South+Africa


 * Lesson Title**: Racial issues in South Africa - Examining Apartheid


 * Instructor**: Wes Brown


 * Subject**: 7th Grade Social Studies


 * Class Period:** 90 Minutes


 * Class Size:** 20 Students


 * Location:** South Africa


 * North Carolina Standard Course of Study Objective:** (7.02) Examine the causes of key historical events in selected areas of Africa, Asia, and Australia and analyze the short- and long-range effects on political, economic, and social institutions.

After this lesson students will be able to:
 * Goal(s):**
 * 1) Identify the location of South Africa on the continent of Africa and on a global scale
 * 2) Define Apartheid
 * 3) Understand the development of racial concerns in South Africa
 * 4) Compare and Contrast South Africa's issues regarding segregation and the United States'
 * 5) Create a solution that could be used in the school structure in South Africa to prevent segregation


 * Materials/Technology Resources Required:**
 * Pullout map of Africa
 * Pullout map of the World
 * SmartBoard
 * 5 Laptops (with internet capability)
 * 5 copies of 3 different encyclopedias
 * 5 7th Grade Textbooks
 * 5 copies of __Journey to Jo'Burg__ by Beverly Naidoo


 * Procedures:**
 * 1) Ice Breaker (5 Minutes)
 * Date in history (May 10, 1994)
 * At the beginning of each class period there will be a date in history written on the board and students journal about what they think that date in history represents. This lesson will be taught on or around May 10 each year. The date in history will read: //On May 10, 1994 Nelson Mandela was sworn in as South Africa's new president after years of racial issues in the country. Based on your own knowledge through previous courses, literature and pop culture, who is Nelson Mandela and why is he an important figure in South Africa's history?//
 * 1) Introduction to South African History (15 Minutes)
 * Teacher-Centered Lecture
 * I will have a variety of slides prepared including the location of South Africa in regards to the continent of Africa and the World. The map of Africa will be blank and will not include country names and I will have students guess where South Africa is located; this will pose as a comical introduction to the country.
 * The next slides will include a variety of information including, but not limited to: the country's size, GDP, ethnic group breakdown, official language and religion, and present government system.
 * The final portion will include a brief overview of the country's issues regarding segregation and race issues. Students will begin to make initial correlations with the United States leading up to the Civil Rights Movement. This includes the short and long term affects the issue had on South Africa including issues that the country continues to have today.
 * 1) Activity (50 Minutes)
 * Students will be broken into a heterogeneous grouping of five students in each group. The groups of five students will either conduct a highly scaffolded WebQuest prepared by the instructor, a TextQuest with the usage of Encyclopedias and a TextQuest with the usage of the classroom textbooks and finally a LitQuest where students use Beverly Naidoo's __Journey to Jo'Burg__ to understand Apartheid in the context of literature and then will use GoogleLit Trips to track the story. All of their research will be collected as a portion of their final assessment grade.
 * **WebQuest Group**: The group will be given a worksheet where students will follow each step to discover what apartheid was. With the usage of websites given, including Wikipedia, students will write their own definitions and craft their own definitions of apartheid based on the information they have found. The information will include both historical examples as well as cultural examples (i.e. movies, films, documentaries) that relate to the subject matter.
 * **TextQuest Group (Encyclopedias):** The group will be given a worksheet where they use 3 different Encyclopedias to delve into the definition of apartheid and its affects on the country of South Africa. The group will be looking for certain criteria including dates, locations, leaders, rebel groups, etc. but are not limited to this in their findings. After they have successfully found substantial information regarding the issues, they will create a compare and contrast model of the different information they have found. Finally (if time allows) students will create annotations that could be used as an in-class resource when students work on their final assessment.
 * **TextQuest Group (Textbooks**): The group will the North Carolina issued 7th Grade Textbooks to conduct their research on South Africa and apartheid. Because students are only using one resource they will later create a list of primary resources that they feel could be useful when conducting research on apartheid. Finally, students will create a Prezi or PowerPoint on their findings so that it can be used as a resource for other students when working on their final assessment.
 * **LitQuest**: Students will use the popularized middle grades text __Journey to Jo'Burg__ by Beverly Naidoo and read passages assigned by the instructor that gives a readers the point of view from children. There will be between 3 and 5 passages that each student should read (either as a group or individually). Students will debrief after reading and discuss amongst themselves what they key components of the passages were. As a means of assessment for this group, students will create a GoogleLit Trip for the text tracking where the children go, what they see and including historical information in the presentation. This will be used for other students when they work on their final assessments as well.
 * 1) Presentations (20 Minutes)
 * Each group will be given 5 minutes to present their findings to the class. This will also be used in their final assessment.
 * 1) Assessment
 * Students will be assessed on the in-class research they have done including the five minute presentation they did to the class; this will account for 20% of the total assessment for this lesson. The additional 80% will include the students ability to create an informative piece that could be used in schools to inform other young adults about apartheid. This could be done in the form of: a movie, PowerPoint, Prezi, Music Video, Song, Pamphlet, etc. The options are open to the students (with instructor approval). The only requirements are that students define apartheid, present the causes and affects of the issue, and incorporate the importance of awareness and civil rights to the audience.
 * Students will present their projects a week from the assigned due date and the instructor will show a brief excerpt of the film //Invictus// to show the pop-culture implications that this time period in South African history has had on the world and is still prevalent in 2010.


 * Lesson Narrative**

In Seventh Grade Social Studies students will examine, at a greater depth, African countries than they ever have before. Africa as a whole has a variety of social injustice issues that are present to this day and countries, like South Africa, have had decades of injustice for its people that stemmed from the government. As an instructor I feel it is my responsibility to educate students on the importance of awareness and civil rights for all people and inform students that even though the United States has, for the most part, ended the majority of the racial issues in our country, that other countries around the world continually have problems with civil rights. This specific lesson is important to me because I have always longed to visit an African country but have always been intimidated by the tremendous cultural and racial issues that all of Africa has. I believe that through education, people will be able to understand where hatred and racism started and how we may be able to move from those issues. In terms of 7th grade Social Studies, students will already have foundational information with regards to why there is so much animosity and hatred in Africa through units on the colonization of Africa by Europeans.

Throughout this lesson, I encourage students to take a first hand approach to their learning by utilizing resources that can better engage them and their education. By forming heterogeneous groupings it is my aim to help students work with peers to delve into how apartheid has affected South Africa on both a short and long term scale. Finally, it is my aim in this lesson to have students educate each other on their findings via presentations and an overall creation of a piece of work that will be a critical piece in the students overall assessment. After students have researched, collaborated and finally created their final pieces I plan to record and duplicate hard copies of each project and mail them to the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, South Africa. This will help in the efforts for people in South Africa to know that we have not forgotten about the many struggles they have had as a country and hope that one day there will be peace throughout the world.