Take students back to Birmingham, Alabama in the spring of 1963 where young people like themselves risked their freedom and safety for a cause important to all Americans--equality. In this lesson, students will use source documents to learn about the civil rights struggles in Birmingham to answer the Focus Question: Should young people be directly involved in the civil rights protests for equality in Birmingham, Alabama? Lesson Objectives: 1. To develop an understanding of why children could be directly involved in the struggle for civil rights. 2. To develop arguments for and against the involvement of children in social struggles. 3. To strengthen your academic discussion and debate skills in today’s History Face-off debate! Materials: Includes instructions, kick-off/warm-up activity, discussion protocol, primary and secondary sources, and a exit ticket/homework assignment. Contact Information: Questions, comments, or want to suggest a history resource that you would like to see offered in the future? Send an e-mail to steven@design4difference.com (website will be coming later this year, but the e-mail works).

These cards can be used with students in middle and high school to support academic discussion in partners, small groups, or with the whole class. The visually appealing cards are titled with different speaking "moves" such as: Agree, Challenge, New Idea, Citing Evidence, Question, and Wild. Students can use the appropriate card to support them in using each of the speaking moves. Each card contains sentence starters that students can use to aid their academic speaking and language. The card titles and sentence starters can all be edited. The design, however, cannot, as the images are permanent. Print out the cards--ideally in color and on card stock--cut along the outside of each move set, and fold so that the title and image are on one side and the sentence starters are on the other. Having used these in my own class, I can attest that students love being able to hold up the card and feel like they have the necessary scaffolds during a class discussion. Is there a card that you would love to see but is not included? Please provide suggestions and I may design new ones to add to the set!