“Mr. Civil Rights” | QFT Lessons

Using the Question Formulation Technique

This module introduces you to the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) as an instructional strategy for grade-level lessons on the legacy of civil rights attorney Thugood Marshall. The lessons on “Mr. Civil Rights” begins with the Question Formulation Technique (QFT), which asks students to generate, improve, and prioritize questions using a primary source as a focus. The QFT strategy helps students improve their historical thinking skills for developing questions and the close reading of primary sources.

Developed by the Right Question Institute, the QFT is a structured method for generating and improving questions. It distills sophisticated forms of divergent, convergent, and metacognitive thinking into a deceptively simple, accessible, and reproducible technique.

The QFT builds the skill of asking questions, an essential — yet often overlooked — lifelong learning skill that allows people to think critically, feel greater power and self-efficacy, and become more confident and ready to participate in civic life.

Primary Source-Based Guided Inquiry

The “Mr. Civil Rights” lesson asks students to use resources from the Library of Congress, among other sources, to engage in primary source-based historical inquiry. In these lessons, students investigate the guided inquiry question: “Why was Thurgood Marshall called ‘Mr. Civil Rights’?” Students examine primary sources to collect evidence to answer the inquiry question.

For interested teachers, more information about the Library of Congress is available through its Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) Program, which offers classroom materials and professional development to help teachers effectively use primary sources from the Library's vast digital collections in their teaching.

Examining the legacy of "Mr. Civil Rights"

The three lessons provided help elementary, middle, and high school students investigate, study, and draw conclusions about why Thurgood Marshall was called “Mr. Civil Rights.” Each lesson is aimed at the corresponding grade level but follows the same sequence and therefore can support teachers’ efforts to scaffold for their students.

All lessons include primary source image sets, video clips from the documentary film “Becoming Thurgood: America’s Social Architect,” and secondary historical information. Students begin with the Question Formulation Technique and then work toward a guided inquiry focused on the question, “Why was Thurgood Marshall called ‘Mr. Civil Rights’?” Students will use secondary information, primary sources, and video clips to gather evidence and answer the inquiry question.

Lesson materials include a lesson plan, slideshow, student handouts, and primary source sets. Review the ADD LINK three-level overview chart to see the similarities and differences in the lessons by grade level. While similar video clips are used for the different grade levels, length and age appropriateness may vary.

Resources