"Striving and Achieving": Modern African-American Culture

What do you value most in this life?
Money?
Family?
Clothing?
Music?
Community Service?

The 8th grade is dicovering what is important to them, and more interestingly, whether that is connected to race, age, or socio-economic status.

Well-known activist Al Sharpton certainly has an opinion, revealed in an interview with the New York Times.

Here's the article.

What do YOU think?

Comprehension Questions
1. What criticism did Al Sharpton have for the Democratic Party in the recent election?
2. According to Sharpton, what is and is not true "black culture"?
3. What happened to the black female cited in the article who was the first in her family to go to college? How does Sharpton feel about this?
4. What are Sharpton's concerns for the future of his daughters?
5. What did Sharpton notice at the rally for H. Carl McCall?

Part II

Groups: If you were born in January-March you are Group 1. If you were born in April-June, you are Group 2. If you were born in July-September, you are Group 3. Lastly, if you were born in October-December, you're Group 4.

Group 1-Civil Rights and Sports
Group 2-Music and Politics
Group 3-Art and Literature
Group 4-Entertainment and Religion

Each group will have two themes (above) related to achievements in African-American culture, such as: civil rights, sports, music, entertainment, art, and literature. Using Encarta and the New York Times, groups must research their topic. Then groups create a sketch for their section of a class mural celebrating the qualities that Sharpton used to define "black culture," namely striving and achieving. Some issues for groups to consider as they sketch the images that they would like to use for their section of the mural include:
--What images will best represent our topic thematically?
--What images (events, people, etc) will best represent the achievements of African-Americans in this area?
--What images will be the most visually striking?
--How can we use our images to tell the story of this theme (e.g., creating a visual timeline or using text as well as images)?

Rubric
10 points--Smaller, rough draft (due Wednesday, March 5)
10 points--C.U.P.S. + Neatly completed + interesting shape for mural + no white space
5 points--1+ photo from magazine
5 points--1+ picture from the Internet
5 points--1+ application of water color paint
5 points--1+ application of crayons, pastels, markers, or colored pencils
10 points--explanation/description for each of the above, being sure to
connect them to your themes.

Final Mural piece due: Friday, March 7th at the end of class.