This module is for Middle School QFT Lesson

The Q-Focus is a stimulus that helps students generate questions. Middle school students can watch a video or use a photo of Thurgood Marshall to develop and refine their questions about the source.

Inquiry Question:

Why was Thurgood Marshall called “Mr. Civil Rights”?

In this lesson, students engage in the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) to explore the life of Thurgood Marshall. Students investigate the guided inquiry question, “Why was Thurgood Marshall called ‘Mr. Civil Rights’?” and examine primary sources to collect evidence to answer the question.

Resources You Will Need

Please review ALL materials carefully, including videos and primary source sets, before selecting to show them to students.

 

Procedure

Begin by telling students that we will be exploring the life of Thurgood Marshall during today’s lesson.

QFT Step 1:

Q-Focus video clip of March on Washington (or photo of Thurgood Marshall)

QFT Step 2:

Produce questions about the Q-Focus.

QFT Step 3:

Improve questions by identifying closed and open questions and then changing them.

QFT Step 4:

Prioritize questions by selecting questions that students want to answer and ones they think will connect to civil rights.

QFT Step 5:

Guided Inquiry begins with the inquiry question: Why was Thurgood Marshall called “Mr. Civil Rights”?

  • Timeline:
    Have students take 10 primary source image sets and predict a timeline (use clues from the images to guess their order).
  • Introduce Inquiry Question:
    Why was Thurgood Marshall called “Mr. Civil Rights”? Have students look at the images and predict a historical claim based on the images.
  • Background reading and short video clips on Thurgood Marshall
    (Reading includes information that will help students understand the images.)

Reflect

Ask students to reflect on the QFT process by considering how the lesson was different and how it impacted their learning.


  • Supreme Court Case Predictions:
    Students look at five primary source sets related to Supreme Court cases won by Thurgood Marshall. Students predict what rights he was helping to ensure/protect in those images.
  • Matching Activity:
    Students match five Supreme Court cases to five primary source sets (descriptions of cases are more detailed and complex).
  • Review of Materials and Revisit Q-Focus:
    Students return to the Q-Focus by reading about the connection between Thurgood Marshall and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Students watch a short video clip that incorporates the original Q-Focus footage but makes a link between the legal work of Marshall and the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) and the protest actions of the Civil Rights Movement. Students consider how this connects to the inquiry question.
  • Making a historical claim:
    Students answer the inquiry question: Why was Thurgood Marshall called “Mr Civil Rights”? After matching and learning, students make a historical claim by completing a “claim-evidence-reasoning” graphic organizer. Students support their historical claim with at least two pieces of evidence and an explanation of that evidence.