South Carolina African-American History Bowl
Objective: Students will answer questions about the lives and contributions of honorees featured in the current South Carolina African-American History Calendar.
Procedures:
- Develop questions about the honorees.
- Divide the class into two teams.
- Ask each team questions.
- Present an award/reward to the winning team
Civil Rights Essay and Debate
Objective: Students will assess whether all Americans enjoy their full civil rights.
Procedures:
- Assign the class to brainstorm the term “civil rights.”
- Assign students to write an essay entitled “Do All Americans Enjoy Their Full Civil Rights?” supporting the positions taken in the papers.
- Divide the class into three groups: “Yes” responses, “No” responses, and “Undecided” responses, based on the positions the students took in their papers.
- Assign students to debate the issue of whether or not all Americans enjoy their full civil rights
Broadcasting and The Interview Process
Objective: Students will conduct an interview and write stories based upon those interviews.
Procedures:
- Introduce the students to the interviewing process.
- Invite a local radio or television personality to the class to discuss broadcasting.
- Assign students to develop questions related to various school topics, or related to the lives of the people featured in the Calendar.
- Assign students to interview each other, community leaders, or family members.
- Assign students to use the information from the interviews to write stories concentrating on the five W’s: Who, What, When, Where and Why
Charting the Course
Objective: Develop a chart to illustrate and compare aspects of the lives of Calendar honorees.
Procedures:
- Establish categories of information to be illustrated on a chart. These might include the obstacles that people overcame to achieve success, the training and skills they possess, the careers they held or hold, and their contributions.
- Assign students to use their charts to identify similarities and differences in the experiences of several honorees.
Meeting of the Minds
Objective: Students will explain why they are inspired by, or interested in, the life of a particular honoree.
Procedures:
- Assign each student to select at least one honoree whom he or she would like to meet and familiarize themselves with that honoree’s background. Ask students to explain to the class how and why they are inspired by, or interested in, the person they selected.
- Provide each student with their individual honoree’s calendar page. Assign them to write descriptive captions for each honoree photograph. The captions should explain how or why the honorees are considered inspirational or interesting.
- Assign students to develop and videotape a role-play scenario in which they convene a meeting of the Calendar’s honorees. Students should identify a reason for convening the meeting, i.e., to have the participants discuss solutions for problems facing young people today.
Career Awareness
Objective: Research the careers of the honorees.
Procedures:
- Assign students to develop a list of the honorees’ careers.
- Assign students to research the careers they select from the honorees’ career list and obtain information describing the qualifications, training, duties, salary range and potential market of each career selected.
- Identify local people employed in the careers researched by the students.
- Invite them to participate in career or shadowing day activities. (Shadowing is an activity through which students spend time in the workplace to learn the duties and routines associated with a particular career.)
Hall of Fame
Objective: Students will utilize information from this year’s Calendar and the website to develop bulletin boards, assembly programs, debates, songs, stories, video or other projects.
Procedures:
- Assign students to skim the Calendar or search the website to develop a list of research topics to provide the basis for programs and projects.
- Write their suggestions on the chalkboard for discussion purposes.
- For example, assign students to research the contributions of local African-Americans to honor them in a class-created calendar.