Spark

Lesson 3: Building Background Knowledge: Understanding the Effects of Segregation

50 min

California CCSS: Focus Standards

California CCSS: Supporting Standards

ELD Standards

Student Lesson

Lesson 3: Building Background Knowledge: Understanding the Effects of Segregation

Student Learning Objectives

Content

Students will analyze the connections between legal rulings, political policies, and social customs of the Jim Crow Era by engaging in a Jigsaw Reading to determine how these integrated systems enforced segregation and impacted daily life.

Language

Students will use evidence-based and domain-specific language to explain how political, legal, and social systems enforced segregation and shaped daily life during the Jim Crow Era.

Essential Question

How does storytelling become a tool for civic change?
What is civic memory, and what responsibilities come with remembering?

Connections to

Knowledge-Building:

Students will build knowledge of the historical background of the Jim Crow Era that led to the Civil Rights Movement.

Enduring Understanding:

Civic change occurs when personal stories become shared memory and collective action, showing how testimony shapes what societies choose to remember and how those memories influence what they build next.

Future Lessons:

In Lessons 4 and 5, students will begin engaging with March: Book One.

Unit Performance Task:

Students will need to analyze multiple sources about the Civil Rights Movement in the Civic Memory Brief Performance Task.

Lesson Pacing

Lesson Flow	Purpose of Learning Experience
Launch15 Minutes	Students will watch and discuss a short video about the Freedom Riders.
Learning in Action30 Minutes	Part A: Jigsaw Resources (RI.8.1, RI.8.3) Students will engage in a Jigsaw Reading of three resources tied to segregation during the Jim Crow Era. Part B: Jigsaw Deep Dive (RI.8.3, SL.8.1.c) Students will complete their Jigsaw Worksheet graphic organizer by sharing what they learned and listening to what their partners learned.
Look Back5 Minutes	Students will reflect on the Essential Question in preparation for reading the opening pages of March: Book One.