Curriculum – .small stones.

Exploring Africa: Curricula and More

Resources from Michigan State’s African Studies Center

One of us studied for a graduate degree in African politics and remains interested in both current political developments and the question of how to introduce American students to (some of) the history, politics, and cultures on the continent — which has more than 50 countries and is approaching 1 billion inhabitants.

At the risk of eliding too many topics and peoples under the label “Africa”, we hope you’ll forgive us using the shorthand of “African countries”, just as we godless, ahistorical Americans refer to “European countries” while knowing Belarus, Greece, and Denmark are quite different. (But, do also check out the criticism blog Africa Is a Country.)

With that prelude out of the way, we’d like to introduce you to Exploring Africa, a resource out of Michigan State University. Their mission (see block quote, below) is to provide high-quality K-12 teaching resources, and they have a federal mandate and funding to do so.

Exploring Africa contains three main sections or resources:

Curriculum consists of 5 units of 30 modules in total, covering an introductory unit, history/social studies, the humanities, and regional and country lessons.
Country Overview contains a clickable map of each country on the continent. Upon clicking a country, you’re taken to a page of country information, including a political map, links to background information (CIA World Factbook and many more), and a curated list of recent news articles.
Special Topics covers some major issues like “Diamonds and Warfare”, the creation of the African Union, and more.

It’s a really neat, deep resource we hope you’ll explore.

Please — don’t be put off by the university-level affiliation or the fact that the introductory video begins with a white professor. These folks know the stereotypes and history they’re up against and they quickly get to resources that have been piloted by a diverse set of teachers in a diverse set of schools.

Exploring Africa Mission Statement

Exploring Africa is produced and developed by the African Studies Center (ASC) at Michigan State University in an effort to address the severe shortage of high quality African resources available to students and educators, particularly at the K-12 level. As an academic community comprised of more than 200 scholars who study Africa from a diversity of more than 20 disciplines, we are acutely aware of the need to provide learners and educators with resources that help them to engage Africa in a comprehensive manner, taking into account the continent’s rich diversity and complexities. Recognizing that for many people their only formal introduction to Africa will come in during their K-12 schooling, Exploring Africa is a serious attempt to provide this important community with curricular resources based on solid interdisciplinary scholarship that provide them with the opportunity to adequately engage Africa through knowledge, resources, and thoughtful learning activities that allow students to construct a more comprehensive and sympathetic appreciation for and understanding of Africa.

The MSU African Studies Center is a National Resource Center for the study of Africa (Title VI Center) that mandates the Center to actively engage the K-12 community in promoting the study of Africa.

Guest Post: “How Far Does the Apple Fall?”

We are thrilled to present our first-ever guest post, via writer and teacher Rashaan Alexis Meneses, currently a professor at St. Mary’s College of California. Her essay prompt, “How Far Does the Apple Fall?” is designed for an intro-level college writing course, but may well be appropriate for advanced high school students.

Examining Assumptions Essay #1:

“How Far Does the Apple Fall?”

We are all of us influenced by the people closest to us, and to them we owe a great deal. For this assignment you will examine how your parents, guardians, or grandparents influenced your political perspective. Try to think as broadly as possible. Political doesn’t just mean red or blue, liberal or conservative. Politics run deep in terms of social class, religion, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, environmental concerns or lack thereof, global or local—there are many ways to see the world politically.

Focus on one or two specific ways in which older family members, parents or guardians, have shaped your political perspective. Whether you have adopted some of their political leanings or outright rejected them, this is a chance for you to reflect upon and examine your assumptions about yourself and the world you live in. You will want to depict at least two and no more than four specific events, circumstances, or conversations that you can reference as evidence as to how you are politically influenced or not by your parents or guardians.

This is a chance to be creative with voice and form, so you will want to rely on concrete actions. Avoid using adjectives. Give your readers specific evidence to show not tell how you are or are not politically influenced by your parents/guardians. I encourage you to refer back to the reading assignments we have covered in class that deal with family and identity. Note how each author uses tone and style. How do they assert authority? What kind of evidence do they use to develop their stance and build a thesis?

Essay Requirements:

Your essay should be a minimum of (4)-pages long, typed in Times or Times New Roman only, double-spaced with one-inch margins on all sides. Always carefully proofread your paper several times. I highly recommend reading it aloud to yourself at least twice to catch typos, faulty language, missing points, etc. Be sure to refer to your past graded essays to address strengths and weaknesses.

Grading Criteria:

For this assignment, I will be looking for essays that 1) demonstrate that students understand competing viewpoints, 2) that students can generate a plausible thesis and that 3) students can identify and reflect upon their own assumptions on a particular topic. You will also want to be sure to include 4) a strong and persuasive voice that can substantiate all claims with evidence.

Rashaan Alexis Meneses teaches English/Composition and Collegiate Seminar at Saint Mary’s College of California and has received fellowships at The MacDowell Colony and The International Retreat for Writers at Hawthornden Castle in Scotland. With work forthcoming in Kartika Review, her publications include Puerto Del Sol, New Letters, BorderSenses, Kurungabaa, The Coachella Review, Pembroke Magazine, Doveglion Press, and the anthology Growing Up Filipino II: More Stories for Young Adults. http://rashaanalexismeneses.com/

Oral History: Students Are Historians Too!

Here at Small Stones, we LOVE hearing about students collecting oral histories from people in their communities. For this second installment in our Oral Histories Series, here’s a quick who/what/where/when/why/how explainer to help students understand to how powerful oral history can be–and to see themselves as historians.

WHAT?

Oral histories are simply stories people tell about their own lives and experiences. They can be about subjects we typically think about when we think about history, like experiences of war and conflict, political events, and famous people. But they can also be about everyday experiences, like moving from one place to another, raising a child, learning a new skill, or even going to school.

Our understanding of history is shaped by what we choose to record. If we only focus on typical “historical” events, we miss big chunks of what life was actually like for people in a particular time and place.

WHO?

Anyone can take an oral history! And anyone can share their own experiences to be preserved. Some of the most fascinating stories that help us to understand the most about the past exist because somebody sat down with another person and simply asked her life.

One notable instance of people collecting oral histories in the United States came during The Great Depression in the 1930s, as part of the Federal Writers’ Project. Writers were sent around the country to document the lives and folklore of everyday Americans. You can learn more about this project here.

Sometimes the best person to collect a story isn’t an official historian; it’s someone the subject knows well and feels comfortable speaking with.

WHERE?

You can record an oral history anywhere the subject feels comfortable. Some people conduct formal interviews in conference rooms or classrooms. Others meet at a coffee shop and find a quiet corner. Still others prefer to tell their stories in their own homes.

Technology makes taking oral histories even easier today than in the past; distance doesn’t have to stop you! While it’s best to be in the same place, it’s now possible to interview people over video chat, a phone call, email, text messages, or even social media.

WHEN?

The most important aspect of recording an oral history is making sure the subject feels comfortable. For some people, this may be at a specific time of day. For others, it might be over the weekend. Some people feel more comfortable talking after a major life event is over–for example, if they are busy working towards earning a college degree, they may want to talk to you about it after graduation.

Others, however, may want to share their stories even as they continue living them. Many people are presently taking oral histories from refugees, for example, who still have yet to find a more permanent home. It may also be the case that stories like these, that are still ongoing, are especially powerful to preserve and share to help shape the eventual outcome for those living in difficult situations.

WHY?

It’s easy to think that history doesn’t have much of an impact on the present. But history is happening now, all around us, and it will be shaped by the stories that we choose to preserve and the voices we choose to amplify. The better we understand the stories of the people around us, the better we are able to work towards the kind of world that we ultimately want to have.

HOW?

There are SO many tools available for taking oral histories right now. A pen and paper will work just fine to record interview notes. Most of us walk around with recording devices in our pockets; smartphones can allow us to quickly and easily capture stories, whether with video or just voice, and share them with the world. And as we mentioned before, distance doesn’t have to be an issue. We can take oral histories of people who aren’t able to meet in person.

More and more, people are interested in learning about the lives of those around them, stories that might usually remain hidden. You can help shape the history of your own community, draw attention to critical issues, and create tools that foster better human understanding–all through the simple act of listening.

Coming up next: more details about how to plan, prepare for, conduct, debrief, and share an oral history yourself.

Science and Race, Part 1

The Biology and Sociology of Race

There are lots of online resources for teaching about race and its basis or lack thereof in biology. This is one topic that really does lie at the intersection of science and social science.

The motivation behind the sites described below is to de-couple skin color’s social meaning from its evolutionary purpose. For a popular science discussion of race and science to ground yourself, you might start with “What Science Says About Race and Genetics” (Time, 2014).

The American Association for the Advancement of Science’s (AAAS) site ScienceNetLinks provides a middle grades lesson plan entitled The Illusion of Race, which includes a teacher resource guide, Genetics, Human Migration, and the Sociology of Race.

AAAS also provides a lesson plan on skin color, Variation in Human Skin Color. As we noted above, it aims to distinguish the biological purpose of skin tone from its social meaning:

Skin color is an alterable characteristic that results from adaptation in a specific environment that has survival value for the organism and may then be perpetuated by the process of natural selection.

Focusing on the biological similarity that underlies skin-color variations should equip students to critically evaluate the improper use of differences in skin color to divide humans into distinct races.

An additional resource is PBS’s portal, Race: The power of an Illusion (c.2003), complete with background readings and resources. (If the links don’t work, try a different browser).

We’re curious to know: Are there other resources you recommend?

(Image: “Untitled, Geometric, Rectangled, Faces” The NY Public Library Digital Collections)

Students and Civil Disobedience: Lesson Plans and Activities

Here’s a roundup of some of the material out there for introducing students to civil disobedience in a variety of historical settings. The material here is appropriate for middle and high school students.

From PBS Learning Media, a lesson plan called “Peaceful Protests.”
- Integrated around video clips from the documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell, focused on Liberian women and the actions they took to help end that country’s civil war, this lesson plan is aimed at high school students, grades 9-12.
- Note that some of the links are not functional! In particular, the article 198 Methods of Peaceful Protest is now found here, not at the link listed.
- However, this lesson plan is still worth checking out, as it contains a wealth of resources that are still accessible and a nice, clear frame.

Students learn about nonviolent resistance movements that have taken place around the world and, using video segments from the PBS program Women, War & Peace:“Pray the Devil Back to Hell” explore how women’s nonviolent protests helped bring about the end of a bloody civil war in Liberia in 2003. In the Introductory Activity, students learn about nonviolent resistance, conduct research about nonviolent protest leaders in different countries and time periods, discuss the goals and impact of their actions, and place them on a timeline.

In Learning Activity 1,students learn about actions that Leymah Gbowee and the women of Liberia took to protest the civil war in their country. In Learning Activity 2, students explore different methods of nonviolent action and read and discuss the letter Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote from jail in Birmingham, Alabama, as well as the statement from Alabama clergymen which prompted him to write the letter. In the Culminating Activity, students examine nonviolent protest movements throughout history and discuss the goals and impact of those efforts. The lesson concludes with students writing and discussing reflection essays about the use of nonviolent resistance, citing examples studied in this lesson.

“A Time for Justice” comes from Teaching Tolerance and is aimed at students in middle and high school, grades 6-12. It’s centered around Teaching Tolerance’s film A Time for Justice about the Civil Rights movement. The unit contains five discrete lessons.
- The unit is clearly aligned to Common Core Standards and includes a glossary and list of resources at the beginning of the lesson.

It has been more than half a century since many of the major events of the modern civil rights movement For today’s students—and some of their teachers—it can seem like ancient history But the civil rights movement transformed the country Through the persistent use of nonviolent strategies—including marches, court cases, boyco s and civil disobedience—brave black and white Americans joined forces to pursue the legal equality that the Constitution guarantees to all persons

This teaching guide provides lessons and materials about the modern civil rights movement—from the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision in which the Su- preme Court ruled school segregation unconstitutional, and the passage, in 1965, of the Voting Rights Act The unit encourages students to imagine what life was like in the Jim Crow South, to understand why so many people were willing to risk their lives to change it, and to explore how they went about doing so.

Finally, “Slavery and Civil Disobedience: Christiania Riot of 1851” comes from Patricia (Kate) De Barros at Magothy River Middle School. The lesson centers around a riot that followed the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.
- The lesson contains detailed background information that can be used by educators and students alike.
- The lesson itself is based around short biographies of people involved in the Underground Railroad. Students work as critical historians and compare and analyze different views of the Christiania Riot in order to draw their own conclusions.

The passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 made it legal for slaveholders to pursue escaped slaves into any state or territory in the union. This meant that runaway slaves now had to reach Canada to avoid the threat of recapture. Immediately this law sparked outrage among abolitionists who viewed the law as further protection of the immoral institution of slavery. They vowed to engage in a form of civil disobedience; knowingly breaking the law that they felt was unjust.

One of the first tests of the act came in September of 1851 in Christiana, Pennsylvania when a slave owner arrived with a group of men to retrieve six of his escaped slaves. A local vigilance group was protecting the six, who were being safeguarded in an area home. A heated exchange between the two sides resulted in a violent riot. One account says that as many as 50 blacks came from the surrounding areas to aid the vigilance group. The slave owner asked some local white men to help him capture his slaves per the Fugitive Slave Act and they refused. The slave owner was killed in the struggle. Five white men and 38 black men were arrested for treason.

The first trial lasted three weeks and returned with a verdict of “not guilty.” By the end of 1851, all charges against every defendant were dropped. This was a tremendous victory for abolitionist groups who saw it as vindication of their stance that it was morally acceptable to ignore the law. In this lesson, students will examine primary and secondary sources detailing differing accounts of the incident in Christiana. They will summarize the conflicting views and analyze the validity of their sources. At the completion of the lesson students will form a written response as to whether they think noncompliance with slave laws was acceptable or not.

Next up, some tools for helping students to participate in civil disobedience in the present day, intentionally, safely, and effectively.