Category: Lesson Plans

Objectives: To understand empathy and respond in appropriate ways by reading The Story of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles; To recognize courage in others and ourselves; To form connections with others and practice empathy/courage in our daily lives.

In 1954, the United States Supreme Court issued a decision that declared separate education facilities [were] inherently unequal and violated the 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection of the laws”for all citizens.

Objectives: To comprehend the desegregation crisis at Little Rock Central High School in 1957; To identify the Arkansas State Legislature, its role in the crisis at Little Rock Central High School,

Using this lesson plan, students will examine oral histories with former slaves (“the slave narratives”) collected by the Federal Writers’ Project in the 1930s, to gain an understanding of what life was like for African Americans in slavery and following emancipation in the 19th century.

This lesson plan explores the lives of various people in Arkansas and the changes their lives went through at the beginning of the Reconstruction Era, and provides images of documents,

Three lesson plans tools that teachers and students will find helpful in assessing historical materials are described in this document. Teachers can easily adapt one, two, or all three of these tools into a class activity or three class unit by having students complete the tasks as a class or in groups.

This lesson is designed to help students develop a mental picture of Arkansas’ location in relation to the states that surround it by associating the outline of Arkansas with a familiar object—the face of a clock.

Students will analyze primary source documents to understand the Jim Crow south and the role it played in Arkansas education. Students will take this information and see how it connects with the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr.

The goal of the lesson plan is to provide students with background knowledge of the segregation/desegregation issues in Arkansas during the World War II through the Faubus Era (1967).

Lesson Plan

Courtesy of CALS Butler Center for Arkansas Studies

Grade Level: 5-8 Middle School

Time period: World War II Through the Civil Rights Era 1941-1967

Arkansas Academic Standards are subject to revision every six years by the Arkansas Department of Education.

The lesson plan utilizes A Pryor Commitment: The Autobiography of David Pryor, published by the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies and distributed by the University of Arkansas Press. The lesson plan also utilizes a timeline poster,