Civil Rights 4 th grade Inquiry Unit by Dawn Fewell

ESSENTIAL QUESTION What would have freedom meant to me if I were a slave?

 Students will develop an understanding of the events of slavery that led to the Civil War.  Students will identify with people of this time period.  Students will read to learn information about slavery and the Underground Railroad.  Students will write to express their view points and feelings about what they have learned.  Students will be able to use Web 2.0 to search, learn, and create artifacts for a final project.

 Explain the roles of various individuals, groups and movements in the social conflicts leading to the Civil War. (Individuals, Society and Culture)  Create and interpret timelines that show relationships among people, events, and movements in the history of Indiana. (Individuals, Society and Culture)  Using primary and secondary sources and online source materials, construct a brief narrative about an event in Indiana history  Use a variety of information resources to take a position or recommend a course of action on a public issue relating to Indiana’s past or present.

 Read aloud grade-level-appropriate literary and informational texts with fluency and accuracy and with appropriate timing, changes in voice, and expression.  Use context to determine the meaning of unknown words.  Use the organization of informational text to strengthen comprehension.  Use appropriate strategies when reading for different purposes.  Draw conclusions or make and confirm predictions about text by using prior knowledge and ideas presented in the text itself, including illustrations, titles, topic sentences, important words, foreshadowing clues (clues that indicate what might happen next), and direct quotations.  Discuss ideas for writing. Find ideas for writing in conversations with others and in books, magazines, newspapers, school textbooks, or on the Internet. Keep a list or notebook of ideas.  Use logical organizational structures for providing information in writing, such as chronological order, cause and effect, similarity and difference, and posing and answering a question.

 Use a computer to draft, revise, and publish writing, demonstrating basic keyboarding skills and familiarity with common computer terminology.  Ask thoughtful questions and respond orally to relevant questions with appropriate elaboration.  Summarize major ideas and supporting evidence presented in spoken presentations.

 Before exploring slavery and the Underground Railroad, students will be placed into groups and will brainstorm “Why is it called the Underground Railroad?”  Students will use a web tool from readwritethink.org to come up with a group answer to the question.  Students will present what they think the answer is to why it is called the Underground Railroad. Students must give detailed reasons why they believe their answer is correct.

 Students will watch a short video called The Underground Railroad. derground_Railroad derground_Railroad  Students will be asked questions to get a discussion going such as:  What was the Underground Railroad?  What did the video say about the name Underground Railroad?  Who traveled on the Underground Railroad?  Why do you think freedom was so important to the slaves?  Would freedom be worth the risks they took?  Do you think ALL slaves wanted to be free?

 Students will be developing a final project around the question “What would have freedom meant to me if I were a slave?” A classroom blog is set up to begin discussion on the topic. Students will go to the discussion blog and respond to at least two questions and reply to at least three other students.  Click on the arrow, it will take you to the discussion blog.

During Reading Students will be grouped and given one book to read together. Students will participate in silent discussion threads after reading their book. Question: Why was freedom so important to the characters in the story? After the silent discussion, groups will express why freedom was so precious to many people to the whole class. LITERATURE

Students will use Sweet Search to search for examples of timelines for slavery and the Underground Railroad.Sweet Search Students will create their own timeline using information from their searches. Webs will be created with Webspiration. Webspiration Timelines will be graded according to the Timeline Rubric.

 Students will learn about slavery and the Underground Railroad in Indiana by visiting the following websites:  =mIlIFgXPNbM =mIlIFgXPNbM  =rQaVeAl8Xrw&feature=related =rQaVeAl8Xrw&feature=related  _slavery_in_Indiana _slavery_in_Indiana  a.com/ a.com/  Students will answer the question on the blog: What was the one thing that spoke to you the most about what it means to be free and why did it affect you?

Gateway Activity Students will begin their journey as a slave to get a realistic idea of what it would have been like to risk your life for freedom. Students will go to /bhistory/underground_railroad/escape.htm /bhistory/underground_railroad/escape.htm Tell the Story – Students will tell their story by answering the questions at the end of the website. After answering the questions, their story will be printed. Stories will be graded according to the Story Rubric. OUR JOURNEY AS A SLAVE

What would freedom mean to me if I were a slave? Students will answer this question by creating a presentation using:  Glogster Glogster  PowerPoint  Webspiration Webspiration  Prezi Prezi Final Project will be graded according to the Final Project Rubric. Students will blog an “exit ticket” by responding to the question: “What is the most important thing I learned from doing the Underground Railroad lesson?”

All Rubrics Made Using: RubiStar ( )

 Bial, Raymond (1995). The underground railroad. Boston, MA; Houghton Mifflin.  Hopkinson, Deborah (1993). Sweet Clara and the freedom quilt. New York, NY; Knopf, Inc.  Ringgold, Faith & Egolf, Robert L. (1992). Aunt Harriet’s underground railroad in the sky. New York, NY; Crown Publishers.  Stroud, Bettye (2007 ). The patchwork path: a quilt map to freedom. Cambridge, MA; Candlewick Press.  Wilhelm, Jeffrey D. (2007). Engaging readers and writers with inquiry. New York, NY; Scholastic.  Winter, Jeannette & Egolf, Robert L. (1988). Follow the drinking gourd. New York, NY; Knopf, Inc.  For website list go to: