Lesson Plan #: AELP-WCP0213
Players the Majors Missed:
Biographies of Negro Baseball Leagues Players
An Educator's Reference Desk Lesson Plan
Submitted by:
Jeanne Guthrie
Email:
rjguthrie@kc.rr.com
School/University/Affiliation:
Retired Teacher
Date:
February 2, 2003
Grade Level:
3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Subject(s):
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Language Arts/Writing
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Social Studies/US History
Duration:
8 days
Description:
A biography is the story of a person's life written by someone else. A biographer deals with the facts instead of creating the stories and characters found in fictional writing. After a study of the Negro Baseball Leagues, using differentiated graphic organizers for research, students will write a biography of one of the famous players from these leagues.
Goals:
National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE Standards)
:
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1. Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build and understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.
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3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
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5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements approximately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
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7. Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.
Objectives:
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Students will use graphic organizers to synthesize, create and communicate what they have learned about the Negro Baseball Leagues, its players and teams.
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Students will learn to record information.
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Students will write with a real purpose.
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Students will learn about the genre of biography.
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Students will learn to edit writing for an audience.
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Students will understand the segregation that existed in America from the 1900’s to 1946.
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Students will have an appreciation and knowledge of the great contributions of African Americans to the game of baseball.
Materials:
Procedure:
[Prior to the unit, make copies of the graphic organizers: a) The Five W’s for students who need controlled amounts of writing and more structure; b) The Outline for Biography for the majority of students doing research; and c) the Questions to Guide Your Research for the more capable student who needs to be challenged to think beyond the literal. Make copies of the Introduction to the Negro Baseball Leagues or put the story on a transparency for class discussion. Make a large KWL chart on butcher paper to be filled in as the class begins the study.]
Day 1:
Begin a class discussion by talking about famous people that the students know. (The persons mentioned will vary depending on the level of the students in your class.) Further the conversation by asking what we call stories about real people. Again, depending on the class, students should discover that biographies are the genre that you are discussing. Ask if they have ever read biographies and about whom have they read. You might list the names on the overhead or chalkboard. Continue the discussion by asking the class about famous sports figures, especially those who play baseball. You might list these as well. As players are mentioned, note that they are of all races and nationalities. Ask students if they realize that African Americans were once excluded from the major baseball leagues. Most will be quite surprised to discover that many of their favorite players of today would not be allowed to play on major league teams if it were in the first half of the 20th century. Relate that during the next class session, you will be introducing the Negro Baseball Leagues to the students and that they will learn more about a task that will allow them to write a biography of one of the famous players from those leagues. As an assignment, ask students to question their parents or guardians about players from these leagues.
Day 2:
Either hand out the "Introduction to the Negro Baseball Leagues" story or put it on the overhead if you have made a transparency. Use the story to begin the day's assignment of researching the Web for more information about the Negro Leagues and their players. After the discussion, hand out the differentiated graphic organizers and explain how to use them to record information found on the web links. It might be best to meet in small groups to hand these out if the students are sensitive to differences in ability.) Allow students to begin their research.
Day 3:
Students should continue their research. If fewer computers are available, the work can be done in pairs according to ability.
Day 4:
When students have collected all of their data, tell them that they will now use it to write a biography of the person they have chosen to study. If you have not already taught how to write biographies, the following could be presented:
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Tell students that the first paragraph should introduce the player and give the reasons that the student has chosen him for his/her biography.
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For the students needing more structure, each of the sections (Who? What? When? Where? Why?) could make up the information in one paragraph. A topic sentence such as, "A famous player from the Negro Baseball Leagues that I have decided to write about is ____________. Following could be a sentence from each of the categories. A concluding sentence might be "I like _________________ because __________________________________.
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For the majority of the class, explain that the introductory paragraph should be followed by paragraphs combining the researched information. These students should be required to have at least two other paragraphs besides the introductory paragraph and a concluding paragraph that expresses what they have learned from the study, especially how they feel about the fact that these outstanding ball players were not allowed to play in the major leagues.
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For the more capable student, explain that she/he should have an introductory paragraph, at least three other paragraphs, and a concluding paragraph explaining how they feel about the segregation of the Negro Baseball League Players and this time in America's history.
Day 5:
Students should continue their writing of biographies.
Day 6:
Students should begin to partner edit for mistakes in spelling, punctuation, and usage. It is important that you go over the rules for capitals, commas, sentence ending punctuation, etc. You might guide this editing by first asking pupils to see that every sentence begins with a capital. Then you might ask the students to check that every sentence ends with the correct punctuation. Next, check to see that all proper nouns are capitalized. Give students time between each instruction to check for these corrections. Continue until you think that you have covered most of the errors that students might have made. As students are more capable, they can meet in small groups and go through the rules by themselves. It helps to have a copy of the rules in a list somewhere in the room. Again, depending on the ability of the class, you will know how much structure to give to the editing.
Day 7:
Students should self-edit using the "Rubric for Biography" as a guide. They might even circle the sections that they think they have accomplished. As students feel that their biographies are complete, they can begin to rewrite the final copies. Be sure to emphasize that they are writing for an audience, and therefore, the biographies should be as error free as possible.
Day 8:
Let students share the information that they have found in their study. Students always like to hear what others have found compared to their own research. Presenting in front of an audience is beneficial to all students and builds confidence, especially when they have been taught to face the audience, give eye contact, and speak so that they can be heard.
Lesson Extensions:
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Share the biographies with other classes in the building.
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Combine the biographies into a book by binding, tying with string, or simply stapling.
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Invite parents to a sharing night or session.
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Have students find pictures of the players they have chosen and mount these along with the biographies in a hall display.
Assessment:
Use the Rubric (see
Materials
) to assess students' biographies.
Rubric Scoring:
For teachers wanting to give a percent, 3 points could be given for every Advanced score, 2 points for every Basic score, and 1 point for every Needs Help score with the opportunity to re-do that section. A total of 21 points are possible. By dividing the total into the number of points received, a percentile can be found. For instance, a child who scores 20 points out of the total 21 would have a score of 95% by dividing 20 by 21. If you want to grade in categories, the student receiving an "A" would have the majority of items in the Advanced column circled; a "B" would be a combination of the Advanced and Basic columns; a "C" the majority of items in the Basic column circled; and a "D" or below, the majority of items in the Needs Help column circled.
Useful Internet Resources:
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Negro League Baseball: The Glory Years
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/negroleague3.html
*
Negro League Baseball: Jackie Robinson
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/negroleague4.html
*
Get That 'Negro' Off the Field!
http://www.webcom.com/~blessed/html/negro1.html
*
History of Black Baseball and the Negro Baseball Leagues
http://www.blackbaseball.com/introd.htm
*
Negro Baseball
Compiled by Robert Harrison
http://www.fcps.edu/westspringfieldhs/projects/im98/im981/spo.htm
*
Negro Leagues Player Bios
http://www.blackbaseball.com/players.htm
*
Negro Baseball Leagues
http://www.blackbaseball.com/index.htm
*
NCTE Standards
http://www.ncte.org/standards/standards.shtml
Special Comments: See related lessons listed below:
* Just
Ask Me: Students Use Interviewing Techniques to Learn About the Negro
Baseball Leagues
http://askeric.org/cgi-bin/printlessons.cgi/Virtual/Lessons/Language_Arts/Writing/WCP0214.html
* Black
and/or White: A Unit to Teach Compare and Contrast
http://askeric.org/cgi-bin/printlessons.cgi/Virtual/Lessons/Language_Arts/Writing/WCP0215.html
* What’s
Important About the Negro Baseball Leagues? Synthesizing Information into
a Pattern
http://askeric.org/cgi-bin/printlessons.cgi/Virtual/Lessons/Language_Arts/Writing/WCP0216.html
