Persuasion and Civil Rights: 5 Lessons and 1 Project - TEACHER KEYS included

1. Martin Luther King's Montgomery Boycott Speech - using persuasive appeals, repetition, and parallelism)

2. Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I A Woman" speech for Black women's rights and equality - includes an EdPuzzle video with the speech and analysis of the written persuasion.

3. Chief Joseph's "Words Do Not Pay" speech using persuasive techniques when addressing the government about his people's rights.

4. "Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence" - a short story about Aboriginal children in Australia (called The Stolen Generation) who were kidnapped and forced to be assimilated into white society. Focuses on language and imagery that influences the mood of their escape. Based on a true story.

5. The last lesson is a video of a teenage girl of color explaining how she was not allowed to use a light-colored crayon to color a picture of herself. A LINK FOR THE VIDEO IS INCLUDED.

THE PROJECT: After completing these five lessons, students pair up to create a presentation on the three civil rights pieces they felt were most impactful. My students really liked this project as it gave them the opportunity to create a slide presentation and present to the class their positions on the real-life scenarios.

If you need teacher presentations for rhetorical devices, please click here.

EASEL is included to teach parallelism.

For more lessons on civil rights, please click here.

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