Waltrina D. Kirkland-Mullins
Essential questions are used to guide instruction and to promote enduring understandings when reading for information. They apply to related activities and performance tasks contained throughout the unit. Essential questions to be addressed include but are not limited to the following:
How does asking and answering questions help readers gain meaning from text?
How do illustrations support the readers understanding of text?
How does referring back to text help readers demonstrate their understanding of text?
How does developing your own point of view deepen your understanding of text?
How does the reader demonstrate understanding of informational text?
How does text structure help the reader to construct meaning from the text?
How does writing and discussing what we have read help and us to better understand an event or topic?
How does the use of audio and audio-visual support increase a reader's comprehension, fluency, and vocabulary acquisition?
Aligned with CCSS Standards, Hidden Realities incorporates the use of audio-visual, kinesthetic, and tactile delivery of instruction to meet the learning needs of students across ability levels. Students are drawn into the time period through the use of on-line resources, biographic film clips, and supportive children's literature students. Stepping into the shoes those impacted by the brunt end of Jim Crow laws, students will compare and contrast gathered information in both written and verbal form to convey their understanding of complex subject matter. They will go a step further, articulating their views on (1) whether schools are more diverse in America today than they were during the mid-50s and (2) whether young people value education as much today as they did in the past.
The multicultural, interdisciplinary nature of this unit allows for it to be strategically implemented and/or extended throughout the course of the school year: at the beginning of September as a resource in establishing classroom community; between September and October aligned with Latino/Hispanic American Heritage Month; from month-end November through January as a prelude to Dr. King's commemorative birthday celebration; and/or through February aligned with African-American Heritage Month).
As a culminating activity facilitated by the instructor, students will create performance piece, to be presented before the school community during the course of the year. (The week of Dr. King's commemorative birthday celebration serves as a target date option.) Young learners will take the audience on a historic journey to accentuate the cultural inclusiveness and significance of the civil rights era. Their production will convey that although much progress has been made regarding the fight for civil rights and school desegregation, much is yet to be done, and that as in the past, children can serve as the catalyst for positive change regarding America's future.
