Opening Up the Textbook: Rosa Parks

Teaser

The textbook is examined as one source among many, rather than a final authority.

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Description

Using a textbook passage and two primary sources, this lesson engages students in using historical evidence in order to critique a textbook passage. In this way, it also allows teachers to introduce the textbook as one source among many, rather than the final word on historical events.

Article Body

This easy-to-follow lesson cuts to the heart of historical thinking. Its strength is that it requires students to go to the sources in order to develop historical knowledge. Not only does it show students how public memory and history textbooks can oversimplify complex events, it gives students the means to craft their own textbook passage by drawing on specific textual evidence, including sources that contradict one another.

The simplicity and clarity of the lesson make it ideal for introducing both historical thinking in general and the Civil Rights Movement specifically. More experienced teachers may chafe at the lesson's tight structure—so, they can create their own lesson by using the website's multiple resources regarding the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Of the two suggested writing assignments, Prompt One, which asks students to rewrite a standard textbook account, is particularly good. Prompt Two asks students to take a position for or against using a standard textbook. While this may prompt students to consider the implications of the traditional Rosa Parks story, it is also problematic. Would it be possible for a student to argue for and still receive a good grade?

Topic
Montgomery Bus Boycott and Civil Rights
Time Estimate
One hour
flexibility_scale
5
Rubric_Content_Accurate_Scholarship

Yes Current historians highlight both Parks's training as an activist and the fact that she was part of a broad, well-organized movement in Montgomery.

Rubric_Content_Historical_Background

No The point of the lesson is to look at students' and textbooks' assumptions about Rosa Parks, and so the lesson purposefully does not offer extra background. However, resources are available at the website.

Rubric_Content_Read_Write

Yes The lesson includes reading one secondary and two primary sources. Teachers can choose from two suggested writing assignments.

Rubric_Analytical_Construct_Interpretations

Yes Students create their own interpretation, and they question a textbook interpretation.

Rubric_Analytical_Close_Reading_Sourcing

Yes Through looking closely at sources, students arrive at a complex understanding of events.

Rubric_Scaffolding_Appropriate

Yes The lesson is appropriate for high school students and with modifications could be used with younger students.

Rubric_Scaffolding_Supports_Historical_Thinking

Yes If analysis stalls, teachers could prod students to look at the documents' dates and to identify the contradictions among the documents.

Rubric_Structure_Assessment

No Assessment strategies are included, but not assessment criteria.

Rubric_Structure_Realistic

Yes

Rubric_Structure_Learning_Goals

Yes The lesson states its goals, and it progresses in a logical, linear fashion.

Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum

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The heart of this collection about President Lyndon Baines Johnson is a group of 77 oral history interviews (up to 200 pages each) with members of Johnson's administration, Congressional colleagues, journalists, civil rights leaders, and a historian. The website provides 14 audio files, including telephone conversations, State of the Union addresses, Johnson's speech to Congress following the Kennedy assassination, and an excerpt of his television address announcing his decision not to run for a second term.

Also available are transcripts of 25 speeches; 50 "days of" diary entries; and the 99 National Security Action memoranda issued during Johnson's presidency relaying foreign policy directives and initiating actions. There are 150 photographs and one campaign advertisement. Biographical information is furnished in two chronologies. An exhibit from the Johnson museum provides an essay about events in Johnson's lifetime.

Profiles in Science

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These documents, exhibits, photographs, and essays tell the history of 26 prominent 20th-century scientists, physicians, and experts in biomedical research and public health. The site is divided thematically into "Biomedical Research," "Health and Medicine," and "Fostering Science and Health." The collections include published and unpublished items, such as books, journals, pamphlets, diaries, letters, manuscripts, photographs, audiotapes, video clips, and other materials. Each exhibit includes introductory narratives and biographies of each scientist and a selection of noteworthy documents. The collections are particularly strong in cellular biology, genetics, and biochemistry, with attention to health and medical research policy, application of computers in medicine, science education, and the history of modern science.

The History of Social Security

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The Social Security program and the institutional history of the Social Security Administration (SSA) and its contribution to the welfare of the American public are presented on this site. It contains a vast collection of oral histories, audio recordings, and primary documents of the SSA. The audio and video clip section includes radio debates on the merits of the Social Security program taped during 1935, Lyndon B. Johnson's remarks on the passage of the Medicare bill in 1965, and Ronald Reagan's remarks at the signing of the Social Security Amendments of 1983. Also available are Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon's recorded telephone conversations that reference Social Security and Medicare. Another notable feature is the 37 oral history interviews conducted by SSA in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Additional oral history collections are featured, providing information about the 1977 creation of Health Care Financing Administration and policy issues involving the Medicare and Social Security programs.

Time Archive, 1923 to Present

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Time magazine published its first edition on March 23, 1923. This website features all 4,428 Time magazine covers published since that time. Covers can be searched by keyword or browsed by year.

Exploring Time covers from the early years shows that individuals (generally men in political leadership positions) were featured up until the late 1960s. Indeed, House of Representatives Speaker Joseph G. Cannon occupies Time's first cover, China's General Chiang Kai-shek appears several times between the late 1920s and 1940s, African leaders surface at decolonization in the late 1950s, and Ralph Nader can be found trumpeting the "consumer revolt" on a cover from December 1969.

Those interested in U.S. foreign policy (search China, Russia, Vietnam, or Latin America), popular culture and entertainment, the environment, religion, and legal history also will find valuable resources. Within each keyword search, suggestions for related topics are helpful.

Remembering Jim Crow

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Created as a companion to a National Public Radio (NPR) documentary on segregation in the South, this website presents thirty audio excerpts from oral history interviews, ranging from one minute to ten minutes in length, and 130 photographs. Materials are arranged in six thematically-organized sections that address legal, social, and cultural aspects of segregation, black community, and black resistance to the Jim Crow way of life. As anthropologist Kate Ellis, one of the site’s creators, notes, the interviews display a "marked contrast between African American and white reflections on Jim Crow." Many of the photographs come from personal collections of the people interviewed. The website presents sixteen photographs taken by Farm Security Administration photographer Russell Lee in New Iberia, Louisiana. Also available are audio files and transcripts of the original radio documentary, more than ninety additional stories, a sampling of state segregation laws arranged by topic, links to nine related sites, and a bibliography.

The Vault

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Over 6,000 documents from more than 150 FBI files, declassified due to Freedom of Information Act requests, are available here. No contextual information is available concerning individual documents, although file headnotes identify the person or event profiled in short one-sentence to one-paragraph descriptions. Documents, some of which are available in PDF format, have been organized into twenty categories—ranging from Popular Culture to Foreign Counterintelligence, and the Gangster Era to Unexplained Phenomena (such as UFOs and animal mutilations). Although the collection covers a variety of topics, many documents have been heavily censored and are barely legible. Cases from the first half of the 20th century include: the Sacco-Vanzetti case in the 1920s; the 1932 Bonus March; the Black Legion of the 1930s; the Young Communist League, 1939–41; and the Daily Worker in the late 1940s and 1950s. More recent cases include the murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964; SNCC, beginning in 1964; the Ku Klux Klan in 1964 and 1965; a Black Panther Party chapter beginning in 1969; the Watergate break-in of 1972; the white hate group Posse Comitas in 1973; the Weather Underground in the 1970s; and the Gay Activists Alliance of the 1970s.

American Radicalism Collection

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This website contains 129 pamphlets, documents, and newsletters produced by or relevant to radical movements. Groups represented by one to 30 documents include the American Indian Movement; Asian Americans; the Black Panthers; the Hollywood Ten; the Ku Klux Klan, the IWW, and the Students for a Democratic Society. Additional situations covered include the Rosenberg case, Sacco and Vanzetti, and the Scottsboro Boys. Additional topics include birth control and the events at Wounded Knee. This is a small but useful resource on radicalism, political movements, and rhetoric.

Studs Terkel: Conversations with America

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Created to honor Studs Terkel, the noted oral historian, radio host, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, this website makes available more than 400 audio clips of interviews Terkel conducted over 50 years. The seven galleries explore a variety of subjects, including organized labor, the 1929 stock market crash, New Deal programs, World War II, Hiroshima, folk music, race relations, politics, and urban life in Chicago.

The interviews present well-known figures as well as ordinary voices, such as people traveling by train to the March on Washington in 1963. Complementing these interviews is a 55-minute video interview with Terkel in which he emphasizes the importance of accurate knowledge about the past. An educational section addresses the use of oral history in the classroom. This well-designed site is valuable for studying the Great Depression, World War II, race relations, and labor issues.

Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project

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The long history of struggle for equal rights by various ethnic groups in Seattle, including Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, African, and Native Americans; Jews; and Latinos is documented on this website. Primary and secondary sources integrate labor rights movements with struggles for political rights, as is evident in the "special sections," that highlight the Chicano/a movement, the Black Panther Party, Filipino Cannery Unionism, the United Construction Workers Association, Communism, and the United Farm Workers. Each section brings together oral histories, documents, newspapers, and photographs that are accompanied by written and video commentary to provide historical context. The collection of more than 70 oral histories of activists is especially useful for understanding the lived experience of racism and its especially subtle workings in the Pacific Northwest. Together, these resources provide important national context for the civil rights struggle, too often understood as a solely southern phenomenon.