The 8th grade humanities class is in the midst of studying the Civil Rights Movement. Our mentor text for this unit is the memoir A Mighty Long Way written by Carlotta Wells LaNier, one of the Little Rock Nine. We supplement this book with informational texts that inform about particular people, events and legislation throughout this time period.
We work to broaden our skills of critical thinking and analysis in this unit by using the nine specific 'tools' in our analysis toolkit. Students analyze images and speeches in addition to the above mentioned texts and respond to daily writing prompts in class. Moreover, they participate in weekly student run, whole-class discussions about the mentor text, diving deep into the thoughts, questions, connections and epiphanies they record as they read the book.
Their collective attempts to see the "through line", connecting events and quotes in this unit to previous units of study as well as to current events is getting stronger by the week.
