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ERIC Number: EJ720455
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2004
Pages: 5
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1056-0300
EISSN: N/A
The Rosa Parks "Myth": A Third Grade Historical Investigation
Landorf, Hilary; Lowenstein, Ethan
Social Studies and the Young Learner, v16 n3 p5-9 Jan-Feb 2004
This article describes how, by comparing multiple perspectives of the story of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, students can experience first-hand how different published accounts of the same event may contain different information. The author relates the lesson plan of Jennifer Morrow, a third-grade teacher at Coral Ridge Elementary School in Miami, Florida. Using History frame graphic organizers, "expert teams," and five different books about Rosa Parks, the students were ultimately asked the question "Why did Rosa Parks decide to resist an unfair rule that day on the bus?" All of the teams detected differences in the accounts of the protest as presented in the five books, and possible reasons for these discrepancies were discussed. By the end of the class, students came to see Parks' story as emblematic of a community's fight for equal rights, rather than as the isolated protest of a heroine who acted alone out of a spontaneous sense of frustration. This article includes an annotated list of selected books for young readers about Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, as well as the student instructions for this lesson. (Contains 4 endnotes.)
National Council for the Social Studies, 8555 16th St., #500, Silver Spring, MD 20910. Tel: 301-588-1800.
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Florida
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A