Dan Kooser
Action Plan for Learning (APL)
Using Oral Histories in the Classroom
March 2010 Teachers Workshop
Library of Congress (LOC)
Oral History Activity
Events of the Civil Rights Movement
Pennsylvania State Teaching Standards:
1.6 Speaking and Listening
1.6.5 E. Participate in small and large group discussions and presentations.
8.1. Historical Analysis and Skills Development.
8.1.6 B. Explain and analyze historical sources.
5.2 Rights and Responsibility of Citizenship
5.2.6 A. Compare rights and responsibilities of citizenship
Inquiry Based Learning Model (IBLM) Used:
Ask
Investigate
Reflect
Discuss
Create
Ask: The students will be given an anticipatory set to spark clues to the topic of events in
history of the Civil Rights Movements.
Investigate: The students will listen to an oral history interview of the violent and non
violent events that happened to a group of people known as Freedom Riders.
Create: The students will create one fact and one opinion based on the audio.
Discuss: The students will share their facts and opinions about the audio and how their
answers relate to the Civil Rights Movement and Freedom Riders.
Reflect: Students will answer questions about the Civil Rights Movement.
Descriptive Walk Through:
To begin my Civil Rights history activity, and get into the topic of the Freedom Riders, I
will first put a photograph of Jerome Bettis, the former Pittsburgh Steelers running back, on the
screen in the front of the classroom. I will ask the students what the former football star’s
nickname is/was. The students should answer “The Bus”. After that, I will ask the students if
they know any famous events in history that had taken place on a bus. The response I will be
looking for is the Rosa Parks incident in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, when she refused to
obey bus driver James Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white
passenger.
I will explain that Rosa Parks was an African American civil rights activist whom the
U.S. Congress later called the "Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement." Parks' act of
defiance became an important symbol of the modern Civil Rights Movement and Parks became
an international icon of resistance to racial segregation. I will also connect the coincidence that
“The Bus” Jerome Bettis happens to also be African American; this will be done to illustrate to
the students how far African-American have come. The focus of the lesson is for students to
recognize the importance of equal rights for all citizens, regardless of ethnicity or race. Students
will recognize the time period when the civil rights movements came to the forefront in 1955
with the Rosa Parks incident and continued with movements into the 1960s.
Next the students will investigate an oral history interview by listening to a witness
who experienced in 1961 the violent and non violent events of the Civil Rights Movements that
happened to a group of people known as Freedom Riders. The link is a sister link found through
a Library of Congress (LOC) page titled, “Civil Rights Resource Guide”; students will go to this
interview, located at http://content.wsulibs.wsu.edu/cdm-cvoralhist/ . Next, they will click on
Flip Schulke under “The Oral Histories”.
We will listen to the first three minutes of the audio interview of Flip Schulke’s
experiences. We will briefly define who Freedom Riders were and then create one fact from
the audio and one opinion from the audio. After about five minutes of creating these writing
views, the whole class will discuss their facts and opinions. We will talk about what it was like
to be someone sitting on the inside of the bus before it stopped and what it would be like to be
someone waiting on the outside.
Lastly, we will reflect on the importance of the time period of the Civil Rights
Movements. We will review the difference between fact and opinion. We will also review the
importance of Rosa Parks, Freedom Riders, violent and non violent civil right gatherings, and
Flip’s experience of a Freedom Rider bus incident. After the short review, students will reflect
on today’s lesson through completing an eight question quiz. This is available in the Assessment
section below.
Assessment:
Civil Rights Movement (8 pt) Quiz
Fill in the Blank:
1. Setting where Rosa Parks took her stand, also Jerome Bettis’ nickname. The Bus, bus, a bus.
2. Interracial group of civil rights activists in the early 1960s who rode buses through parts of the
southern United States for the purpose of challenging racial segregation. Freedom Riders
3. The rights belonging to an individual by virtue of citizenship, especially the fundamental
freedoms and privileges guaranteed by the 13th and 14th Amendments. Civil Rights
4. What was the first name of the person being interviewed about Freedom Riders? Flip
5. Who did the U.S. Congress later call the "Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement?” Rosa
Parks
True or False:
6. T or F The police did not stop the mob from the violence.
7. T or F Segregation did not have an effect on the Civil Rights Movements.
8. T or F Some Civil Rights Movement events took place in Alabama.