Collection

Choices in Little Rock

Get resources for teaching a unit on the efforts to desegregate Central High School in Little Rock, explored through the lens of civic choices.

Published: December 10, 2020

Last Updated: May 26, 2022

Collection

Language

English — US

Subject

History
Social Studies

Grade

6–8

Duration

Multiple weeks

Human & Civil Rights
Racism

Overview

Efforts to desegregate Central High School in Little Rock resulted in a crisis that historian Taylor Branch describes as "the most severe test of the Constitution since the Civil War." Our resources on Little Rock ask students to examine these events through the question, “How much power do ordinary people have to change the world?”

The resources in this collection provide multiple instructional-pathways for teaching this history, as well as student materials available in both English and Spanish.

How much power do ordinary people have to change the world?

This collection includes:

Choices in Little Rock original resource
Unit Outline with a 5-week pathway for teaching our original resource
Student Guide, available in English and Spanish
Common Core writing supplement
Guide to the memoir of one of the Little Rock Nine
3 videos and 1 reading to supplement your teaching

Inside this Collection

Book

This unit investigates the choices made by the Little Rock Nine and others in the Little Rock community during the civil rights movement during efforts to desegregate Central High School in 1957.

Guide

This unit outline includes an instructional pathway for teaching the original Choices in Little Rock unit.

Guide

This student guide contains all print materials students will need throughout the Choices in Little Rock unit.

A student writes on a piece of paper with a pencil while holding a handout in their other hand.

Guide

This Spanish language student guide contains all print materials students will need throughout the Choices in Little Rock unit.

Guide

This blank journal provides a space for thoughtful reflection and intellectual and emotional engagement with the materials.

Book

This resource provides writing prompts and strategies that align our Choices in Little Rock unit with the expectations of the Common Core State Standards.

Book

Use this guide to Melba Pattillo Beals' memoir about the desegregation of Little Rock High School to develop literacy skills and teach about the civil rights movement.

Video

Dr. Terrence Roberts, one of the Little Rock Nine, speaks about growing up in a segregated society and what still needs to be done to combat racism and discrimination today.

Video

Dr. Terrence Roberts, one of the Little Rock Nine, speaks about the importance of understanding the history of segregation and civil rights to combat racism and discrimination today.

Video

Reporters and media professionals discuss the functions and importance of a free press in a democracy.

Reading

Learn about the voter registration drives in the South during the civil rights movement through a volunteer’s first hand account.

A group of Freedom Riders from Tennessee stands at the door of a Greyhound bus in Birmingham.

Mini-Lesson

This mini-lesson invites students to synthesize their learning about the causes of racial injustice in policing and reflect on the implications these causes have on the individual and collective choices we make today.

Black and white image of time for change protestor.

Mini-Lesson

This mini-lesson prepares students to engage in conversations about policing and racial injustice by inviting them to co-create class norms and reflect on the emotions and experiences they and their classmates bring.

Photo of students seated in a classroom.

Lesson

Students consider what it means to be free by learning about the choices and aspirations of freedpeople immediately after Emancipation.

Black students standing outside in front of a clapboard school house

Lesson

Students learn about the aftermath of the Civil War and examine primary source documents that provide insight into the difficult task of reuniting the nation.

The ruins of Mills House and nearby buildings, Charleston, South Carolina, at end of American Civil War.

Lesson

Students examine President Andrew Johnson's plan for Reconstruction and the debate it provoked with Congress while reflecting on deeper issues of healing and justice.

Columbia with black union soldier with amputated leg in ornate Greco-Roman style building

Lesson

Students learn about the debate within the women’s rights movement over the passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments.

Five black women officers sitting for a portrait

Lesson

Students explore some of the limitations of Reconstruction's transformation on US democracy and learn about groups who demanded that the promise of equality be made a reality.

Seated portrait of women's voting rights advocate Susan B. Anthony.

Lesson

Students examine documents that shed light on life in the South under the policies of Presidential Reconstruction in 1865 and 1866.

Photo shows a group of six African American men and women posed picking cotton in a field.

Lesson

Students learn about the responses to Johnson’s policies by Republicans in Congress and examine the fourteenth amendment that overturned Presidential Reconstruction.

Photo of page 1 of the 14th amendment of the US Constitution

Lesson

Students reflect on the revolutionary changes that occurred because of the landmark legislation and amendments passed during the Reconstruction era.

A studio portrait shows African American members of the General Assembly from 1887 to 1888

Mini-Lesson

This mini-lesson helps students define the term, learn what forms reparations can take, and consider what reparations should be offered for slavery and other racist policies.

Lesson

Students learn about the violent responses to the transformation of US democracy that occurred as a result of Radical Reconstruction.

Black and white photo of the house committee

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Choices in Little Rock