HUMANITIES DAYS TWO AND THREE - 03/17/15 and 03/18/15

Tuesday, 3/17/15 was spent diving deeper into the Scotsboro Trial.  We discussed what goes in to finding someone guilty or innocent in a court of law and filled out a graphic organizer.  New vocabulary terms and words were introduced and we watched a short film on the Scotsboro Boys that really brought the boys to life and made them human.  Homework was to choose one of the boys, take on their persona, and write a "I Am" poem from their perspective.  Poems needed to be detailed and illustrated to show both the student's understanding of the boy and of the tension of the time period.  Poems also needed to include at least one of the four Words to Know (convicted, segregation, morality or injustice).

Wednesday, 3/18/15 is where the literature component was introduced.  One of the themes of the year in ELA class has been centered on authors' lives being present in their work (we started this with Edgar Allan Poe and continued it with The Outsiders).  Students were introduced to To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, who used the Scotsboro Trial as inspiration for the court case of Tom Robinson in the novel.  Each class was split into two groups and given case notes from the fictional court case.  Each group was given a role to play and needed to take on that perspective - one group was made up of lawyers today who needed to decide, based on the evidence, if they would prosecute Tom Robinson today.  The other group was to take on the perspective of the all white, all male jury in the case and had to decide, if based on the same evidence, they would find him guilty or not.  The kids got a lot out of this activity and really brought the unit objective to life for them.  After discussing this activity, the kids watched a clip in this scene from the movie version of the book.  We will pick up here tomorrow.

HOMEWORK FOR 3/18/15:

I moved your PSA assignment due date back to Monday, 3/23, but you still should be working on it!