Black History Resources 6-8

Silent Chalk Walk

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The Audacity of Hope

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Timeline of Racial Justice

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Plot Summary

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Plot Summary

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Biography Poster

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Classroom Exercise for Grades 6-8

Students can read about or research the issues that led up to the civil rights movement and discuss ideas like equality, racism, segregation, and intolerance. A discussion of this sort is also a good segue into talking/learning about different groups that have been discriminated against in the past or present: Jews, Native Americans, Romani, members of the LGBTQ+ community, people with cognitive or physical disabilities, Muslims, Latinos, women, the elderly, etc.

• What does it mean to be truly equal?
• Why is having equality important?
• What are "stereotypes" and how do they relate to equality?
• What are some of the reasons someone is considered a second-class citizen or inferior? Are they ever valid?

After having a discussion about equality or other topics, have students create a storyboard that combines elements of the conversation. This might be a linear narrative, a spider map about a central theme, or a comparison T-Chart.

Additional Black History Month Activities for 6-8

1. Create biography posters of a figure that students research.
2. Read a Langston Hughes Poem and complete a TPCASTT (Title Paraphrase Connotation Attitude Shifts Title Theme) analysis using Storyboard That.
3. Discuss Black artists like Jacob Lawrence or Faith Ringgold; have students choose one of their images and create a storyboard explaining its artistic or cultural significance.
4. Have students research famous Black history firsts, "First Black Man/Woman in History to…", and create a storyboard biography on one or more.
5. Have students create a poster explaining an invention created by a Black person.

Related Storyboard That Resources

History

• Atlantic Slave Trade
• The Missouri Compromise of 1820
• 1850s America
• The American Civil War
• Presidency of Abraham Lincoln
• Emancipation Proclamation
• Reconstruction Era
• Civil Rights Movement
• Voting Rights

Literature

• The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963
• Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
• Chains
• Ghost
• A Long Walk to Water
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
• "Mother to Son"
• Midnight Without a Moon
• Crossover
• One Crazy Summer
• Elijah of Buxton

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