8th Grade Novels‎ > ‎

The Watsons

Full movie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3qE6GIEIFc 1 hours 11 min

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Cartooned, younger clip re: Martin Luther King 4:03 minutes
http://www.brainpop.com/socialstudies/freemovies/martinlutherkingjr/

http://www.slideshare.net/jmielke18/civil-rights-movement-3870417
Civil Rights powerpoint


History of the Civil Rights Movement 5:52 minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URxwe6LPvkM

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American Experience: Freedom Riders: The Young Witness
5:00 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1EDOL9II0s

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No More: The Children of Birmingham 1963 and the Turning Point of the Civil Rights Movement
10 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCxE6i_SzoQ

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32Y92U1GxG0
Ballad of Birmingham 3 minutes

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vTYyLqvYVQ
Segregation Evansville, IN--4 interviews 34 minutes

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okkk4iYlUvU
Christopher Paul Curtis

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km7VTReqkbQ
Movie trailer 5 minutes

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6Au81aHuSg
Martin Luther King J. 

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLnP3fWh1tE
Bio Jackie Robinson 4 minutes

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJWqaxsMmiA Jackie Robinson's kids 10 min

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l8-r3s32ys
Jackie Robinson Tribute 2 minutes

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG6Y4xsm4ys
bombing survivor 4 minutes

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I CAN Objectives
Research Civil Rights Movement using credible sources
Apply reading strategies: 
    question, infer (139), predict, determine meaning, clarify
Effectively paraphrase and summarize informational text
Review MLA Works Cited Format
Identify Elements of Plot: 
    1) Exposition--Characters, Setting (Place North vs. South--Michigan, Ohio,
         Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, surrounding states, Setting (North
         and deep South during Civil Rights Movement 1960s), Conflict: sibling
         rivalry, bullying, stereotyping, racial violence (hate crimes)
    2) Rising Action--Identify elements of Character Development through:
    Character Traits
    Significance of nick names
    Pg 129 Daddy Cool
    Pg 135 Daddy-0
    3) Climax
    4 and 5) Falling Action and Resolution 
Identify the historical perspective of the 1960s
    dress
    gender roles
    ethnic prejudice
    dance
    music
Identify literary devices: 
      simile, metaphor, hyperbole, flashback, foreshadow, analogy, euphemism,
        allusion, repetition, imagery, onomatopoeia, personification, symbolism
Recognize Dialect/colloquial dialogue (voice)
Identify and capitalize Proper nouns (conventions/grammar)
    Brown Bomber, Death Stare (even when made-up)
    Dad (vs dad)
    South (vs directions)
Analyze political cartoon, Civil Rights, Bagley

Identify Symbols--Sometimes there's more than what meets the eye. 
Objectives: Understand figurative language; nuances (subtle shades of meaning) in literature (L8.5); Interpret Figures of Speech in context (L8.5a)

Symbols show a relationship between two experiences or tangible things.
Music uses auditory symbolism (rhythm, tones, melody, harmony, dynamics) to reflect experience. 

Childhood
The dinosaurs Rufus and Kenny play with are not just dinosaurs. They pretend the dinosaurs are Nazi and American soldiers fighting battles in World War II. (violence, pretend, childhood)
"Momma started trying to force me to do more things with Rufus but it seemed like he'd changed while we were gone and wasn't as much fun to be with. Him and Cody got real happy when I gave them my pillowcaseful of dinosaurs. I was getting too mature to play with toys anymore."

Family
The Brown Bomber represents the Watson family--pain, what it's been through, character, safety, comfort, pushed to limits--can still be counted on, keeps going down the highway.  
"It didn't matter who won the argument 'cause the car started rocking me to sleep. Maybe someone could say the Brown Bomber was old and ugly, but you could never say anything bad about its seats, they were the best things in the world."

Love
Why does Joey not appreciate the doll Mrs. Davidson gives her? (racial tensions, guardians, love)
 "I'm sure there was an angel in Birmingham when Grandma Sands wrapped her little arms around all of the Weird Watsons and said, 'My fambly, my beautiful, beautiful fambly."

Death of Peace
Mourning Dove--death by cookie (Byron's depth, multi-dimensional, foreshadowing violence)
The bird is an innocent creature that is suddenly and unexpectedly killed by the actions of another, and the same could be said about the little girls who are suddenly killed by the actions of those men. 

Death
The Wool Pooh-- a grim reaper. Maybe the only way Kenny can accept the idea of death is to turn it into a monster he can physically fight off or run from. If there's something there to fight, then he has a chance.
"That's when he came swimming real slow out of the deep, and even though my head was underneath the dark water I could see him coming right at me. He didn't look like he was related to Winnie-the-Pooh at all, he was big and gray with hard square-looking fingers. Where he should have had a face there was nothing but dark gray. Where he should have had eyes there was nothing but a darker colder-looking color. He grabbed my leg and started pulling me down."

"[Byron] was very wrong when he said the Wool Pooh was something he'd made up. If he'd ever had his ankle grabbed by it he'd know it was real, if he'd seen the way he was crouched down, crawling around in the dust and smoke of the church in Birmingham he'd know it wasn't some made-up garbage, if he'd ever seen those horrible toes he'd know the Wool Pooh was as serious as a heart attack. 



Identifying Symbols in "The Watsons Go to Birmingham"
1)  Create a collage that shows symbolic representations, visual images, and text-to-self connections representing the novel "The Watsons Go to Birmingham."

2) On the back, write one expository paragraph, including a thesis/topic sentence, 8th grade level writing, explaining your collage (including the symbols), and responding to the book. Include your feelings about the book.

Thesis/Topic Sentence: 

This is the sentence that controls, maps the text in expository writing, like a claim does in argument writing. It makes a point.

Examples: 

1) Symbols play an important role in the novel "The Watsons Go to Birmingham."

2) Symbols give a deeper meaning to the Civil Rights era novel "The Watsons Go to Birmingham," by Christopher Paul Curtis.   

Symbol Suggestions:

  • symbols standing for emotions, death, fear, hate, family, bullies, brotherhood (need at least 3 symbols)
  • places where African American would have been denied admittance or treated differently prior to the Civil Rights Movement and the elimination of segregation
  • visuals of conflict
  • actual visuals of character, plot, places that were "separate but equal"




Chapter 1 And You Wonder Why We Get Called the Weird Watsons
Chapter 2 Give My Regards to Clark, Poindexter
Chapter 3 The World's Greatest Dinosaur War Ever
Chapter 4 Frozen Up Southern Folks
Chapter 5 Nazi parachutes Attack America and Get Shot Down over the Flit River by Captain Byron Watson and His Flame thrower of Death

Chapter 6 Swedish Cremes and Welfare Cheese
 
Chapter 9 The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963
Pg. 121 Father/son chat in Brown Bomber 
Pg. 122 Foreshadow--references what's happening in the South
Pg 124 Analogy (Driving to growing up)
Pg 126 Music (Yakkety Yak, hillbilly, Lawrence Welk)
Pg 130 Idiom: Flown the coop
Pg 131 I-75 Flint to Florida
Pg 132 Colloquial
Pg 132 Character Trait, Mama's planning trip
Pg 134 Word choice (dig, jive, square)
Pg 134 Allusion to Ozzie and Harriet
Pg 135 Word choice (jack, blanged)

Chapter 10 Tangled Up in God's Beard
Vocabulary: sanitation
Pg 139  Rest Stops (outhouses) in Ohio
Pg 140 Euphemism (taking care of your business)
Pg 140 Grandma Sand's perspective (outhouses outside)
Pg 142 Further vs. Farther
Pg 143 Flashback to Mr. Johnson (easier not to tell Wilona--lying?)
Pg 144 Appalachia Mountains (regional, geography)
Pg 146 derogatory labels (cracker, redneck)
Pg 147 origin of chapter name "God's beard"--Imagery

Chapter 11 Bobo Brazil Meets the Sheik

Chapter 12 That Dog Won't Hunt No More

Chapter 13 I Meet Winnie's Evil Twin Brother: the Wool Pooh

Chapter 14 Every Bird and Bug in Birmingham Stops and Wonders

Chapter 15 The World-Famous Watson Pet Hospital

Epilogue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9Xk7EcrS20

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Whites Riot in Response to Arrival of First African American Family in Levittown, PA

Upon driving up to their new home at 43 Deepgreen Lane, Daisy Myers was filled with doubt, recalling that she repeatedly asked herself, “what would be the extent of our ostracism? Would we be able to sleep comfortably?” as she studied the four law officers standing on the lawn of her address in the Dogwood Hollow Section of Levittown. These questions regarding the neighborhood reaction to the arrival of a black family in what had been an intentionally all-white enclave, were unfortunately answered over the next two weeks. At dusk each evening, crowds of people gathered outside the Myer’s home, angrily shouting and jeering, singing the national Anthem, and throwing stones toward the Myer’s home, as apparently these “spacious skies,” they sang of were not meant to be enjoyed in an integrated setting. Levittown police failed to enforce the court ordered protection for the Myers, prohibiting more than three people from assembling near the residence at once. Mobs consequently gathered in this fashion each night, only finally subsiding due to interference from the state police. After an agonizing fourteen days, the riots ended, but the Myers continued to suffer the anxiety of the consequences triggered by the introduction of integration to Levittown. Harassment of the family persisted for almost three months, as Daisy Myers received threatening phone calls of those who “told [her] they threatened to shoot William down on sight,” the family’s deliveries of oil, bread, and milk stopped arriving, and the more than occasional unfriendly white stroller-by forced the Myers to have constant protection, or at the very least, sympathizing company. Anti-segregationist even obtained property immediately neighboring the Myers’ home, using the location to intimidate the family further, evident by their conspicuous display of the confederate flag.

The resistance seen in the August riots against the integration of Levittown, PA was not uncommon throughoutsuburban neighborhoods. Quite the contrary in fact, racial discrimination and the subsequent segregated communities were the norm in 1950s suburbia. Yet despite this plaguing harassment, the Myers refused to leave their Levittown home, justifiably feeling entitled “to live where [they] chose,” as William put it. Remarking on the family’s incredible determination to outlast their opponents, Dianne Harris, historian and author of Second Suburb: Levittown, PA, stated,“the Myers endured an ordeal that few could have weathered with such dignity, courage, grace, and fortitude.”

 

This endurance allowed the family to break “the lily-white pattern of Levittown,” as Daisy Myers stated, a pattern that William Levitt had attempted to keep in existence in his planned suburban community. While he did not consider himself to hold racist ideals, Levitt had long refused to sell his homes to African Americans. Applications for home ownership in Levittown had to be made in person at the Levittown Exhibit Center Sales Office, allowing discrimination in the housing industry of the community to readily continue daily. Yet through the assistance received from the American Friends Service Committee, the Myers were able to circumvent these discriminatory practices, making headway in the racial trends of the neighborhood. Yet due to the overpowering ideals of many white residents, in combination with the ideals of Levitt and his employed real estate agents, the effects of the inequality are still seen in Levittown today, as the 2000 census identified ninety-eight percent of the town’s population as Caucasian.

http://historyengine.richmond.edu/episodes/view/5272


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prejudice Today: Racial Profiling

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John Green Civil Rights Crash Course

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