Sean Porter

Teacher Applicant: Sean Porter
Project Title: Making It Real: A Civil Rights Project
School: Hartley Elementary
Grade: 4

Project Summary:
 After reading the story Happy Birthday Dr. King by Kathryn Jones, my 4th grade students worked on a weeklong project to learn about the Civil Rights Movement. Our goal was to create a small documentary highlighting the Movement’s important people and significant events. Each student self selected a person/event, wrote his/her script, recorded themselves reading their scripts with Garageband, and finally edited it using iMovie on a Mac. These were then compiled into the larger documentary.

Learning Objective:
 My main learning objective was to extend our social studies curriculum; however, this extension provided the opportunity to integrate writing, research and technology. My students learned about Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks within our curriculum, but there were so many other important people and events to explore. Through the use of cable programming, my students’ interest was piqued and they were motivated to do the additional work necessary to create the documentary. Writing was integrated as the students created scripts for their segments. In order to create the scripts a certain amount of research was done by the students in preparation for their segments.

Use of Cable Programming and/or Technology:
 We first watched an online webcast entitled “Jamestown Live!” in November. I first heard about this after having received an email from the History Channel. Part of the show documented the history of slavery in the United States. Later in the school year, we watched a biography of Martin Luther King Jr. We used the Internet extensively to research many topics. They became quite adept at using search engines to find just the right information to place into their segments.

Effectiveness:
 I would say it was a great success. Students gained a more in-depth knowledge of the Civil Rights in a manner that is relevant and useful to them. Not only did they meet and exceed our social studies objective, their skills in writing, research, and presentation were given a “real life” opportunity to shine. They concluded the project with increased practice in effectively using the Internet to find the information they need. They could then take this information and transform it into a suitable piece of writing.

Benefits:
 My school has a large multicultural population. Many of the students felt very proud to be researching people they have heard their family members speak about. Also, every month, a 4th or 5th grade class is responsible for delivering the Morning Message to the school. We focus on one of the 6 Character Counts pillars. We were in charge of the Morning Message the same month we were working on the project. The pillar of Citizenship was featured and their research gave them some great examples to use in their messages.