Black History Lesson: Sit Ins
This past February, we spent most of the month taking time to learn about, talk through, and create our own statement for Black Lives Matter at School Week. However, we wanted to address Black History Month and explicitly connect American history to our lives today. There are, of course, many ways to do this, but one way I’ve always loved teaching history to elementary school students (or really any students) is using primary sources and read-alouds. They can make the past tangible and far more real for students, as well as feeling “grown up” and authentic.
I took inspiration from PBS History Detectives and modified one of the lessons they created for high schoolers or middle schoolers. We started by watching the 2nd video titled Integration Report. (It’s the one that is 2 minutes long. The 6 minute video clip included in this lesson included hate speech and violence so we decided against showing it to our third graders.)
Next, we showed students two images (numbers 1 and 3 in this slide show/ the cover image for this post as well as the image above) and had them analyze what they saw (as inspired by this resource from PBS), as well as answer some reflection questions to tie the activity into BLM, American history, and the present.
We let them know that these photographs were primary sources (and explained what that means) and showed important moments during a significant historical event. Students were aware of the civil rights movement before we taught this lesson.
We created this handout and gave a physical copy to each student (with other reflection questions on the back).
We gave students time to look at each photo and respond. We let them know that they might write more in some boxes than others, and that was totally fine! You can see one student’s answers below.
One student’s responses after/while looking at the photographs.
Once we had given everyone time to look at both photos and fill in the table above, we moved on to the reflection questions (on the back of their papers) which were:
Why is this American history (not only Black history)?
How are the strategies activists used during the sit ins similar to or different from BLM activism today?
Once students had time to answer both questions, we shared, first as partners and then as a whole class. Students were able to make a lot of comparisons between protests today and in 1960. We talked about how long ago (or relatively recent, based on your perspective) 1960 was, as conceptualizing the past and understanding the magnitude of time is always tricky for concrete third graders! I tried to make it more clear by saying that my parents were children when this was happening and that this is something my students’ grandparents lived through and might remember if they were in the United States at the time. I find that putting something in a family member’s lifetime helps students as otherwise a thousand years ago versus twenty years ago doesn’t feel that different to them since both occured before they were born.
Student’s response! She misspelled “signs” in her second answer.
Above is one student’s responses. They felt that the question about this being American history and not only Black history was obvious and therefore they did not need to elaborate in their written response, but explained to me verbally that this was something that affected everyone and still matters today.
We followed up with sharing other resources available that students could use to learn more, including Newsela articles, books on Epic, Brainpop videos, and physical books in our classroom. Students asked if we could hear the read aloud in class as they wanted to know more about it, so we watched Sit In: How Four Friends Stood Up By Sitting Down by Andrea Davis Pinkney. I have the physical book in my class library, but due to distancing requirements and the fact that I had two students on Zoom (while the rest of the class was at school in person with me), video or online read alouds worked best for us this year.
This was just one lesson and of course there is so much more to address and learn, but hopefully it kindled some primary source excitement as well as starting connections in students’ minds from history to today. We wanted to avoid the pitfall of teaching Black History as something that happened a long time ago and is now “fixed” or even “better,” as well as equip students with tools to be media literate, think critically about images and information, and notice, ponder, and wonder about what they see and hear.