engaging critical thinking project on the civil rights movement

To wrap up the year in my fifth grade gifted classroom we are talking about all thing Civil Rights. I created two “tournaments” for them to participate in. One for Civil Right events, and the other for People of the Civil Right Movement. This is a great way to tap into their critical thinking skills. Lastly, I have included the brackets that I used.

Civil Right Events Tournament

The first part of the critical thinking project is a whole class tournament. This means I use only one bracket for the whole class. We are trying to determine which events made the greatest impact on its cause.

Bracket Schedule:

1. At this point I break the class into 8 groups and create a Google Slide show about your event. The purpose is to educate the rest of the class on what happened and if the event accomplished what it set out to do. After they are finished they presented them to the class. HERE is an example of one of the slide shows.
2. Next, we watch videos about each of the four remaining events (can easily find students appropriate shorts on YouTube.) Then, discuss the videos and place votes anonymously.
3. Finally, I break the class into 2 groups, and have each group develop one side of a debate. The students debate the two events in order to choose a winner.

People of the Civil Rights Movement Tournament

For the second part of the critical thinking project my students each worked on their own bracket so everyone results may be different. During each round they have to research the people involved and choose a winner. The winner should be the person they felt made the greatest impact in Civil Rights. Next, I will give them a separate paper to fill out along the way where they write the winner of that round and why they were chosen. It was fun to see them debate these people amongst themselves, and to see them learn about some of the new people they had never heard of.

This project is a great way to end any study of the civil rights movement, and helped put my student’s new knowledge to good use. Additionally, there are also so many extensions that could go along with this!

Extension ideas:

1. Write a fictional story from one of the civil right people’s point of view
2. Hold debates for each of the civil rights event
3. Have the students come up with the events they want to do and write news papers articles advertising the event.
4. Make flyers and take a school wide vote
5. Have the students create and reenact plays from the Civil Rights

I hope this helps bring life to your civil right unit or any History topic you may choose to use it with!