In this activity, students examine three documents to better understand the goals, participants, and leaders of the 1963 March on Washington.

Students will be introduced to the different federal holidays celebrated throughout the year. They will work collaboratively to research information and images related to the federal holidays. They will then place pictorial representations of the holidays on a timeline.

The 12th grade learning experience consists of 7 mostly month-long units aligned to the Common Core State Standards, with available course material for teachers and students easily accessible online. Over the course of the year there is a steady progression in text complexity levels, sophistication of writing tasks, speaking and listening activities, and increased opportunities for independent and collaborative work. Rubrics and student models accompany many writing assignments.Throughout the 12th grade year, in addition to the Common Read texts that the whole class reads together, students each select an Independent Reading book and engage with peers in group Book Talks. Language study is embedded in every 12th grade unit as students use annotation to closely review aspects of each text. Teacher resources provide additional materials to support each unit.

The laws that govern and the social norms that regulate society are not always fair, legal, moral, or ethical. What is a person to do about all this injustice? What are the hazards of righting injustices or changing social norms? And what are the dangers of doing nothing?

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Students read and annotate Antigone, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” and Pygmalion.
Students write a literary analysis showing the effect of social class or the law on a character’s life.

GUIDING QUESTIONS

These questions are a guide to stimulate thinking, discussion, and writing on the themes and ideas in the unit. For complete and thoughtful answers and for meaningful discussions, students must use evidence based on careful reading of the texts.

How do social class and legal institutions shape literary characters’ lives (and presumably our lives)?
How does social class affect a person in dealing with the law (protect a person, hurt a person)?
How is social class determined in America and in other places in the world?

BENCHMARK ASSESSMENT: Cold Read

During this unit, on a day of your choosing, we recommend you administer a Cold Read to assess students’ reading comprehension. For this assessment, students read a text they have never seen before and then respond to multiple-choice and constructed-response questions. The assessment is not included in this course materials.

In this lesson, students finish reading, annotating, and discussing Antigone. Then they will meet in their Independent Reading Groups for the first time.

In this lesson, students discuss the ending of Antigone and retake the survey about justice that they took in Lesson 1. They will also write about how the laws in Thebes have shaped the lives of the characters who live there.

In this lesson, students will take the second in a series of three Cold Write assessments in the narrative genre. The Benchmark Assessment (Cold Write) is an unassisted and unrevised piece of writing with the purpose of providing a quick gauge of the student’s mastery of the characteristics of a given genre. Today’s Benchmark Assessment (Cold Write) measures and provides a benchmark of students’ mastery of narrative writing. They’ll also continue reading, annotating, and discussing “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” Then they’ll focus on the charges made against Dr. King and how he refutes them.

In this lesson, students look at “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” again, focusing on Dr. King’s writing style. Then students will try to write a paragraph using his style of repeating passages or phrases to build a convincing argument.

In this lesson, students learn about civil disobedience—about people purposefully disobeying a law that they feel to be unjust. They’ll read from two examples that address the issue: Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

Students will be able to describe three specific moments in the Civil Rights Movement: the Freedom Rides, the 1963 Birmingham Movement, and the 1963 March on Washington; contrast the different roles of activists such as the Freedom Riders, demonstrators in Birmingham, and leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X; analyze and evaluate the relationship between civil rights activists and the Federal Government, specifically the Kennedy Administration.

Segregation in the South in the 1950s might not have existed if, in 1883, the Supreme Court hadn’t declared The Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional. A federal law enacted during Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Act of 1857 was to guarantee African Americans equal treatment in public accommodations like hotels, restrooms, and other public spaces, and public transportation, and prohibited exclusion from serving on a jury. Additionally, the 14th Amendment declared that all races were to be granted equal treatment under the law. However, an 1883 Supreme Court decision clarified that the law did not apply to private persons or corporations. In the decade that followed, a number of other federal court decisions and state laws severely restricted the rights of African Americans. For example, in 1890, the State of Louisiana passed a law that required railroads to provide “equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races.”