Teaching Better Together: Black History Night

Black History Projects!

Black History night (along with the whole month of February) is an important time for us as a community to research, honor and appreciate the lives of past and current African Americans who have made an impact on the world around them. At our school, we dedicate an evening to Black History, where we have a beautiful dinner, singing, and a Gallery Walk to share student work on their research.

Our grade level team usually plans to present a biography writing unit in February, which lends itself perfectly to the research of the lives of African Americans.

We wanted to add an artistic element this year, to allow for students to demonstrate their learning in more ways than their writing; we also have 2 grades, and needed to determine how to raise the expectations for the 3rd graders in the writing they produced.

We came up with a pop-up scene idea for the artwork, which turned out very well. It was simple to create, yet allowed for students to make their scene very different from one another, depending on their chosen subject. Check out their fabulous work!

Louis Armstrong was a popular subject this year. Check out the microphone!

You can tell the 3rd graders' writing because they were expected to break their writing up into paragraphs, with 3-5 sentences on the topic of each sentence. They also wrote in first person, to explore writing in another person's point of view.