Human rights leaders is always an inspiring topic to teach in my ESL class. My students are very interested in the people who have fought for human rights. They are eager to learn, but they find the language challenging. Because of their language challenges, it is important to me to create activities that are fun as well as educational. This can be challenging and time consuming.
For me the answer was “Thinking Through” lessons. These lessons challenge the students´ reading skills, their ability to understand and sort information and their ability to discuss and explain a train of thought while learning about a topic. And the best of all … the students really enjoy these lessons.
The resource
With this resource, the students will learn more about human rights in general, civil rights in the USA and the lives of Martin Luther King jr and Rosa Parks through information given in 16 mystery cards. This is not meant to be an introduction, but rather a way to gain perspective of the importance of these historical events.
The students will use the mystery cards to answer a key question. Some of the cards are directly connected to the question, and some of the cards have general information. It is important to note that there is not a correct answer to the key question. Answering the question requires deduction and reflection. The answer in itself is not as important as the process leading up to the answer, and the ability to argue that this is a valid answer.
Work in groups
The students work in groups. I prefer to have groups of three or four students. These students have to reach an answer together.
Read and understand the information
All of the students have to work together to understand the key question and the information in the mystery cards. The language and expressions in the mystery cards can be challenging for the students. It is important that the class has worked with the vocabulary in advance.
Sort the cards
When the students understand the information, they should sort the cards. It is important to figure out whether the cards contain useful information.
Discuss and answer
The group has to reach an answer together. In order to do this, they have to discuss the information and form an answer.
Debrief
When all of the groups have reached an answer, you should sum up the different answers in class. Each group has to explain how they reached their answer. In advanced classes, the students can be encouraged to ask each other questions.
Extra material
In this resource I have also included three short writing tasks and three full size writing tasks. I have also included a vocabulary list with the most difficult words from the mystery cards. This vocabulary list can either be used as a warm-up exercise or as a vocabulary repetition after the activity.
This teaching resource is available for purchase in my TpT-store.