How to Create a Rosa Parks Lesson Plan

Known as the "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement," Rosa Parks deserves a place in history alongside Martin Luther King. Your students need to understand that the Civil Rights Movement wasn't the responsibility of a single leader. By presenting a lesson plan about Rosa Parks, you introduce them to the circumstances that prompted her actions and help them appreciate what African Americans accomplished.

Difficulty:

Moderate

Instructions

1. Begin your lesson plans with the background to Rosa Parks's actions. It's hard for kids to understand how society could approve of segregation, so write a skit where everyone accepts the status quo to make the experience come to life.

2. Talk about Rosa Parks's background. One of the reasons her actions spawned further activity was her honorable character. She was also involved with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). This lets kids know African Americans were fighting for their rights even before the movement erupted.

3. Spend a good deal of time outlining the events of Parks's arrest. Having the kids act it out is a great way to help them understand how unfair it was. You could also set up a debate where one student takes Parks's side while the other takes the bus driver's side.

4. Use documents from Parks's arrest to make history come to life. The National Archives has a "Teaching with Documents" program where you can download scanned copies of Parks's police report and fingerprints card (see Resources for the link).

5. Go on to teach your students about the Montgomery bus boycott. Show how the actions of one brave person can inspire others to speak out against injustice. One activity you can give them is to pretend to write a letter to the editor of the "Montgomery Advertiser" taking a stand on the incident.

6. Explain Martin Luther King's involvement in the bus boycott. Keep the focus on Rosa Parks throughout the lesson plan, but make your students understand he was involved in organizing the boycott and came to prominence because of this.

7. End your Rosa Parks lesson plan with a discussion of the relationship the boycott had to the Civil Rights Movement as a whole. Have your students write essays on why the boycott is a great example of successful social change.