The Choices the Little Rock Students Made

Lesson Plan

Day 1

Activity 1: Analyze the Painting Racism/Incident at Little Rock

Begin the class by projecting the painting Racism/Incident at Little Rock. Explain to students that the Chicano artist Domingo Ulloa created the painting in 1957, the year the Little Rock Nine attempted to integrate Central High School.

Then instruct students to complete a See, Think, Wonder reflection by responding to the following questions in their journals:

• See: What do you see? What details stand out? (At this stage, elicit observations, not interpretations.) 
• Think: What do you think is going on? What makes you say that? 
• Wonder: What does this make you wonder? What broader questions does this image raise for you?

Explain to the class that despite facing hostile opposition to their enrollment in Central High, the Little Rock Nine chose to return to school. In today’s lesson, students will learn about the challenges the nine students experienced throughout the school year and the choice they all made to finish the year at Central High School. 

Activity 2: Little Paper

In this next activity, students will learn about the physical and psychological violence the Little Rock Nine experienced at Central High School and engage in a Little Paper silent discussion (a variation of Big Paper). Please note that all of the readings detail examples of physical and psychological bullying/violence. Refer to Teaching Note 2: Emotionally Challenging Accounts of Physical and Psychological Violence for additional guidance.

Divide the class into groups of three, and assign each group a reading set:

• Reading: The Choices Students Made in Little Rock: Reading Set 1
• Reading: The Choices Students Made in Little Rock: Reading Set 2
• Reading: The Choices Students Made in Little Rock: Reading Set 3 

Explain to students that they will engage in a “Little Paper” silent discussion. Distribute the handout Instructions: Little Paper Silent Discussion and review the instructions with your students. Emphasize that this activity will be completed in silence, all communication is done in writing, and they will have time to speak in their groups later in the activity. Each student should start with one reading from their assigned reading set. As students read, they should annotate the text by writing comments, observations, or questions in the margins about the Little Rock Nine’s experiences. Project the following prompts to provide scaffolding for students who may need additional support for their annotations.

• How did the Little Rock Nine make it through each day, and an entire school year, with steady harassment and violence like that described in the stories you read?
• What helped the students persevere? 
• What people were around to support them? 
• How did they have to learn to support themselves? 
• What support should have been available to them as students in school but wasn’t?

Prompt students to begin the activity, and monitor their progress as they read and annotate.

When the process is complete, have them return each handout to the student who read it first so that person can see the written discussion that followed their initial comments.

Then bring the class together and ask for volunteers to share any thoughts, observations, or questions from the silent discussion. 

Activity 3: Discuss the Choices Made by the Little Rock Nine

Give students the opportunity to process today’s emotionally challenging content by engaging them in a Color, Symbol, Image reflection. Offer the following prompts, and instruct students to write their responses in their journals:

Think about the Little Rock Nine’s experience at Central High School that you learned about in today’s lesson and the ideas and emotions it raised for you. Choose one idea or emotion that you’d like to focus on. Then do the following in your journal:

• Choose a color that you think best represents that idea or emotion. 
• Choose a symbol that you think best represents that idea or emotion. 
• Choose an image that you think best represents that idea or emotion.

Depending on your evaluation of students’ needs, you might opt to keep their responses private. Otherwise, you may instruct students to engage in a Think-Pair-Share. 

Day 2 

Activity 1: Students Reflect on Their Own Decision-Making

In this lesson, students will be exploring human behavior and the choices that people in Little Rock made as perpetrators, bystanders, and upstanders. To get students thinking about human behavior, ask them to reflect on their own decision-making process by responding to the following prompts in their journals. (Be sure that students know ahead of time that they will be sharing their thoughts with a partner.)  

• Identify a time when you went out of your way to help somebody else—a friend, a family member, a neighbor, or a complete stranger. Why did you help, and what made it easier or harder to do? 
• Identify a situation when you knew something was wrong or unfair but you did not intervene to improve the situation. What kept you from intervening? 
• Compare these two situations. What were the consequences of your actions for you and others in both situations?

Ask students to share their responses with a partner, and then elicit responses from volunteers.

Explain to students that in today’s lesson, they will explore aspects of human behavior by analyzing a range of choices that white students made when the Little Rock Nine attempted to integrate Central High School. 

Activity 2: Read Two Accounts of Choices Made by White Students at Central High School

Share with students that they will now be reading two contrasting accounts of choices made by white students at Central High School. (Please note that both readings contain emotionally challenging content, and the reading Choosing to Walk with Ernest Green contains the n-word. Refer to Teaching Note 1: Offensive and Dehumanizing Language for additional guidance.)

Explain to students that as you read aloud the two documents, they will be making the following annotations, which you should project or write on the board for reference: 

• Highlight or circle any moments where the individual in the reading faced a decision and made a significant choice.
• Underline information in the text that helps you understand what might have led the individual to make those choices.
• Write the letter “C” in the margin alongside any moments where the text discusses the possible or actual consequences for the individual, a group at the school, or the broader school community.

Pass out the Jim Eison: “There I Was in History” reading. As you read the text aloud, model how to complete the annotations in a Think-Aloud. When you are finished with the annotations, pass out the second reading, Choosing to Walk with Ernest Green, and read it aloud to students. Then ask students to annotate the text on their own. 

Finally, give the class the opportunity to discuss both texts in small groups of three or four students. They should discuss the following questions: 

• What were the most significant choices made by the students in the readings? 
• What reasons or explanations help to explain their choices? What other choices were available to them at the time?

• What were the possible (or actual) consequences of these choices? In other words, what did the individual(s) know could happen if they made this choice, and/or what actually did happen as a consequence of making the choice?

Regroup as a class, and ask volunteers to share their responses to the questions. 

Activity 3: Connect to the Theme of Choices   

Close the lesson by asking students to connect their learning to the essential question: “How do the choices people make, individually and collectively, strengthen or weaken democracy?” 

To help students make this connection, share a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt. Before sharing, you may want to define the concept of human rights if students are unfamiliar with it. The United Nations defines human rights as rights that all human beings have, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status.

Then project the following quote from Eleanor Roosevelt and read it aloud to students:

“[Human rights begin in] small places close to home—so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person: the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination.” ¹ —Eleanor Roosevelt

Ask students to connect the quote to the material they’ve covered today by picking one or more of the following questions to discuss as a class: 

• What do you think Eleanor Roosevelt meant when she wrote that human rights begin in “small places close to home”? 
• In what ways are schools, neighborhoods, or workplaces the foundation of human rights? Why are human rights important to democracy?
• How might viewing your school and community in this way shape the daily choices you make? 
• What lessons might we take from the choices of students at Central High School/the Little Rock Nine as we consider the daily choices we make at school and in our community? 

• 1 “What Inspires Us?,” American Jewish World Service website, accessed June 12, 2024.