“Women Making History: in Rhyme”
Use this lesson along with our video about the Women’s Rights Movement to put a modern spin on Women’s History Month. Students will draw connections between key players in women’s history and female rights activists in current events; they’ll continue the story of women’s rights by writing their own academic rhymes.
Objectives:
Students will:
-Deepen their understanding of figures from the Women’s Rights Movement;
-Compare figures from the historical Women’s Rights Movement with present-day women’s rights advocates;
-Research a current advocate for women’s rights and write a verse about him or her in academic rhyme.
Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.6.1
Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 6 topics, texts, and issues, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.7
Conduct short research projects to answer a question, drawing on several sources and refocusing the inquiry when appropriate.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.2
Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.2.B
Develop the topic with relevant facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples.
Materials:
-Women’s Rights Movement video
-Week in Rap video featuring Malala Yousafzai
-Week in Rap video featuring Maya Angelou
-Writing Academic Rhymes lesson sequence
Products Created:
-An original academic rhyme
Time:
1 to 2 class periods
Sequence:
1. Watch the Flocabulary Women’s Rights Movement video. Click on the blue lyrics under the Interactive Lyrics tab for additional infoboxes about figures like Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony and Betty Friedan. Discuss how the video mostly focuses on women from the first and second waves of feminism (through the 1960s), and that we’re now going to connect this conversation to the present day.
2. Watch the Flocabulary Week in Rap videos from October 17, 2014 and May 30, 2014, which feature female activists Malala Yousafzai and Maya Angelou. Use the interactive lyrics infoboxes and their linked articles to learn more about these two figures.
3. Have students compare historical figures like Wollstonecraft and Friedan with more modern figures like Yousafzai and Angelou. They may have lived in different times, but they were all advocates for the rights of girls and women. How were their experiences similar? Student answers may include, “They did something no one had done before,” and “They went against what was accepted in society to do what they thought was right.”
4.Tell students to choose a present-day advocate for women’s rights who exudes some or all of these same qualities. This could be a globally or nationally-known figure like Yousafzai or Angelou, or local figure like a family member. Have them do additional research on the figure if necessary. Then, have them “pick up where the Women’s Rights Movement video leaves off” by writing a verse of rap about the person they chose. Students can use Flocabulary’s Writing Academic Rhymes lesson sequence as a resource.
Wrap Up/Extensions:
-Have students perform their raps for the class and evaluate their peers’ work using a rubric.
-As a class, compare and contrast the issues women faced in the past with those in the present. How far have they come, and what strides still need to be made?
-Compare and contrast the means that current women’s rights activists have for advocating their causes (social media, YouTube) with those that Wollstonecraft, Stanton and Friedan had in the past (writing books and essays, meetings). What are the strengths and challenges of the different means of communication?
Guided Reflection
“I used to think _______, and now I think _______.”
“One thing I learned is __________, and one question I still have is _________.”