Resegregation of American Schools

The Mixed-Pair-Share structure can be used to frame the lesson while giving students an opportunity to move around.

• Q1: Tell your partner about how you got to school today.
• Q2: What are some of the landmarks you pass on your way to school each day?
• Q3: What is segregation?

• Have students use note-taking sheet while watching video "Separate And Equal."
• Pause during the video to give students time to process and jot notes.

• Have students share their notes in a small group setting first. If students are seated in clusters, have them discuss in their table groups first. A possible strategy is Talking Chips.
   
• Once students have had the chance to practice their answers in smaller groups, have students share with the whole group.

• Have students read “The Uncomfortable Reality of Community Schools” and/or “Does Integration Still Matter in Public Schools?”
   
• Develop TDQs for students to answer with evidence from the texts.
   
• For assistance developing TDQs, please see Achieve the Core and The Teaching Channel.

Students will complete their Exit Ticket, by answering one of the essential questions using evidence from the video and the text they read, and connecting their evidence to their experience

• How has the fight over school desegregation affected people differently?
   
• What evidence exists that school desegregation has or has not been realized?
   
• How integrated is your school and community?

• Pass out the “Segregation Today by the Numbers” worksheet to students. Explain the directions and allow time for students to order the statements.
   
• Gather student volunteers and give them each a statement from the worksheet. (Have statements ready, written or typed in large print on separate pieces of paper or sentence strips.)
   
• Have the class work together, thinking aloud, to put the statements into the order they think makes the most logical argument. Facilitate this with student volunteers by having them line up (left to right) in front of the class and in the order presented on the worksheet. Volunteers should move around and rearrange themselves until a consensus is reached.

Ask students to explain why they settled on the order they did.

• Pause and spend some time distinguishing evidence, claims, and arguments. Data is a form of evidence and helps to support a claim. A logically organized set of claims, substantiated by evidence, makes a strong and logical argument. Include the importance of sources as a way to validate evidence.
   
• Return to the sequencing activity from step 3. Ask volunteers, with help from the class, to reconsider and reshuffle their order. Remind them that a strong claim needs evidence and that a strong argument needs well-organized claims.
   
• Use the answer key to go over the correct order, giving feedback where needed.
   
• Optional: Have students read the claims in context by providing source article, “Segregation Forever?”

• Introduce students to the article “The Return of School Segregation in Eight Charts” either by printing it, projecting it, or giving students the URL address. Divide and assign students one of the eight charts to study. Have them work alone, in pairs, or in small groups to answer these questions for up to six charts:
  • What claim(s) does the chart make?
  • What evidence does the chart provide to support the claim?
  • What data was collected and how was it organized to make the evidence clear?
     
• Use Chart Analysis Graphic Organizer for this process.

Close by having students consider what argument the eight charts are making, when they are taken together. Have students write down those answers on the Exit Ticket.