Summary
Part 2 of 5 As students read Tulsa Burning by Anna Myers, these activities accompany the contextual understanding of people, places, and power in the Tulsa Race Massacre.
Essential Question(s)
What roles do people, places, and power play in historical events? How do we keep history from repeating itself?
Snapshot
Engage
Students read (or listen to) the book Stand in My Shoes to help connect empathy of different perspectives.
Explore
Students explore Greenwood with a virtual field trip “wearing different shoes”.
Explain
Frame It Activity where students dive deeply into primary source photos explaining the role of People, Places, and Power.
Extend
Students practice empathy with provided “shoe scenarios” that relate to the Tulsa Greenwood community.
Evaluate
Materials
The book Stand in My Shoes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS4p-7JVs00
Group Empathy Assignments
Virtual Field Trip of Greenwood
Engage
Students read (or listen to) the book Stand in My Shoes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS4p-7JVs00 This simple book is just a way to get students thinking about empathy and looking at situations from different perspectives.
Ask students to think about how each person is feeling and how you might feel in that situation. Ask students what they might want or need in each situation and how both people feel.
Emily and Alicia
Emily and her father
Emily and Rosie
Emily and Mrs. Fitch
Emily and Tommy
Emily and Art Cart
Emily and Mr. Peterson
Emily, Samantha and Rosie
Emily and Mom
Explore
Understanding Setting: These activities provide students with a foundation of both the time and place for the setting of the book. Students explore a virtual field trip of Black Wall Street creating a context for the book, Tulsa Burning by Anna Meyers.
Students take a Virtual Field Trip to Black Wall Street. Link: This “field trip” can be taken on individual devices or as a whole class (on a large screen).
As students observe and experience the time travel, use the I Notice, I Wonder strategy, keeping a record of things they notice and questions that arise because of those observations.
As students explore Greenwood, have them explore from different viewpoints or wearing different shoes.
Explain
Using the Primary Source Historical Photos, students will conduct a Picture Deconstruction, teacher should select a few ahead of time that best depict the context. The image can be projected but it works best if every student has a copy (can be a digital copy).
Ask students to identify clues of people, places, or power found in the images.
Digital Version of Activity: Students can annotate a rectangle frame on top of the image individually and then discuss their findings and observations within the frame.
Paper Version of Activity: Students take 2 “L shaped” strips of paper to create a rectangle “frame” around a portion of the image individually and then discuss their findings and observations within the frame.
An extension of this activity is to give a title or caption to the image based on the frame portion.
As students are exploring the pictures they can infer and interpret what they saw with evidence from the picture to support their inferences. For example, they may infer that a photo was from the past by the dress of the people or that it is black and white. You can also have students identify what they do not know about the image and how they might find the information.
Students continue to read.
Extend
Students practice empathy with provided “shoe scenarios” that relate to the Tulsa Greenwood community. Students create a narrative for what the people were thinking as they observe. Have students write these down.
Evaluate
Referring back to the Stand in My Shoes book, remind students of the concept of empathy.
Did you use empathy when exploring Greenwood the first time (as yourself?) Did you use empathy when you were assigned a role? How does empathy impact your understanding of history? Can looking from different perspectives keep history from repeating itself? Why or Why not?