Category: Civil Rights Movement

Civil Rights Remix

This year I was tasked with re-designing my usual fifth grade social studies unit. Always up for a challenge, I had a great time creating this three week unit and working with my students to try it out. Here’s what we did! Week One: Building Background Knowledge and Expanding the Narrative To kick off the…

November 1, 2019
The 2016 Civil Rights Movement Timeline Exhibition

I am just blown away by the work our fifth graders did for their civil rights timeline presentations! We have spent the past six weeks researching both the African American civil rights movement and the Chicano movement, all of which led up to this amazing timeline exhibition. We started out by talking about the dominant narrative…

November 25, 2016
Analyzing Poetry with John Legend & Common

My fifth graders did not do so hot on the poetry section of their middle of year benchmark. I can rage about standardized tests all I want, but at the end of the day, our sweet kiddos have to pass. So I was faced with the choice between doing STAAR practice, or finding a creative…

February 5, 2016
The Civil Rights Movement: Final Timeline Presentation

Wow. I don’t even know how to start this post. Last week, our fifth graders blew me away. Seriously. They had me in tears, and I wasn’t the only one. I cannot express how rewarding it is as a teacher to see your students excel. I had been so nervous (almost canceled the whole presentation) about…

November 18, 2015
The Civil Rights Movement, a Journey through Time & Literature

This week we started our unit on the Civil Rights Movement! Here in fifth grade at UT Elementary we work backwards through history, starting with present day and then rewinding back to the causes for the way things are today. This is great for me, because we get to start out the year with incredibly…

October 23, 2015