed in the 1960s, and coeditor of Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC. The institute's reteaching of movement history mirrored what many notable researchers have been saying for decades.

In a 2006 paper, historian Derrick P. Alridge scrutinized six widely used high school history textbooks to analyze the depiction of Martin Luther King Jr., finding King was universally portrayed as "moderate, magnetic, and inspirational... rather than the radical and controversial figure he was during his lifetime." Likewise, the image of Rosa Parks as meek and mild is a grossly oversimplified interpretation, writes Jeanne Theoharis, a political science professor at Brooklyn College. Parks was a seasoned organizer and activist in Montgomery, Alabama, for over a decade before the yearlong bus boycott.

This top-down framing in most history curricula-which puts the focus on renowned leaders-obscures the story of the significant local organizing that fueled civil rights victories, said Tina Tosto, an English teacher at Pascagoula High School in Mississippi and former middle school history teacher. Tosto, who attended the institute, added that isolating the period in history lessons also deprives students of an understanding of the key historical events leading up to the movement-namely the role of black World War II veterans who demanded equality at home after serving overseas-and the chronic societal problems it failed to fully resolve.

"The passage of legislation-the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act-was definitely a success of the movement that fell short," she said, referencing present-day injustices like racial profiling and mass incarceration. "The danger in teaching that the civil rights movement achieved its goals is that it implies to students that there is nothing left to fight for in regards to equity."

Sanitizing History

Yet learning new content is one thing-it's another to discuss a historical era rooted in brutality and racism. At the institute, thorny issues surfaced following the screening of Eyes on the Prize, the award-winning series on the civil rights movement. The stark contrast between academic discussions on racial oppression and the raw realities exposed in the documentary footage sparked tough conversations between the black teachers and their white counterparts, who formed the bulk of institute attendees, just as white teachers make up the vast majority of the nation's public school teaching force.

Crystal Proctor, a black social studies teacher at Suitland High School in Forestville, Maryland, said the participants were resisting "what we've always been taught versus the truth," and compared the exchanges to what she's observed in tense, emotional classroom discussions on race.

Teachers also questioned how easy or difficult it would be to apply what they learned at Duke within their schools, which are not necessarily full of peers ready and willing to change their teaching practice, according to a number of participants. "I had a coworker who said that teaching so in-depth about wrongdoings against African Americans was divisive... and that we all need to 'get over it,'" said Tosto, referencing teachers' resistance to embracing a more accurate retelling of the movement. Other teachers pointed to challenges at a higher level, such as a lack of support for professional development from administrators and an overemphasis on state accountability mandates.

These sentiments echo what civil rights scholar Charles M. Payne, a professor at Rutgers University-Newark, explained as a general lack of institutional support for teaching about the movement, and racial conflict more broadly, in American schools. The result, he said, is a "mangling of history" in which the movement is taught as a moral plea rather than a battle for political and economic power.

As with other tumultuous periods in American history, such as the forced migration of Native Americans or the internment of Japanese Americans, Payne said, civil rights education is "cursory and sanitized," often neglecting to emphasize how controversial and disruptive the period actually was.

"Just weeks before the March on Washington [in August 1963], the Gallup poll showed most Americans-60 percent-were opposed and thought it would set back the movement's cause," Payne said. Mass demonstrations, boycotts, and sit-ins "were not considered civil then," he noted. "In classrooms, much of that gets lost."

Payne stressed the value in school leadership taking the lead in changing that framing.

Connecting the Past to the Present

The payoff for students when the civil rights movement is comprehensively taught is considerable, added Payne, noting that young people come away able to interpret social change from a more critical perspective and see themselves as part of it. The impact may even be more sizable for white students, "who are even further removed from the history" than black youth, who may be similarly unaware of the events outside of the standard narrative but do have a "sense of the structural features of inequality" from their daily lives, he said.

To broaden her students' understanding of the civil rights movement, Jann'l Henry, a middle school English teacher at Whittier Education Campus, a K-8 public school in Washington, DC, introduced her class to the biography of Claudette Colvin, a contemporary of Rosa Parks, and a documentary on Bayard Rustin, the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington.

The reaction from her majority-black classroom, she said, was immediate and swift: "I thought that Martin Luther King was just a nonviolent person," said one student. "I didn't know that people had to be taught these tactics and how to be a pacifist," a classmate added, while another student said, "I didn't know that there was a black, gay man that perhaps should have been the face of this movement but wasn't."

Similarly, through a role-playing activity on the civil rights movement, Dickens awakened the curiosity of her 10th-grade students in rural Mississippi. " Stepping into Selma "-a city that played a major role in the freedom struggle-allowed her class to take on the identities of activists from the period, many of whom were the students' own age at the time, which increased the relevance and impact of the lesson, she said.

Yet the most enduring outcome of reconsidering the civil rights era, according to Henry, may be helping all students critically examine the influence of social and political movements and connect the past to the present day.

"I teach my students that the civil rights movement is ongoing," said Henry. "You can't look back and say, 'This was when black people didn't have rights. This was when Jim Crow existed.' They know a lot about Ferguson.... We're still fighting for civil rights."

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A Better Way to Teach the Civil Rights Movement

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A native of the Magnolia State, Jessica Dickens grew up just a short drive away from one of the most infamous events of Mississippi Freedom Summer: the 1964 disappearance and murder of three civil rights workers on their way to investigate a church burning.

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Teaching Tolerance provides free resources to educators-teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners-who work with children from kindergarten through high school. Educators use our materials to supplement the curriculum, to inform their practices, and to create civil and inclusive school communities where children are respected, valued and welcome participants.

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Civil Rights by MindMuzic (Official Music Video)

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Beat is owned by: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_...) Buy HISTORY Raps (Grades 3-12) http://a.co/j0EwfWw Buy MATH RAPS (Grades 3-12) http://a.co/gHYLKu2 Buy SCIENCE RAPS (Grades 3-12) http://a.co/7MRVpB9 Buy ENGLISH RAPS (Grades 3-12) http://a.co/4PB60d3 PLAY and LEARN RAPS (Grades K-2) http://a.co/eCjLfyT WEEK 5 - Civil Rights Rap Video! Share with PARENTS, TEACHERS and STUDENTS today!

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Civil Rights Web Sites

Civil Rights Special Collection ★★★★☆
The Teachers' Domain Civil Rights Collection is produced by WGBH Boston, in partnership with the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and Washington University in St. Louis. Materials are free but you have to sign up. Features an impressive array of audio, video, and text sources from Frontline and American Experience shows, Eyes on the Prize, and other sources. Also offers an interactive Civil Rights movement timeline and four lesson plans: Campaigns for Economic Freedom/Re-Examining Brown/Taking a Stand/Understanding White Supremacy.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project ★★★★☆
This project out of Stanford University disseminates historical information about Dr. King and the social movements in which he participated. There are papers, speeches, sermons, book chapters, scholarly articles, a biography and a chronology. Excellent research site.

Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Movement ★★★★☆
The landmark Eyes on the Prize television series spans over three decades of history, and dozens of civil rights events. This American Experience feature presents 25 major civil rights events, including Emmett Till's murder in 1955, The Montgomery Bus Boycott, The Freedom Rides, The March on Washington, The Nation of Islam and Malcolm X, and much more. There are also two dozen primary sources presenting varied perspectives on the civil rights movement, as well as profiles of individuals and groups. Furthermore, there are 15 background articles on civil rights milestones, and even an opportunity to share your memories. In the For Teachers section there are five lesson plans each for High School or Middle School classrooms.

Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement ★★★★☆
This Seattle Times exhibit helps students learn about King as a civil-rights leader and his sweeping influence on the civil rights movement and beyond. Included are a photo gallery, biography, study guide, quizzes, essays from students and others and a focus on black history.

The History of Jim Crow ★★★★☆
Access historical background, source material, and lesson plans at this impressive site and learn how Jim Crow laws deprived African Americans of their civil rights.

The African-American Odyssey ★★★★☆
A Library of Congress resource guide for the study of Black History and Culture, the Mosaic explores colonization, abolition, migration, and the WPA. Included are maps, charts, primary sources, and background information on black history. Part IX Civil Rights Movement topics include Desegregation and Civil Rights in the Arena and on the Stage.

The Two Nations of Black America ★★★★☆
The Two Nations of Black America discusses the divide in the black American community and features audio excerpts, charts, graphs and analysis, interviews, readings and links. "Are we better off?" is an essay by famed Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Black Panthers ★★★★☆
This Spartacus website looks at the history of the Black Panther movement and includes biographies of leading figures such as Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Fred Hampton, Eldridge Cleaver, H. Rap Brown and Bobby Hutton.

Jackie Robinson and other Baseball Highlights ★★★★☆
The special presentation called Baseball, the Color Line, and Jackie Robinson, 1860s-1960s draws on approximately thirty items-manuscripts, books, photographs, and ephemera-from many parts of the Library of Congress. It describes the color line that segregated baseball for many years, the Negro Leagues, and Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson-two men who played key roles in integrating the sport. The last two sections of the presentation explore Robinson's career as a Dodger and his civil rights activities.

African American History and Heritage ★★★★☆
Extensive collection of online resources for the history of the US civil rights movement and current projects and events in Black History.

Civil Rights Movement Veterans ★★★★☆
This site is by and for veterans of the Southern Freedom Movement who tell their story of the Civil Rights Movement in their own words. The Veterans explain the movement, provide a timeline, contribute a photo album, offer documents, and discussion, and more. Most importantly, they contribute their stories. A great primary source resource.

Voices of the Civil Rights Movement ★★★★☆
AARP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), and the Library of Congress team up to collect and present personal accounts of the Civil Rights Movement. In addition the various voices on the web site, there is a timeline, a historical overview, a music video montage, and a look at the movement at 50.

Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights Scrapbook ★★★★☆
White state officials banned the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a powerful civil rights organization, for its supportive role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-1956. To fill the void, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth helped organize the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) in Birmingham, Alabama. The ACMHR organized demonstrations and boycotts to protest segregation in Birmingham's schools and businesses. The group also challenged segregation laws by openly defying them and by filing lawsuits to overturn them. Features primary source documents. Part of WGBH Civil Rights Special Collection.

Civil Rights Movement ★★★★☆
History.com presents a Civil Rights Movement gallery featuring 15 video clips, 6 speeches, 8 photo galleries, and 1 interactive. Video clips include Little Rock Nine, Jackie Robinson Breaks Barriers, King Leads the March on Washington, and the interactive is a Black History Milestones interactive timeline. There are 25 combined photographs of Martin Luther King, Jr. and The March on Washington.

Religion & Ethics News Weekly ★★★★☆
This PBS newsmagazine provides insightful coverage and analysis of the news, people, events and trends behind the headlines in the world of religion and ethics. The program explores how religion shapes both national and international events, and examines the challenges raised by difficult ethical issues. The Web site features individual show transcripts, an audio archive of past programs, full transcripts of interviews with notable guests, related articles dealing with significant issues in religion and ethics news, a list of related resources and an online pressroom featuring downloadable versions of the program press kit and quarterly newsletter as well as detailed summaries of individual stories. See Martin Luther King Jr. as Pastor (January 13, 2006; Episode no. 920); interview of Civil Rights movement leader Rep. John Lewis (January 16, 2004; Episode no. 720): What spiritual legacy did the civil rights movement give to the United States?; The Legacy of Howard Thurman - Mystic and Theologian (January 18, 2002; Episode no. 520). Howard influenced Martin Luther King, Jr.

We Shall Overcome ★★★★☆
The National Parks Services' story of the Civil Rights Movement centers around places listed in an interactive map historic places.

International Civil Rights Walk of Fame ★★★★☆
This National Parks Service presents essays and image of civil rights leaders such as Rosa Parks, Fred Shuttlesworth, Thurgood Marshall, Julian Bond, Dick Gregory, Jesse Jackson, Andrew Young, and others.

Academy of Achievement: Rosa Parks ★★★★☆
The Academy of Achievement presents stories of "legendary achievers" of the 20th century in arts, public service, sports, science, and other fields. This feature on Rosa Parks includes video interviews that you can download and images from the Civil Rights Movement.

Rosa Parks Excerpts on NPR ★★★★☆
National Public Radio presents audio excerpts from 1992 interview and a 2004 tribute.

Rosa Parks Interview (YouTube video) ★★★★☆

Songs of the Civil Rights Movement ★★★★☆
National Public Radio presents jazz/blues versions of select songs that sustained the civil-rights movement in the 1960s through setbacks, hardships, failures and the many hard-won successes.

The First Civil Rights Bus Boycott ★★★★☆
The Baton Rouge bus boycott in 1953 inspired the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott led by the Rev. Martin Luther King, but was largely forgotten. This National Public Radio reports from principals involved in the boycott.

Documents from the Women's Liberation Movement ★★★★☆
The materials in this on-line archival collection document various aspects of the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States and focus specifically on the radical origins of this movement during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Agents of Social Change ★★★★☆
Smith College offers an on-line exhibit and several lesson plans drawn from its collections. The lesson plans are directed at middle and high school students and make use of both the text-based documents and visual images that can be found at the curriculum portion of the Web site. They highlight women's part in struggles for social change in the 20th century including labor, socialism, civil liberties, peace, racial justice, urban reform, welfare rights, and women's rights.

Life Covers the Civil Rights Movement ★★★★☆
Life Magazine presents the Civil Rights Movement in this slideshow of wonderful photographs of major events and individuals accompanied by brief descriptions.

Timeline of the American Civil Rights Movement ★★★☆☆
This is an Infoplease.com annotated timeline of the Civil Rights Movement from the Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954 to the Selma (Alabama) March in 1965. It provides hyperlinked encyclopedic summaries of key events and brief biographies of key participants.

From Slavery to Civil Rights: Timeline of African American History ★★★☆☆
This Library of Congress timeline includes a section on the Civil Rights Movement replete with photographs of Rosa Parks, March on Washington, Little Rock Nine, and more.

Skin Deep: 1945-1994 (PBS) ★★★☆☆
The People's Century site is based on the 26-episode PBS television series and features a teacher's guide, a timeline, a thematic overview, and RealAudio excerpts. The highlights of the web site are the first-person narratives, often by ordinary people who lived through turbulent times. The Skin Deep: 1945-1994 episode probes the challenge to racial oppression in the United States and South Africa and features an interesting interview of Jim Zwerg, Civil Rights activist.

Civil Rights Movement ★★★☆☆
The New Georgia Encyclopedia presents a hyperlinked essay on the Civil Rights Movement with related links. Of note are the five video clips that accompany the essay.

Afterward with Clarence Jones ★★★☆☆
A former adviser to the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Clarence Jones presents a behind the scenes picture of the weeks leading up to the March on Washington, and the writing and delivery of the civil rights leader's "I Have a Dream" speech. Courtesy of C-Span Video.

Martin Luther King and Current Public Policy ★★★☆☆
Former Pennsylvania Senator Harris Wofford and former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend speak on the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and his possible approaches to current public policy issues

The Civil Rights Movement ★★★☆☆
CNN.com presents a timeline of the Civil Rights Movement with related stories and links. If the page fails to load, try opening it in Incognito mode (if using Chrome) or switching to a different Internet browser.

The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez (PBS) ★★★☆☆
This portrait of Chavez is presented in both English and Spanish and features audio excerpts from Chavez himself and an interview with his brother.

Lesson Plans, Teacher Guides, Activities and more

Civil Rights Themed Resources
The Teachers section of the Library of Congress features several excellent reaching resources on the Civil Rights Movement. It includes two primary source sets (images, manuscripts, maps, sound files) with analysis tools to help students think like historians: Jim Crow in America and The NAACP: A Century in the Fight for Freedom. There are also six lesson plans created by teachers centering on civil rights:

After Reconstruction: Problems of African Americans in the South (Grades 9-12) Students identify problems and issues facing African-Americans immediately after Reconstruction using text based sources.

Segregation: From Jim Crow to Linda Brown (Grades 6-12) Students explore the era of legalized segregation.

Baseball, Race Relations and Jackie Robinson (Grades 6-12) Students explore racism in the United States, both in and out of sports. The lesson focuses primarily on race relations in the 1950s.

Women in the Civil War: Ladies, Contraband and Spies (Grades 6-12) Students view the perspectives of slave women, plantation mistresses, female spies, and Union women during the Civil War. Much of the lesson is centered on "contraband" in the South.

Baseball, Race and Ethnicity: Rounding the Bases (Grades 9-12) Students use primary sources focused on baseball to explore the American experience regarding race and ethnicity. Covering the period from 1860 to 1959, students are divided into groups each investigating a 20-year segment of time and use primary sources from the Library of Congress's American Memory collection to develop and defend a unique historical hypothesis about race and ethnicity. Students draw parallels between the changing role of race and ethnicity in the history of baseball to the changing role these factors played in broader American society.

To Kill a Mockingbird: A Historical Perspective (Grades 6-12) Students are guided on a journey through the Depression Era South in the 1930s.

African American Identity in the Gilded Age: Two Unreconciled Strivings (Grades 8-12) Students examine the tension experienced by African-Americans during the Gilded Age. The lesson explores the areas of family, work, play, faith, education, race, and violence.

Baseball, Race Relations, and Jackie Robinson
In this Library of Congress lesson students draw on their previous studies of American history and culture as they analyze primary sources from Jackie Robinson and Other Baseball Highlights, 1860s-1960s in American Memory. A close reading of two documents relating to Jackie Robinson's breaking of the racial barrier in professional baseball leads to a deeper exploration of racism in the United States, both in and out of sports. Middle School and High School levels.

Teaching With Documents: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
This National Archives and Records Administration lesson explores "affirmative action" and relates to Articles I,II, and III in the Constitution.

Teaching With Documents: Competing Voices of the Civil Rights Movement
This National Archives and Records Administration curriculum unit contains two lessons that help students understand of the diversity of voices that shaped the debate over civil rights in 1960s America.

Birmingham 1963
In this Civil Rights movement lesson plan from the Alabama Department of Archives & History students read Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and other documents relating to King's incarceration in a Birmingham jail in April, 1963. Students are then asked to write a press release to be sent to each newspaper, radio station and television station in Alabama which will explain what happened in Birmingham. High School level resource.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project: Lesson Plans
This project out of Stanford University disseminates historical information about Dr. King and the social movements in which he participated. Primary sources and lesson plans include:

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail"

The Children's Crusade and the Role of Youth in the African American Freedom Struggle

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X: A Common Solution?

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam

Personal Stories of Liberation from the Civil Rights Movement

Teaching King and the Civil Rights Movement with Primary Source Documents

The Murder of Emmett Till: Teacher's Guide
Provided by PBS, this lesson plan is centered around the murder of Emmett Till. Students are also asked to discuss segregation, violence, and the Great Migration. This lesson plan is broken into four parts and is intended for grades 7-12.

Lesson Plan: Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, and the Power of Nonviolence
This Thinkfinity lesson introduces students to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s philosophy of nonviolence and the teachings of Mohandas K. Gandhi that influenced King's views. After considering the political impact of this philosophy, students explore its relevance to personal life. Intended for grades 6-8

Whitewashing? History: Exploring Topics of Civil Rights from 1948-1964
In this New York Times lesson, students will revisit issues of civil rights in the U.S., using the recent national discussion of retiring Senator Strom Thurmond's 1948 Dixiecrat Presidential campaign as a starting point.(December 16, 2002)

Teacher Lesson Plan: Created Equal?
This Library of Congress lesson focuses on a few key concepts of the Declaration of Independence, beginning with the phrase "All men are created equal." Students gain an appreciation of Thomas Jefferson's efforts to deal with the complex issues of equality and slavery in the Declaration of Independence. Recommended for High school students.

The First Amendment: What's Fair in a Free Country
This EDSITEment lesson plan explores the difficult issues that arise related to our right to free speech.

Preserve, Protect and Defend? Considering Violent Protests and American Values
In this New York Times lesson plan students explore if ever Americans should ever use threats and violence to promote and defend their definitions of America.

Burning Hatred: Discussing the Constitutional Conflict Over Cross Burning
In this lesson, students examine the constitutionality of various forms of expression; they then take part in a mock trial on the issue of cross burning.

Is Everyone Protected By the Bill of Rights?
In this high school lesson plan, students explore whether gays should be entitled to serve in the military. To understand this issue, students take a look at the civil rights afforded to every US citizen. We explore how this applied to the civil rights movement, and whether it is also applicable to gays who want to serve in the military. All this is used to gather information for a final debate about the issue using skills and research found in the lesson.

Hip Hop: Today's Civil Rights Movement?
In this National Public Radio interview author Todd Boyd says that Hip-hop culture, with its street rhythms and explicit lyrics, is more relevant in advancing civil rights today than the peaceful messages of Rev. Martin Luther King.

Cesar Chavez: Model Curriculum
Standards-based model curriculum on the life and work of Cesar E. Chavez. Curriculum is provided for kindergarten through grade twelve, consisting of biographies and lesson plans. Page requires some time of Adobe Reader in order to be viewed.

Rounding the Bases - Lesson Plan
This lesson challenges students to investigate the roles that race and ethnicity have played in the United States by utilizing the lens of baseball. Covering the period from 1860 to 1959, students are divided into groups each investigating a 20-year segment of time and use primary sources from the Library of Congress's American Memory collection to develop and defend a unique historical hypothesis about race and ethnicity. Students draw parallels between the changing role of race and ethnicity in the history of baseball to the changing role these factors played in broader American society. Designed for grades 9 to 12.

Living Legacies - Commemorating People Who Have Positively Impacted Society
In this New York Times lesson, students explore the contemporary commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., research the positive impact another famous person has had on society and the images that best represent the actions and beliefs of that person, create an art exhibit honoring that person's legacy, and finally, write an essay analyzing the effect this individual has had on modern society.(June 20, 2003)

Non-Violent Protest Through The Ages
This is a detailed Middle School teaching unit from the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. It focuses on the beliefs of Henry David Thoreau, Mohandas K. Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King and is designed to be used for classroom discussion as well as independent reading projects. Includes terms, activities, and teaching strategies.

The Civil Rights Movement (A Web Project)
Designed by George Cassutto, this Lesson plan aims to give students a general historical understanding of the events of the Civil Rights Movement and its context in African-American history. It encourages students to construct a Black History timeline. A matching activity is also included, in which students pair a historical event with its correct description.

Little Rock Nine (Web Quest)
Little Rock Nine is an interactive Web Quest from the Pacific Bell Knowledge Network and explores racial desegregation in schools. Students are asked: What, if anything, should be done to racially desegregate U.S. schools? Activities are group-oriented and inquiry-based and are designed to promote critical thinking. There is a teacher's guide included.

Interpreting Primary Sources
Digital History provides brief excerpts from primary sources and statistics on slavery and presents several questions to think about

Digital History Resource Guides
The Digital Resource Guides provides links to American history web sites by period and provide historical overviews, readings (online textbook chapter, Reader's Companion) primary source documents (documents, maps, cartoons), teaching resources (chronologies, maps, quizzes), audio-visual resources, and additional resources. It is an excellent and comprehensive teaching resource.

All About Martin Luther King, Jr.: An Overview of his Life
This Enchanted Learning site provides an overview of Martin Luther King's Life and has some printable activities about King'?s life and achievements for both beginning and fluent readers. Elementary School.

HistoryTeacher.net: AP United States History Quizzes 1920-1970
A New York teacher has produced a great general site for history teachers that offers AP-level United States history quizzes on many different periods and topics.

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Civil Rights Movement - Best of History Web Sites

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Civil Rights Web Sites Lesson Plans, Teacher Guides, Activities, and more Civil Rights Web Sites Martin Luther King Jr.: I Have a Dream ★★★★★A complete audio recording of the famous speech. Why it's so Difficult to Find Full Videos of King's Historic Speech ★★★★★Due to copyright law, it can be tricky to find complete video recordings of the "I Have a Dream" Speech.

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Our virtual field trip is an online tour to a few of the important places of the American Civil Rights Movement. On our trip, you will see places where transformative events took place, where people suffered and sometimes died for freedom, and where great courage and restraint were displayed.

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Check Out the 2024 U.S. Civil Rights Trail Travel Guide

This year's guide includes regional itineraries with editorial content that group planners and tour operators can use to plan tours along the trail.

Discover The Guide

U.S. Civil Rights Trail Welcomes Four New Sites

The U.S. Civil Rights Trail is proud to add four important landmarks to the collection of 130-plus U.S. Civil Rights Trail sites.

Bringing Birmingham's civil rights story to the world

The U.S. Civil Rights Trail Market wins major award

What Happened Here Changed the World

On the 60th Anniversary of the September 15, 1963 bombing that killed 4 young girls at the 16th St. Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL we remember what it means.

16th Street Baptist Church

Rick Steves discusses the origins of the Trail

The U.S. Civil Rights Trail was featured on a recent episode of Travel with Rick Steves. Listen to the conversation between Rick and Lee Sentell as they discuss the trail's beginnings and the U.S. Civil Rights Trail's growth and expansion.

The fight for American civil rights spanned decades, cities and states - from Topeka, Kansas, to Memphis, Tennessee, from Atlanta, Georgia, to Selma, Alabama and all the way to Washington, D.C. Chart the course of the Movement through the Civil Rights Trail and see firsthand the struggle for equity and the power of equality.

Landmarks

The U.S. Civil Rights Trail is a collection of churches, courthouses, schools, museums and other landmarks across 15 states that played a pivotal role in advancing social justice in the 1950s and 1960s, shifting the course of history.

Stories

From powerful speeches to brave sit-ins and unifying marches, the fight for civil rights in America can be told through countless sites and stories that have the power to awe and inspire everyone.

Experience

Experience

Walk in the footsteps of giants. Actually visit the places where the Civil Rights Movement was forged. Create your itinerary and see firsthand how the face of a nation was changed forever.

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Explore the fight for U.S. civil rights - US Civil Rights Trail

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Chart the course of the Civil Rights Movement through the U.S. Civil Rights Trail. Discover the destinations important to the Civil Rights Movement.

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The Civil Rights Movement | Virtual Learning Journey | PBS LearningMedia

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In collaboration with Georgia Department of Education, Georgia Public Broadcasting produced a standards-based, virtual learning journey that transports students to a critical period of time in United States history.

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Worksheets for Kids & Free Printables | Education.com

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Excited to learn more about fifth grade? Use these learning resources perfect for fifth grade to start today!

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I am from years of injustice, decades of tragedy, from lack of the truth I was set aside for future years to handle. I am from the United States Constitution, where I am written in black ink for the world to see. (After so many years, people finally saw.)

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12 Poems to Read for Black History Month

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Tyehimba Jess on "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks

"We Real Cool" is the poem so many of us know from grade school: the Seven (that sacred number of the seeker, the thinker, the mysterious) at the Golden Shovel (the shovel be golden but be ready to dig your grave). Them lounging streetcornerwise in our consciousness under some flickered neon of mannish-boy dream. A Chicago/Detroit/Harlem/St. Louis/L.A./Gary/... corner. Someplace where the rhyme is always as good as the reason, anyplace where the cost of gin is precious enough to thin but solemn enough to pour on the sidewalk for the departed, anyplace where the schools are overcrowded and underfunded and black and brown enough to not really miss the Seven, who were underperforming on the standardized tests and had been diagnosed as ADD or BDD status anyway. Anyplace where sin gets hymned out-straitlaced into storefront chapels on Sunday mornings-but sewn back into Saturday night doo-wopped breakbeats, finger-snapped shuffles of promise.

We know the Seven. Know them like our neighbor's boy gone bloodied to bullets. Like our cousins nodded off into prison terms or hyped into the ground. Like our brothers gone homeless. Like our fathers gone missing. Like ourselves when we look in the blurry mid-morning mirror. One for every day of the week, one for each of our deadly sins. One waiting around the bend of each American corner. We stand in the June of our lives and try to sing it all the way through each season, always ending each line on the word that brings us together as much as it pivots us into new revelations: We. We. We. We. We. We. We.

Safiya Sinclair on "won't you celebrate with me" by Lucille Clifton

What a balm and a blessing this poem has been to me. I have carried this sonnet-both an ode to the self and also an act of resistance-inside me like gospel, like armor. Against a world that has marked us invisible and unworthy, black joy is important. Self-love is imperative. And here Lucille Clifton shows us that both joy and self-love radiating from a black woman is also a kind of defiance.

When I was growing up there were so few examples of what a strong, successful black woman could look like, much less a black woman poet-how could we, the unseen and unconsidered, find a place of our own not just to exist, but to thrive?

For all of us, black women born in Babylon, with our meager inheritance of oppression and the diminishment of our selfhood and a world that turns its back to say, "You are not enough as you are"-for a black woman to stand in exaltation of herself is radical, is necessary. This poem gave me a voice and a crucial model to carve out my own world, to know it is possible to sing a self.

Here is Clifton stepping inside the American poetic tradition-a tradition that never considered her, however multitudinously it declared itself-and fashioning a new mold for her life, for black womanhood in all its broad fields and rivers of wonder. Here, "on this bridge between / starshine and clay," she not only beams out a nation that has tried to snuff her out, but knowing that the black woman must nurture and cherish her own self in the world, she divines this life as a rebellious necessity. To be black in America is to be endangered. To be a black woman in America is to be the unsung casualty. To be a black woman alive in America and writing poetry is miraculous. Here I am, she says-despite a fight against my selfhood and survival at every turn, here I am-in radiant joy, in full bloom, in celebration of myself, and despite you, I'm still alive and alive and alive.

Rickey Laurentiis on "Heartbeats" by Melvin Dixon

"If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off," said Dickinson, "I know that is poetry." But how does it feel to be exiled from your own heart-and not just artfully, but literally, from your real and fallible heart? This is the question I return to, a quality of thought and careful sensation I find in Melvin Dixon's "Heartbeats" and the steady patient-turned-at-moments-insistent spondees of its lines that, for always renegotiating this pace, manages to maintain what sadness we suspect is present alongside something like strength, audacity. So, of course, who else but a black, queer poet could offer us such uneasy music? Who else but him-present in a world that claimed he was, in at least two ways, wrong-could bring us so much closer, that intimate with our own breathing bodies, which will fail us? It is maybe like how history often looks back on such poets as Dixon, erasing his legacy, failing him, so that this poem, among many, becomes as a whole the last declaration. It does not whimper; it swells.

Rowan Ricardo Phillips on "American History" by Michael S. Harper

Michael S. Harper's "American History" is one of the great poems of our or any other language. The stunning ease with which the poem juxtaposes, in a highly compact form, grandeur and minutiae, consequence and cause, content and technique (in other words, big idea and meager action), and the sad, suffocating ease with which poems written by poets of color tend to read as mere reflex of a social gland have unfortunately conspired against it. But this is a poem that in its brevity and power stands tall with the epitaph of Simonides, the haiku of Bashō, Blake's " The Sick Rose," Keats's "The Living Hand," Pound's " In a Station of the Metro" and Brooks's " We Real Cool," to name but a few.

A great poem releases the language it uses from the tether of its normal terms-not to destroy language but to reveal the wounds therein and enliven them and, in turn, the entire language. That the explosive first line carries five stresses in its six syllables; that the poem posits a "me" and the possibility of multiple "yous" (an addressed second person and a rhetorical one); that the net is torqued into an embedded clause you have to see and swallow before moving on to the drowning; that we lose a sense of protagonist and antagonist, moral gravity; that the poem is in search of gravity among its tragic parts and dangling question-what to say but to read it, parse it, memorize it, and pay it forward? Why is it not in every canon? Can't find what you can't see, can you?

Marilyn Nelson on "Middle Passage" by Robert Hayden

"Middle Passage" is one of the major landmarks of modern American poetry, right up there with " Prufrock" and " Sunday Morning." Its grand ambition, its researched knowledge, the range of its literary allusion, its handling of many diverse voices, and its achievement of deep wisdom are, well, I can't think of words right now to describe my admiration of this beautiful masterpiece.

Mahogany L. Browne on "Brief History of Hostility" by Jamaal May

Jamaal May dissects the many limbs of the assault of an oppressive system and the resilient resistance of an oppressed people in the five-act poem "A Brief History of Hostility":
The war said let there be war
and there was war.
The war said let there be peace
and there was war.

Like a surgeon with a sturdy hand, May pens a succinctly textured psalm, birthing light and life against the landscape of a machine designed to punish and wound until extinction. The poetic craft of chant and righteous rage finds a delicate balance on the page as May threads together repetition and steel and nature as comforting as any lullaby. This is no easy feat: writing about life and fire and death and the desire for peace through air and flowers birth graveyards without the promise of losing interest, a privilege for some.

Camille T. Dungy on "On Being Brought from Africa to America" by Phillis Wheatley

In 1761, when she was about seven years old, the girl we have come to know as Phillis Wheatley was kidnapped from her home on the West Coast of Africa. She was transported to Boston because she was too frail to be of practical use in the physically demanding sugar plantations of the South. She learned English, Greek, and Latin. But she remained enslaved. Twelve years later, in 1773, this same girl would become the first black person to publish a book in English. From that collection comes "On Being Brought from Africa to America" one of the most amazing poems I have ever read.

The poem itself follows the neoclassical model-it's concerned with order, structure, reason. We see it in the rhyme, the meter, in its controlled organization, and also its logic. There is an orderly series of four heroic couplets. There are the requisite nods to Christian ideals. In the mode of her time, Wheatley's poem is clean, uncorrupted. Practically dismissible, it seems so perfect.

But this is not a poem to be easily dismissed. Scan it with me. In doing so, you'll see some of the ways Wheatley uses the apparent order of the poem to reveal an entirely different line of reasoning than what might be evident at first glance. There is practically a secret code inside this poem. The "save" in "Savior" is stressed, the "Christ" in "Christian," the word "black" in the penultimate line, and the word "join" at the poem's end. The word "die" at the end of a line about the "diabolic" skin tone of black people is stressed along with the "di-" in "diabolic," and both syllables are close enough in proximity to create a shocking internal rhyme. This all has something to do with English itself, with where stresses naturally fall in particular words, but the way that these words are put together in Wheatley's poem directs whether and how we attend to them. Wheatley knew this. She uses the logic of the structure of metrical verse as a means toward revelation and resistance.

We see this same thing throughout the poem in her use of punctuation, in her rare enjambment, in the ways she plays with allusions, and especially in the fun she has with the homonymic potential of the English language. Toward the latter two points, I will never cease to wonder at her play on the word "Cain" to indicate the potential for refinement (and, therefore, exalted status) of the darker of the two sons of Adam and Eve, as well as the expected refinement (and, therefore, salvation) of the sugar cane (and sugar cane workers) at the center of the slave trade. Wheatley revels in the ways that something can appear to have one conclusion and also another.

This neoclassical poem, written by an enslaved young woman, barely out of her teens, is rebellious even as it appears to follow all the rules. It is about the complicated blessing of being kidnapped from her home and sold into slavery in a land where she is able to learn about the order and structure of Western traditions (including Christianity), and it has at its heart words, phrases, and lines that can be read (completely logically) in a number of ways. At every turn, she undermines and complicates the logic to which she is bound. I love that! I love her.
browse more resources for black history month

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12 poems to read for black history month

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12 Poems to Read for Black History Month

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February is Black History Month, and to celebrate the contributions black poets have made, and continue to make, to the richness of American poetry, we asked eleven contemporary black poets from across the country at different stages in their writing lives, to choose one poem that should be read during Black History Month and to tell us a bit about why.

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First Amendment - Poem by Govind Ramakrishnan

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First Amendment - Poem by Govind Ramakrishnan

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In the land of the free
Home of the brave,
Freedom of speech
In schools and colleges
Have been quietly placed
In a state of coma....
Resuscitation near impossible
Eventually laid to rest
In an unmarked grave
At a quiet cemetery
Next to our founding fathers

© 2016

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First Amendment Poem by Govind Ramakrishnan - Poem Hunter

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In the land of the freeHome of the brave, Freedom of speech In schools and collegesHave been quietly placed In a state of coma....Resuscitation near impossibleEventually laid to rest In an unmarked graveAt a quiet cemetery Next to our founding fathers © 2016

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Visible Learning for Literacy :Chapter 1 & Teaching Literacy in Visible Learning Classroom :Chapter 1

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Visible Learning for Literacy :Chapter 1 & Teaching Literacy in Visible Learning Classroom :Chapter 1

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Week One Jan 15 Visible Learning Reading Notes  

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Teaching Literacy in Visible Learning Classroom
Teaching Literacy in Visible Learning Classroom :Chapter 3

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Teaching Literacy in Visible Learning Classroom
Teaching Literacy in Visible Learning Classroom :Chapter 3

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Week Two Jan 22 Visible Learning Reading Notes  

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Visible Learning for Literacy:
Surface Literacy Learning

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Visible Learning for Literacy:
Surface Literacy Learning

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Week Three Jan 29 Visible Learning Reading Notes  

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Visible Learning for Literacy
Deep Learning Ch. 3

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Visible Learning for Literacy
Deep Learning Ch. 3

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Week  Four February 5  Visible Learning for Literacy Ch. 3  Reading Notes  

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Visible Learning for Literacy Chapter
Teaching for Literacy for Transfer 

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Visible Learning for Literacy Chapter
Teaching for Literacy for Transfer 

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Week Five February 12  Visible Learning for Literacy Ch. 4  Reading Notes  

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Visible Learning for Literacy
 Chapter 5 Determining Impact

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Visible Learning for Literacy
 Chapter 5 Determining Impact

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Week Six February 19  Visible Learning for Literacy Ch. 5  Reading Notes  

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 Teaching Literacy in the Visible Classroom
Chapter 5 Student-Led Dialogic Learning

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 Teaching Literacy in the Visible Classroom
Chapter 5 Student-Led Dialogic Learning

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Week Seven March 5  Visible Teaching Literacy Ch. 5  Reading Notes  

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Teaching Literacy in the Visible Classroom
 Chapter 6 Independent Learning

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Teaching Literacy in the Visible Classroom
 Chapter 6 Independent Learning

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Week Eighter March 12  Visible Teaching Literacy Ch. 6  Reading Notes  

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Social Studies Vocabulary and Handwriting  MINI LESSON PLAN 

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GENERALIZATION LESSON PLAN AND RUBRIC

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CONCEPT ATTAINMENT LESSON PLAN FORM 18

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Direct Instruction Lesson Plan with Adaptations/ELD Strategies

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Direct Instruction Lesson Plan with Adaptations/ELD Strategies

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DIRECT INSTRUCTION LESSON PLAN