Context
This lesson forms part of my SOW for AQA America: 1919 - 73 and is the first of a series of lesson looking at the Civil Rights movement from the 1950's into the 60's and 70's. Whilst chronologically the events of Emmett Till's murder occur in 1955 after that of Brown vs Board of Education I decided to begin the class investigation with this event as I felt that it helps highlight the problems and prejudices that faced the African American community during the 1950's.
The idea for this lesson sprang from a search of Civil Rights songs to include in a SOW, as I wanted to start each lesson with a relevant song, during this search through YouTube I stumbled upon Bob Dylan's song "Death of Emmett Till" which then led to a bit of further research into the events and I decided that this tragic story would help to set the scene of the problems and prejudices that needed to be overcome during the Civil Rights movement.
Starter
As previously said I wanted to include a different song in each of my lessons for the Civil Rights focus, as I felt it would help set the scene and tone of the lesson. So at the beginning of the lesson students came in and listened to Bob Dylan's song "The Death of Emmett Till". Students had to listen to the lyrics and try and work out the meaning of the song, I included the lyric video to make the process a bit easier after some students previously struggled. The sombre nature of the song helped to hook students with many students having questions about the lyrics and story behind the song.
After listening to the song I questioned students to check their understanding and started to get students to make links towards the enquiry question and the wider topic of Civil Rights and African Americans.
My questions are usaully as follows:
What was the song about?
What particular parts of the song stuck out for you? Why?
What does this tell you about America at this time?
How similar are the issues highlighted in the song with what we have seen in America already? Does much really appear to have changed?
Info Gather
After the starter discussion, students have a rough understanding that a person was murdered, usually that he was murdered because he was black. For students to truly understand that brutality that African Americans faced, I show the class a picture of Emmett Till before the murder and then after his murder (I warned students before I showed the graphic image as I've had students who have found the images distressing and upsetting). Students are always shocked by the images and it highlights to the class the serious threats and dangers that faced African Americans in the 1950's.
Students then watched a short video clip that told the story of Emmett Till's murder. The video can be found here. This video was the shortest and most concise I could find, however the video comes from an anti-abortion YouTube channel and therefore the final bits of the video need to be cut. The video does go into some graphic details and can be emotional but it is very powerful with the class in shocked silence by the brutality of the racism shown in the events surrounding Emmett Till's murder.
Whilst watching the video students are tasked to bullet point down the key parts of the story, and to think about the following questions:
What was the impact of Emmett Till's murder?
What does the story of Emmett Till tell you about African American lives in the 1950s?
Following the video I did a quick consolidation of the story choosing students to recap the key events. Getting to students to think about why the murderers were acquitted, what do the events show about America in the 1950s, what was the impact of the events on America and the African American community. This allows me to stress the key parts of the story including the publication of the story in Jet magazine and the institutional racism within the legal system etc.
Lyric Analysis
Students were then given Bob Dylan's lyrics about the murder of Emmett till and were tasked to annotate the lyrics about what events they were referring to and then explaining what it can reveal about 1950's America. This task helps students to practice their source and interpretations skills, with students having to use their subject knowledge to work out the meaning and message or sources.
The first lines of the song were modeled to the class. I've done this either with a visualiser modelling the process to the class or getting a few students to model the task using the sentence starters provided.
Students had access to a "help sheet" which summarised the events to help them match the events to the lyrics if they were struggling.
The challenge task for the lesson involved students writing a judgement about whether much had changed between the 1920's and 50's for African Americans.
Exam Question
The lesson concluded with the some exam practice. Students were given the exam question and they had to decode the question, highlighting the command words, key words of the question and then annotating around the question what they could include in the answer. I then used my visualiser and got a student to explain their thinking to the class and then the class gave their feedback about whether they thought this was correct or needed correcting.
We then discussed what was needed in this answer as a class and came up with a criteria of success. Students were then shown a model answer which they had to assess with the person next to them, comparing it to the criteria we had just created. Using this criteria the class had to decide what was good about the answer and what could be developed.
Lesson Review
WWW:
Students were really engaged with the subject material with the whole class shocked by the brutality of the murder of Emmett Till and the events that followed.
The use of the song helped to set the tone and also highlight the impact and legacy of Emmett Till's murder.
The help sheet aided students in the analysis of the lyrics.
Using a visualiser to model the analysis of the lyrics and the decoding of the question helped show the process of both tasks to the class.
The lesson really helped to set the scene for the Civil Rights movement, with students leaving with a good understanding of the problems that African Americans faced.
EBI:
I spent too long on recapping the video with the class, when it was relatively straight forward and this time could have been better spent on questioning and getting the class to think about the impact of the events.
Some of the students in my first class struggled to make the links between the lyrics and events, the next class I taught this to I made it explicit the importance of linking the specific examples to the lyrics.
If you want to try this lesson find the entire lesson and its resources here.
