Shades of History:
The Montgomery Bus Boycott/Beyond Black and White

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Curriculum Standards

This WebQuest may be appropriate for students in upper elementary grades through early high school. However, it is recommended that you preview the materials to determine whether they are appropriate for your students. It may be that some activities and materials are well suited for students in a particular grade, while others are either too difficult or not challenging enough. Since the curriculum varies across schools, districts, and states, I would rather not limit the scope of potential use of this WebQuest by assigning it to a specific grade level, as I believe it may be suited for students across a range of ages, depending on how it is implemented. However, in order to provide a general idea of the types of curriculum standards that the activities address, I have included some relevant standards from the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks for History and Social Science and English Language Arts.

• Analyze the origins, goals, and key events of the Civil Rights movement. 
• Describe the accomplishments of the civil rights movement. 

• The evolution of the concepts of personal freedom, individual responsibility, and respect for human dignity.
• The influence of economic, political, religious, and cultural ideas as human societies move beyond regional, national, or geographic boundaries.

Students should be able to: 

• Interpret timelines of events studied. (5)
• Observe and identify details in cartoons, photographs, charts, and graphs relating to an historical narrative. (5)
• Define and use correctly words related to government: citizen, suffrage, rights, representation, federal, state, county, and municipal. (5)
• Distinguish between primary and secondary sources and describe how each kind of source is used in interpreting history. (7)
• Identify multiple causes and effects when explaining historical events. (7)
• Explain how a cause and effect relationship is different from a sequence or correlation of events. (8-12)
• Distinguish between long-term and short-term cause and effect relationships. (8-12)
• Show connections, causal and otherwise, between particular historical events and ideas and larger social, economic, and political trends and developments. (8-12)
• Interpret the past within its own historical context rather than in terms of present-day norms and values. (8-12)
• Distinguish intended from unintended consequences. (8-12)
• Distinguish historical fact from opinion. (8-12)

Through this WebQuest, it is also possible to make connections to any of the Thematic Strands from the National Council for the Social Studies listed below. Strands with the most obvious connections are in bold.

1. Culture - Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of culture and cultural diversity.
2. Time, Continuity, and Change - Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of the ways human beings view themselves in and over time.
3. People, Places, and Environments - Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of people, places, and environments.
4. Individual Development and Identity - Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of individual development and identity.
5. Individuals, Groups, and Institutions - Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of interactions among individuals, groups, and institutions.
6. Power, Authority, and Governance - Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of how people create and change structures of power, authority, and governance.
7. Production, Distribution, and Consumption – Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of how people organize for the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
8. Science, Technology, and Society - Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of relationships among science, technology, and society.
9. Global Connections - Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of global connections and interdependence.
10. Civic Ideals and Practices - Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of the ideals, principles, and practices of citizenship in a democratic republic.

Relevant Standards from the MA English Language Arts Framework

Language Strand

• Discussion - Students will use agreed-upon rules for informal and formal discussions in small and large groups.
• Questioning, Listening, and Contributing - Students will pose questions, listen to the ideas of others, and contribute their own information or ideas in group discussions or interviews in order to acquire new knowledge.
• Oral Presentation - Students will make oral presentations that demonstrate appropriate consideration of audience, purpose, and the information to be conveyed.
• Vocabulary and Concept Development - Students will understand and acquire new vocabulary and use it correctly in reading and writing.

Reading and Literature Strand

• Understanding a Text - Students will identify the basic facts and main ideas in a text and use them as the basis for interpretation.
• Making Connections - Students will deepen their understanding of a literary or non-literary work by relating it to its contemporary context or historical background.
• Nonfiction - Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the purposes, structure, and elements of nonfiction or informational materials and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding.

Composition Strand

• Writing - Students will write with a clear focus, coherent organization, and sufficient detail.
• Consideration of Audience and Purpose - Students will write for different audiences and purposes.
• Revising - Students will demonstrate improvement in organization, content, paragraph development, level of detail, style, tone, and word choice (diction) in their compositions after revising them.
• Standard English Conventions - Students will use knowledge of standard English conventions in their writing, revising, and editing.
• Organizing Ideas in Writing - Students will organize ideas in writing in a way that makes sense for their purpose.
• Research - Students will gather information from a variety of sources, analyze and evaluate the quality of the information they obtain, and use it to answer their own questions.
• Evaluating Writing and Presentations - Students will develop and use appropriate rhetorical, logical, and stylistic criteria for assessing final versions of their compositions or research projects before presenting them to varied audiences.

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