Developing Reading Skills: Tuskegee Airman Lesson Plan

Name: Jeremie Smith, Justin Jordan, Samantha Onder, Elizabeth Dal Santo,

Class/Subject: 10th Grade Social Studies

Content Standards:

16.D.4a Describe the immediate and long-range social impacts of slavery.

16.D.5 Analyze the relationship between an issue in United States social history and the related
aspects of political, economic and environmental history.

16.D.4b Describe unintended social consequences of political events in United States history (e.g.,
Civil War/emancipation, National Defense Highway Act/decline of inner cities, Vietnam War/anti-
government activity).

College Readiness Standards:

• Identify clear main ideas or purposes of complex passages or their paragraphs

• Draw complex or subtle generalizations and conclusions about people, ideas, and so on,
often by synthesizing information from different portions of the passage
• Understand and generalize about portions of a complex literary narrative
• Determine, even when the language is richly figurative and the vocabulary is difficult, the
appropriate meaning of context-dependent words, phrases, or statements in virtually any
passage

Day 1:

I. 5 minutes- Introduce lesson with a brief video describing the historical contexts, social
significance, and legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen through the biographical depiction of a
veteran of the group, Luther Smith.
a. http://www.history.com/videos/save-our-history-a-veterans-story---luther-
smith#save-our-history-a-veterans-story---luther-smith

II. 30 minutes - Assign the first half of the personal narrative of Tuskegee Airman, Clarence
Dart for in class reading and discussion. The class will utilize the “Start, Stop, and
Think-Aloud” strategy for tackling the first half of the text. The text is divided (see
attached handout “Day 1 Assignment”) into six sections with a question for each section.
After reading each section, students will be instructed to write an answer on the handout
for each question. Then, we will discuss each question as a class and ask for students for
any questions they might have concerning the meaning of any excerpts from section
under discussion. This process will continue until all six sections have been discussed
and all questions have been answered.
III. 5 minutes – Assign homework assignment that includes the remainder of the narrative of
Tuskegee Airman, Clarence Dart. This assignment will be similar (see attached handout
“homework assignment”) to the in class assignment. Students will read a text that is
divided into sections but instead of being provided with questions, they will need to
create their own questions. The homework handout includes some guidance on what
types of questions are beneficial to better understand the text.

Day 2:

I. 35 minutes - Students will take turns reading the sections assigned for homework and
introducing the questions they created. Classroom discussion will center around
answering the questions provided by students as a class and also debating the merits of
the questions presented in an effort to have students better understand the types of
questions best suited to aid in understanding a text.

II. 5 minutes – Collect Homework Assignments and ask students to write a brief (2-3
sentences) reaction to the Clarence Dart narrative and the reading comprehension strategy
employed over the previous two days in their class response journals (an ongoing
requirement of the class).

Rational: