Investigation of the Question
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As I prepared for my two weeks of teaching, I knew that I wanted to make my unit on the Freedom Riders exciting and engaging. In my rationale I discussed how the topic of the civil rights movement leads to student engagement because the topic itself is engaging; students are shocked by what they learn, and want to know more. In addition to the innate interest that I hoped students would have, I wanted to design assessments that would facilitate a connection between the Freedom Riders’ experiences and the students. By creating student-centered activities that incorporated flexibility and choice and provided students with opportunities to explore their interests, I wanted them to develop their own authentic understanding of the Freedom Riders’ resilience, courage, and determination. To facilitate this authentic connection, I knew that I needed to assess their prior knowledge.
My unit on the Freedom Riders marked the beginning of Russell Byers’s expedition on the civil rights movement. Knowing that students most likely had no prior knowledge of the Freedom Riders, I needed to find out what knowledge they had about the civil rights era, and also what they wanted to learn. In Doing History, Levstik and Barton write that “K-W-L charts, in which students discuss what they know, what they want to know, and (later) what they have learned, are one way to activate this prior knowledge” (p. 15, 2011). By investigating their prior knowledge of the civil rights movement, my goal was to create a framework for their understanding of the Freedom Riders.
I decided to scaffold the K-W-L chart by activating students’ prior knowledge first through imagery. Levstik and Barton discuss Margaret Donaldson’s theory that “for something to make sense to young children, it must make human sense: Children…understand situations in terms of how they involve people” (Donaldson as cited by Levstik & Barton, p. 15, 2011). In our Term II portrait of a learner assignment for social studies, we showed historic photographs to our students and asked them image-specific questions in order to gauge their understanding of time and place. Inspired by this assignment, I decided to present students with a gallery walk that contained three panels of images from the civil rights movement, with the largest panel focusing specifically on the buses and transportation, as can be seen in the image to the right. Two days before I began my unit, students also embarked on a gallery walk with their classroom teacher, providing an initial context for the fifth grade expedition. I included some of the same images in my gallery walk so students would be able to draw connections to what they had previously seen.
As I introduced the lesson to the class, I gave each student a marker and wrote a prompt on the board: What do you think is going on in the photographs? With chart paper tacked next to each panel of images, students wrote their observations and comments about the photographs, as can be seen on the charts below.
My unit on the Freedom Riders marked the beginning of Russell Byers’s expedition on the civil rights movement. Knowing that students most likely had no prior knowledge of the Freedom Riders, I needed to find out what knowledge they had about the civil rights era, and also what they wanted to learn. In Doing History, Levstik and Barton write that “K-W-L charts, in which students discuss what they know, what they want to know, and (later) what they have learned, are one way to activate this prior knowledge” (p. 15, 2011). By investigating their prior knowledge of the civil rights movement, my goal was to create a framework for their understanding of the Freedom Riders.
I decided to scaffold the K-W-L chart by activating students’ prior knowledge first through imagery. Levstik and Barton discuss Margaret Donaldson’s theory that “for something to make sense to young children, it must make human sense: Children…understand situations in terms of how they involve people” (Donaldson as cited by Levstik & Barton, p. 15, 2011). In our Term II portrait of a learner assignment for social studies, we showed historic photographs to our students and asked them image-specific questions in order to gauge their understanding of time and place. Inspired by this assignment, I decided to present students with a gallery walk that contained three panels of images from the civil rights movement, with the largest panel focusing specifically on the buses and transportation, as can be seen in the image to the right. Two days before I began my unit, students also embarked on a gallery walk with their classroom teacher, providing an initial context for the fifth grade expedition. I included some of the same images in my gallery walk so students would be able to draw connections to what they had previously seen.
As I introduced the lesson to the class, I gave each student a marker and wrote a prompt on the board: What do you think is going on in the photographs? With chart paper tacked next to each panel of images, students wrote their observations and comments about the photographs, as can be seen on the charts below.
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The comments on the charts were often embellished by multiple question marks and exclamation marks, which seemed to represent both anger and confusion. Reactions included:
“I see African Americans being brave by facing the White people.”
“I see MLK giving a “‘I have a dream’” speech to say everyone has a life of FREEDOM!!”
“I see protestors and buses bombed by the white.”
“Blacks getting disrespected for their color and getting separated.”
The students’ comments reflected their schemas. As they viewed and commented on the images, they related them to public figures they were familiar with, and to the experiences of the people in the images.
Once students completed the gallery walk and returned to their seats, I asked them to write what they knew about the civil rights movement on their K-W-L charts. We then created a ‘What do we know?’ chart as a class, which can be seen to the right. This chart relayed information that the students knew to be true based on the images, but also on their prior knowledge of the civil rights movement. I had not placed any images showing members of the KKK, nor did I place images of anyone being arrested, but students enlisted their prior knowledge of this time period to create a framework for understanding the main idea that they noted on their charts: black people were not treated fairly or equally because of the color of their skin. By using historic photographs and grouping them based on common themes, students activated their prior knowledge of the civil rights movement and created connections between what they knew with what they saw in the photographs.
“I see African Americans being brave by facing the White people.”
“I see MLK giving a “‘I have a dream’” speech to say everyone has a life of FREEDOM!!”
“I see protestors and buses bombed by the white.”
“Blacks getting disrespected for their color and getting separated.”
The students’ comments reflected their schemas. As they viewed and commented on the images, they related them to public figures they were familiar with, and to the experiences of the people in the images.
Once students completed the gallery walk and returned to their seats, I asked them to write what they knew about the civil rights movement on their K-W-L charts. We then created a ‘What do we know?’ chart as a class, which can be seen to the right. This chart relayed information that the students knew to be true based on the images, but also on their prior knowledge of the civil rights movement. I had not placed any images showing members of the KKK, nor did I place images of anyone being arrested, but students enlisted their prior knowledge of this time period to create a framework for understanding the main idea that they noted on their charts: black people were not treated fairly or equally because of the color of their skin. By using historic photographs and grouping them based on common themes, students activated their prior knowledge of the civil rights movement and created connections between what they knew with what they saw in the photographs.
![Picture](/uploads/3/1/7/7/31776415/5339869.jpg?333)
Levstik and Barton write, “We cannot simply fill children up with information…we can’t “‘connect the dots’” for them. People learn when they seek answers to the questions that matter to them” (p. 16, 2011). Standing on an easel in the room was a ‘bus station parking lot’ I had created with a drawing of a 1961 Greyhound Bus, as can be seen to the left. With ‘Park your questions here!’ written across the top, I wanted the parking lot to act as a place where students could pose meaningful questions that we would work towards answering as we traveled through our unit, and that they could continue to ponder throughout the remainder of their expedition. Although I was not planning on introducing the bus station parking lot until we reached the ‘Wonder’ section of the K-W-L chart, I saw students writing questions on post-it notes during the gallery walk. It seemed that the images triggered their curiosity, and they were beginning to formulate questions. They were engaging in Levstik and Barton’s notion of disciplined inquiry without being prompted to do so. “We use the term disciplined inquiry to refer to the purposeful investigations that take place within a community that establishes the goals, standards, and procedures of study” (p. 16, 2011). As students thought about what was going on in the images during the gallery walk, they began to engage in their own investigations and explorations of their schemas.
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To continue the practice of disciplined inquiry, I asked students to turn and talk to a partner about what they wondered, and to write their questions on their K-W-L charts. As a group, we created a ‘What do we wonder?’ chart, which can be seen below. “To get more from history than preparation for a game show, students must take part in disciplined inquiry, not just repeated isolated trivia. The study of history must begin with the concerns and interests of students and must help them find answers to questions that grow out of those concerns and interests” (Levstik & Barton, p. 17, 2011). With Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as one of the most prominent references to the civil rights movement, many students wanted to know who killed him, and why. They also wanted to know who started the KKK, and how they became so mean. The next set of questions that students asked formed the premise for the civil rights movement itself. They wondered:
“Why are people treated differently because of the color of their skin?”
“Why are people based on race instead of personality?”
“Why do colored children receive different treatment?”
“Why does racism matter so much?”
“Why are people still being racist?”
They expressed interest in understanding the roots of racism and inequality. Their questions reflected high-level thinking, and showed that their schema for understanding could be built upon instead of restructured.
“Why are people treated differently because of the color of their skin?”
“Why are people based on race instead of personality?”
“Why do colored children receive different treatment?”
“Why does racism matter so much?”
“Why are people still being racist?”
They expressed interest in understanding the roots of racism and inequality. Their questions reflected high-level thinking, and showed that their schema for understanding could be built upon instead of restructured.
As I planned my unit, I knew that I wanted to give students the opportunity to engage multiple intelligences. I created a lesson that I was very excited about: analyzing and summarizing freedom songs. I thought that the melodic rhythms and catchy beats of these freedom songs would appeal to students. I provided copies of the lyrics so that students could follow along with the words while they listened. My intention was to appeal to linguistic and musical intelligences as well as to auditory and visual learners. As each song played, students worked together to fill out song analysis charts. When students heard the songs again, they sang along and clapped to the beat, which led me to believe that they were practicing active listening. As a final assessment, I asked students to pick their favorite song and summarize its main idea, and when, where, and why it might be sung. They finished this assignment more quickly than I had anticipated. Homework that night was to write 15-20 words and/or short phrases that came to mind as they listened to and read the words in the songs. I also asked students to describe a message they would express if they were going to write a song for the Freedom Riders. Given how engrossed they seemed while listening to the songs, I also decided to offer a challenge: to write one’s own freedom song. I heard low gasps and audible sounds of excitement as I gave this challenge.
The next morning, many students asked me if they would be able to sing their freedom songs to the class. I must admit that I had not conceived of this idea earlier, and thought it was a wonderful way to share their work. As Levstik and Barton’s discussion on constructive assessment outlined, students had prepared pieces that they wanted to share with an audience beyond their teacher. Without enforcement and on their own time, students had taken the time to write their own versions of freedom songs inspired by the freedom songs we listened to during the lesson, and they eagerly wanted to share them with an audience of their classmates. At the end of our literacy block over the next few days, students bravely stood at the front of the classroom and performed their songs.
The students’ freedom songs were well developed and captivated their classmates. The act of performing the songs enhanced their meaning by bringing life to the words and by portraying individual emotion. Some students incorporated modern songs and modified lyrics from popular music, while others created remixes with modern beats. Here are three videos of student performances.
The next morning, many students asked me if they would be able to sing their freedom songs to the class. I must admit that I had not conceived of this idea earlier, and thought it was a wonderful way to share their work. As Levstik and Barton’s discussion on constructive assessment outlined, students had prepared pieces that they wanted to share with an audience beyond their teacher. Without enforcement and on their own time, students had taken the time to write their own versions of freedom songs inspired by the freedom songs we listened to during the lesson, and they eagerly wanted to share them with an audience of their classmates. At the end of our literacy block over the next few days, students bravely stood at the front of the classroom and performed their songs.
The students’ freedom songs were well developed and captivated their classmates. The act of performing the songs enhanced their meaning by bringing life to the words and by portraying individual emotion. Some students incorporated modern songs and modified lyrics from popular music, while others created remixes with modern beats. Here are three videos of student performances.
Given the number of times that the students requested to both sing their songs and hear classmates’ songs (even when they had already performed them), they seemed to be very proud of their work. The enthusiasm and interest that they showed in the performances of their freedom songs along with the quality of the words and performances themselves led me to believe that the students were engaged, and that I had created an authentic assessment almost unbeknownst to myself. Interested to learn how students felt about my unit, and in particular, how they felt about choice, I decided to interview a select group who I felt demonstrated different strengths throughout the unit. I posed the question: Were you excited to write freedom songs and to perform them? A transcript of students’ responses can be read below.
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Some students expressed that they enjoyed song writing while others expressed a preference for poetic writing. Since writing a freedom song was offered as a choice, many students did not write one, but those who chose to take on the additional assignment seemed to flourish. By giving the assignment as a choice, those students whose interests lied in creating music exercised the agency to participate, and to create a piece of work that they were truly proud of.
In addition to demonstrating engagement in the activity both as participants and as observers, the students’ versions of the freedom songs reflected a deep degree of understanding of the Freedom Riders’ experience. With understanding their experience through their courage, bravery and resilience as one of my primary objectives, I felt that giving students the opportunity to write poetry over the course of a few literacy lessons would enhance this emotional connection. Initially, I wanted to teach haikus, cinquains, and acrostics, but my teacher suggested that I teach free verse poetry instead since it was part of the fifth grade scope and sequence. Because of its unstructured nature and flexibility, I liked the idea of free verse poetry much more; I felt that students would be able to explore their poetic interests more freely. Aligning with Tomlinson and McTighe’s chart, ‘Inauthentic Versus Authentic Work,’ an example of ‘Authentic Work’ is listed as: “Do purposeful writing for an audience” (p. 67, 2006). Wanting to create an assessment that the students could feel proud of, I told them that we would work on drafts of our poems and would have a poetry reading to culminate our unit. I wanted to give students the opportunity to create meaningful poems and to share them with their classmates.
The free verse poems allowed for student choice in many areas. While I wanted the poems to be inspired by the Freedom Riders, they were able to interpret what that meant to them, and could write from any point of view. I gave them a rubric with guidelines to follow, such as a minimum number of stanzas and lines, and asked that they use the poetic tools that we discussed in class in order to paint a vivid picture for the audience. My objective was for students to incorporate their knowledge of the Freedom Riders into a piece that was driven by their own agency. When I asked students if they thought that they got to make choices during the unit, one student named Leah said, “Choices can be like a certain emotion that you want to express. Some people could express their emotion when they won and they finally got their freedom, or some people could explain the pain they had. I kind of chose to do both.” Some students wrote from a first person point of view and created a parallel narrative of a specific experience that the Freedom Riders had, often incorporating their friends’ names into the scene. “Somebody died in mine,” said Leah. Leah chose to base the characters in her poem on her fellow classmates. Another student, Shakyr, said, “Mine was like a story. It was written from a white person’s point of view.” Others created more broad historic descriptions of the Freedom Riders’ experiences. Examples of Leah’s and Shakyr’s free verse poems can be seen below.
Leah's poem
Shakyr's poem
As my unit came to an end, I wanted to bring my lessons full-circle by revisiting the gallery walk and adding ‘What we learned’ to our K-W-L charts. I also wanted to give students the opportunity to apply their schemas of the Freedom Riders to other civil rights events. We went on a field trip to the central branch of the Free Library’s Print and Pictures Department, where students spent time with a selection of images from their civil rights movement archives. Students brought their journals, and crowded around a large, rectangular table full of delicate and historic photographs. Each artifact had identifying information on it that gave the viewer context, such as the year and sometimes a brief description. For thirty minutes, students were almost silent as they looked at the photographs and took notes in their journals. Photos of the students at work can be seen in the slideshow below.
In addition to demonstrating engagement in the activity both as participants and as observers, the students’ versions of the freedom songs reflected a deep degree of understanding of the Freedom Riders’ experience. With understanding their experience through their courage, bravery and resilience as one of my primary objectives, I felt that giving students the opportunity to write poetry over the course of a few literacy lessons would enhance this emotional connection. Initially, I wanted to teach haikus, cinquains, and acrostics, but my teacher suggested that I teach free verse poetry instead since it was part of the fifth grade scope and sequence. Because of its unstructured nature and flexibility, I liked the idea of free verse poetry much more; I felt that students would be able to explore their poetic interests more freely. Aligning with Tomlinson and McTighe’s chart, ‘Inauthentic Versus Authentic Work,’ an example of ‘Authentic Work’ is listed as: “Do purposeful writing for an audience” (p. 67, 2006). Wanting to create an assessment that the students could feel proud of, I told them that we would work on drafts of our poems and would have a poetry reading to culminate our unit. I wanted to give students the opportunity to create meaningful poems and to share them with their classmates.
The free verse poems allowed for student choice in many areas. While I wanted the poems to be inspired by the Freedom Riders, they were able to interpret what that meant to them, and could write from any point of view. I gave them a rubric with guidelines to follow, such as a minimum number of stanzas and lines, and asked that they use the poetic tools that we discussed in class in order to paint a vivid picture for the audience. My objective was for students to incorporate their knowledge of the Freedom Riders into a piece that was driven by their own agency. When I asked students if they thought that they got to make choices during the unit, one student named Leah said, “Choices can be like a certain emotion that you want to express. Some people could express their emotion when they won and they finally got their freedom, or some people could explain the pain they had. I kind of chose to do both.” Some students wrote from a first person point of view and created a parallel narrative of a specific experience that the Freedom Riders had, often incorporating their friends’ names into the scene. “Somebody died in mine,” said Leah. Leah chose to base the characters in her poem on her fellow classmates. Another student, Shakyr, said, “Mine was like a story. It was written from a white person’s point of view.” Others created more broad historic descriptions of the Freedom Riders’ experiences. Examples of Leah’s and Shakyr’s free verse poems can be seen below.
Leah's poem
Shakyr's poem
As my unit came to an end, I wanted to bring my lessons full-circle by revisiting the gallery walk and adding ‘What we learned’ to our K-W-L charts. I also wanted to give students the opportunity to apply their schemas of the Freedom Riders to other civil rights events. We went on a field trip to the central branch of the Free Library’s Print and Pictures Department, where students spent time with a selection of images from their civil rights movement archives. Students brought their journals, and crowded around a large, rectangular table full of delicate and historic photographs. Each artifact had identifying information on it that gave the viewer context, such as the year and sometimes a brief description. For thirty minutes, students were almost silent as they looked at the photographs and took notes in their journals. Photos of the students at work can be seen in the slideshow below.
Once I began to hear a slight elevation in noise, I called the students together to gather around a large table, where we made make an anchor chart of what they had learned. Though I had planned to incorporate a poetry reading at the end of my unit, I decided to give students the chance to read their free verse poems while in the library since it felt like a special setting. All students wrote poems, but were given the choice to read them aloud. A quarter of the class volunteered to read their poems, and it was evident that it took courage to stand in front of their classmates at the end of a long table, especially in an unfamiliar environment. Though they swayed side to side and had to be encouraged to speak louder, the students exemplified risk-taking. They overcame nerves in order to share their work with their audience. As with the performances of their freedom songs, “when students communicate for a real audience, they perform at a much higher level than when they complete an assignment only to turn it in to the teacher; students are motivated to show what they know because of the necessity of getting their audience to understand them” (Levstik & Barton, p. 19-20, 2011). Even though not every student wanted to read their poem, they knew that the intention was for the poems to be shared. They went through peer editing and multiple drafts, preparing meaningful pieces of work whose purpose went beyond just the eyes of the teacher. As their classmates snapped quietly at the end of each poetry reading, I could see slight smiles form at the corners of these students’ mouths. Below are performances of two students reading their poems at the library.