Introduction: Review Growing Tensions I: Black-Jewish Relations
- If you did not teach the previous lesson (Growing Tensions I) give your students some brief background on black-Jewish relations during the civil rights era using that portion of the essay that accompanies this lesson. If you did not teach the lesson African Americans and Jews: Siblings in Oppression? you may want to summarize that portion of the essay as well.
OR
If you did teach Growing Tensions I: Black-Jewish Relations, either use the beginning of this class period to stage the Poetry/Spoken Word Slam students prepared for at the end of the last lesson or ask students to reflect on what they learned from the Poetry/Spoken Word Slam they held last time. You also may want to discuss with your class the issue of cultural appropriation. (See that lesson for more details and suggestions relating to the Slam.) - Fun with Post-its
- Give each of your students 3 post-its, one each of 3 different colors. Divide the board or wall space into three spaces marked "Causes of Tension" "African American Response" and "Jewish Response." (Or indicate which color equals which category.)
- On one color post-it have them write down one thing they learned about the causes of tensions between African Americans and Jews during the Civil Rights Movement, on a second color post-it have them write down one way African Americans responded to these tensions, and on a third color post-it have them write down one way Jews responded to the tensions.
- Divide your class into small groups and have students share within their group what they've written on their post-its.
- Have each group come up one at a time and stick their post-its on a wall or white board, organizing them by color (i.e. all the blue post-its together, all the yellow post-its together, and all the pink post-its together).
- When all the post-its have been stuck up in front of the class, have one or two representatives from each group come to the front of the class to begin organizing the post-its into new categories that make sense to them (for example, they might find that there are a bunch of post-its related to financial tensions between African Americans and Jews in the tension category). After they've had time to make a few categories, invite the next set of representatives to come up. (If you're using a wall, rather than a writing surface, be sure to have a fifth color of post-its on hand for the categories.)
- Review the categories and some examples with your class.
