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History, Civics & Social Studies · Grade 8

Civil Rights, Institutions and Contemporary Civic Issues

Learners study how the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s used courts, nonviolent protest and voter registration to dismantle legal segregation, and how courts, Congress, presidents and states responded. They meet the farm workers', women's and disability rights movements, then learn a careful, non-partisan method for analyzing a civic issue using a fictional town's decision.

  • 4 lessons
  • About 115 minutes
  • Civil rights and civic issues check: 9 questions
  • Ways to answer: fill in the blanks, choose an answer, estimate, highlight a text, match pairs and type a number
See plans Included with Family, Teacher and School plans. Open in PlayOwl

What learners will discover

  • Explain the main events and strategies of the civil rights movement from 1954 to 1968.
  • Analyze how courts, Congress, presidents, states and citizens' organizations each acted, using primary sources and data.
  • Describe how other movements (farm workers, women, people with disabilities) used similar strategies and institutions.
  • Apply a non-partisan method (stakeholders, values, evidence, trade-offs, lawful participation) to analyze a civic issue.

Lessons

  1. A movement of many people 5 steps4 practiceabout 28 min
  2. How institutions responded 6 steps4 practiceabout 30 min
  3. Other movements, shared tools 4 steps3 practiceabout 27 min
  4. Analyzing a civic issue fairly 6 steps4 practiceabout 30 min
  5. Civil rights and civic issues check 9 questions at the end

Keep exploring

More 8th grade social studies

Guide for grown-ups