Essential Questions What is freedom? What is justice? What can we learn from the stories of our past? Where do our opinions and beliefs come from? How do our actions reflect our beliefs? In first grade, students develop their understanding of basic social studies concepts and ideas from civics, economics, geography, and history. This month our interdisciplinary study of the concepts of Freedom and Justice we will learn about Harriet Tubman and other significant African American women through biography. This will allow the students to apply and extend previous lessons in identity and diversity. Since the context for social studies learning in first grade is the family and the ways they choose to live and work together. For this assignment we will focus on the impact U.S. slavery had on families, their relationships, needs and wants in addition to the heroic efforts Harriet Tubman and the power of words to change the beliefs and practices of the dominant culture. We will complete research, establishing a timeline using significant historical events and inventions to provide context for this period of social change. To encourage higher order thinking, students will also apply previous social and emotional lessons on empathy, discrimination and exclusion to this new context in discussion. We will compre four award-winning children’s books that depict the determination and beliefs of Harriet Tubman, one each week. We will discuss how she persevered and persisted in seeing her family and others freed from enslavement. The students will be asked to use their imaginations, to think critically and creatively, finishing the prompt “If I were escaping to freedom with Harriet Tubman I would want to bring...” |