Heroes of Hope

Overview
Each pair of students will conduct mini-research on their African-American
hero and share their findings with the rest of the class.

Fourth Grade
February 16, 2016

Materials

Photos/portraits of heroes:
Ida B. Wells, Amelia Boynton
Robinson, Ralph Ellison,
George Washington Carver,
Mae Jemison, Marian Wright
Edelman, Mahalia Jackson

Lined journal pages

Speaker to play music by an

African-American musician

Objectives
As a way to celebrate Black History Month, students will be asked to highlight
the accomplishments of African-American inventors, singers, activists,
astronauts, authors, and more. Students will:

Learn about individual people who shaped American history by

conducting mini-research using online resources.
Celebrate Black History Month by expanding awareness of AfricanAmerican historical figures whom they may not have previously
learned about.
Apply critical thinking skills to answer questions related to racism and
discrimination.
Gain awareness of the cultural contributions made by AfricanAmericans.
Demonstrate effective expression by sharing their acquired knowledge
with other students through musical shares.
Engage in meaning-making by conveying ideas and information
found in research.
Participate in positive bonding activities with peers.
Develop and use effective communication skills.
Build nonfiction literacy skills through web-based research.

Other Resources
Websites for students to research (not
Wikipedia):

Ducksters.com/biography

Bio.com

Notablebiographies.com

Activities
Before beginning the activity, the teacher asks students if they can name some
of the heroes on the cards (1 minute). Then the teacher explains the directions:
1.

2.

Students split up into pairs and each pair picks one photo of a hero
(turned face-down on a table in the front of the room) as well as a
blank journal page to write answers on (3 minutes).
Now each pair will use a laptop to research their African-American
hero and answer a few questions (What are some important facts
about the hero? What did your hero believe in? How were they
affected by racism and discrimination (define these on the board)?

Heroes of Hope

3.

4.

etc.) (5 minutes)
After researching online for 5 minutes, students will do musical
shares to show other students what they learned. Ask them to share a
new piece of information every turn--- think sound bite (30 seconds
each share; 3 minutes).
Now students will go back to their seat and free-write an answer to
this question: Have you ever been left out or discriminated against?
Please explain how you felt? How do you think your hero felt when
they were discriminated against? (4 minutes)

Next Lessons:

Go to the library to check out a book on your hero, or if one is not

available, conduct further online research to expand your answers to
the questions from today into a research report, with teacher
guidance.
Create a certificate for your hero with a border, seal, signature line,
photo of your hero, then present their award to the class. Together,
students will make a scroll of all the certificates to put up in the
hallway. (source: season.theteacherscorner.net/black-history-month)

Evaluation
Students will be assessed on their ability to work in pairs (25%) and share what
they learned (25%). They will also be graded for their research reports based
on their ability to collect valid information and write about it with proficient
grammatical and spelling skills (50%).

Heroes of Hope