Home > Educator Resources > Lessons & Units

Units

A Pivotal Moment in the Civil Rights Movement

 This unit is part of the Boston Public Schools Civil Rights Curriculum In 1955, a 14-year-old African American teenager was brutally murdered by white men while visiting relatives in Mississippi. His name was Emmett Till. His murder and the subsequent trial of his accused killers became a lightning rod for moral outrage, both at the time and to this day. The case was not just about the murder of a teenage boy. It was also about a new generation of young people committing their lives to social change. As historian Robin Kelley states, The Emmett Till case was a spark for a new generation to commit their lives to social change. 		Race and Membership

American Idealist: The Story of Sargent Shriver

 The film American Idealist: The Story of Sargent Shriver tells the story of a man who exemplified what it means to be a public servant. From his youth volunteering in tenement housing with his father, to his service in the military, to his role as director of the Peace Corps and the War on Poverty, Shriver consistently strived to live up to his belief that "[O]f all of our ideals none surpasses the importance of service."1 Because of his role in American politics, international diplomacy, and nonprofit organizations, Shriver's biographer, Scott Stossel, claims that Shriver "has probably had an effect on more Americans and more people across the world than anyone who hasn't been a president or a world leader and probably even more than some of them. 		Choosing to Participate

Becoming American: A Series of Three Lessons

Bill Moyer's film, Becoming American: The Chinese Experience, describes the ways the first arrivals from China in the 1840s, their descendants, and recent immigrants have "become American." It is a story about identity and belonging that will resonate with all Americans. In every generation, Americans have asked: Who may live among us? Who may become an American? What does it mean to be an American? The way we have answered those questions at various times in history is central to an understanding of the nation's past. The choices we make about one another as individuals and as a nation define identities, create communities, and ultimately forge a nation. 		The Individual and Society, We and They

Boston Public Schools Civil Rights Curriculum

 The three units we have developed require students to "do" history—to gather evidence from primary documents, use that evidence to make claims about the past, and then apply what they learn to their own lives today. In the first unit, students learn about the murder and trial of Emmett Till. This material asks students to consider the historical context that contributed to the growth of the civil rights movement in the 1950s. In the second unit, students explore voter discrimination in the South and the philosophy of nonviolence that guided civil rights activists' responses to this injustice, culminating in the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. 		Choosing to Participate

Choices in Little Rock

Purchase | DownloadChoices in Little Rock is a teaching unit that focuses on efforts to desegregate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957 - efforts that resulted in a crisis that historian Taylor Branch once described as "the most severe test of the Constitution since the Civil War." The unit explores civic choices - the decisions people make as citizens in a democracy. Those decisions, both then and now, reveal that democracy is not a product but a work in progress, a work that is shaped in every generation by the choices that we make about ourselves and others. Although those choices may not seem important at the time, little by little, they define an individual, delineate a community, and ultimately distinguish a nation. 		We and They, Choosing to Participate

Crimes Against Humanity and Civilization: The Genocide of the Armenians

 This series of lessons is organized as a mini-unit for teaching the Armenian Genocide. They were designed to complement Facing History and Ourselves' resource books, Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior and Crimes Against Humanity and Civilization: The Genocide of the Armenians. Most of these lessons are designed to be used with the film The Armenian Genocide (Two Cats Productions), which aired on PBS on April 17, 2006. These texts depict, in words or images, evidence of horrible atrocities such as murder and starvation. We recommend previewing materials in order to gauge if they are appropriate given the maturity level of your students. 		The Armenian Genocide

Crimes Against Humanity and Civilization: The Genocide of the Armenians

 This series of lessons is organized as a mini-unit for teaching the Armenian Genocide. They were designed to complement Facing History and Ourselves' resource books, Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior and Crimes Against Humanity and Civilization: The Genocide of the Armenians. Most of these lessons are designed to be used with the film The Armenian Genocide (Two Cats Productions), which aired on PBS on April 17, 2006. These texts depict, in words or images, evidence of horrible atrocities such as murder and starvation. We recommend previewing materials in order to gauge if they are appropriate given the maturity level of your students. 		The Armenian Genocide

Darfur Now and Not On Our Watch

 Facing History and Ourselves and ENOUGH have partnered to create and distribute classroom materials to accompany the movie Darfur Now and the book Not On Our Watch. The teaching unit includes four lessons that: provide an introduction to the genocide in Darfur help students identify how activists have responded to violence in the region encourage students to think about the complexity of activism and lastly, ask students to connect this material to their own experiences and ideas about activism, genocide, and conflict resolution. More information on this unit DOWNLOAD THE PDF OF ALL LESSONS [1MB] 		Choosing to Participate

Decision-Making in Times of Injustice

Download (includes Introduction & Lessons) | PurchaseThis curriculum is about more than the Holocaust. It's about the reading and the writing and the arithmetic of genocide, but it's also about such R's as rethinking, reflecting, and reasoning. It's about prejudice, discrimination and scapegoating; but it's also about human dignity, morality, law, and citizenship. It's about avoiding and forgetting, but it's also about civic courage and justice. In an age of "back to basics" this curriculum declares that there is one thing more basic, more sacred, than any of the three R's; namely, the sanctity of human life. 		Holocaust and Human Behavior

Education and Civil Rights

 This unit is part of the Boston Public Schools Civil Rights Curriculum The civil rights movement is often taught as a Southern phenomenon. Yet, the struggle for racial justice occurred all over the country, especially in Northern cities. In this unit, students learn about one episode in the civil rights movement in the North: the conflict over how to resolve racial segregation in Boston's public schools in the 1960s and 1970s. These lessons focus on the context and decisions that resulted in court-ordered busing, rather than on the violence and tension that followed busing.