Curricular Units
The eighteen curricular units provided here carry forth Fannie Lou Hamer’s spirit by encouraging students to reflect on injustices that surround them and to speak out through the creation of their own speeches, film sketches, opinion editorials, debates, narrative poems, and much more. We sincerely hope you and your students enjoy learning more about Fannie Lou Hamer through the materials we’ve created. Most importantly, we hope you are all inspired to Find Your Voice!
Editor’s Introduction.
Welcome to the Find Your Voice K-12 Curriculum! We are thrilled that you have chosen to teach your students more about the life and legacy of the indomitable human rights activist, Fannie Lou Hamer. By way of introduction, allow me to provide you with background information about, and an overview of, this truly unique collaborative project.
Primary: Grades K-5
Planting Seeds (Grades K-3) Brooks, Maegan Parker
Early learners will find their voices through this unit by drawing inspiration from Hamer’s activism, considering problems within their own communities, and creating protest slogans to bring greater awareness to these problems. In this manner, students will come to recognize their potential to become community helpers, who advocate for a more just world.
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Shining Lights (Grades K-3) Brooks, Maegan Parker
Drawing inspiration from Hamer’s performance of “The Little Light of Mine,” in addition to her autobiography and a biography written about her, students will reflect on how they can let their little lights shine in their communities.
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Guiding Lights (Grades K-3) Brooks, Maegan Parker
The Guiding Lights Unit encourages students to find their voices by introducing them to an inspirational figure from history, inviting them to recognize inspirational figures from their communities, and encouraging them to share what is inspirational about these figures through a variety of media.
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Getting to Know ALL About Her (Grades 3-5 ) Kirkham, Brenda
Students are encouraged to find their voice throughout this unit. In particular, students will benefit from reporting to the class about partner and group projects, identifying adjectives to describe themselves and to describe Fannie Lou Hamer, as well as being empowered to form their own opinions about the most significant aspects of Hamer’s biography.
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Finding Fannie Lou (Grades 3-5) Martin, Danielle Creel]
Students will learn more about Fannie Lou Hamer’s contributions to her community and to the larger country. They will also gain practice posing and responding to substantive questions about Hamer’s life and legacy.
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Freedom Farm (Grades 3-5) Martin, Danielle Creel
Students are inspired by Fannie Lou Hamer to recognize needs within their own community and to see themselves as community helpers, who can take action and help those in need.
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Let Your Voice be Heard (Grades 3-5) Fairley, Valerie D
Students recognize poetry as a form of self-expression, a means of telling a story, and of considering alternative points of view. Students gain practice communicating in prose as well as nonverbally, as they consider the performative power of facial expressions and physical gestures. Students are inspired by Fannie Lou Hamer’s example to speak up, speak out, and let their voices be heard.
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Secondary: Grades 6-12
Who is Fannie Lou Hamer? (Grades 6-8)[Ervin-Rawls, Alicia]
Within this lesson, students are inspired by Fannie Lou Hamer’s emphatic opposition to the Vietnam War and they are empowered to creatively present a portion of Hamer’s activist career through the timeline presentation activities.
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Fannie Lou Hamer and the Cotton Kingdom (Grades 6-8) Houck, Davis W.
Students are encouraged to find their voices by creating a presentation about one family living in the Mississippi Delta in the year 1940. Through this process of primary source engagement, students will also come to find their voices--by reflecting in writing and orally to big questions regarding the legacy of racism in the United States.
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Fannie Lou Hamer, the Civil Rights Activist (Grades 6-8) Ervin-Rawls, Alicia
Students will be inspired by Fannie Lou Hamer’s powerful testimony at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, and they will learn about the larger strategy used by the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to gain political representation for Black people. They will interpret Hamer’s lasting legacy in their own words and share what it means to “Fight Like Fannie Lou” with their class.
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Remembering Fannie Lou Hamer (Grades 6-8) Ervin-Rawls, Alicia
Students will become inspired by the life and activism of Fannie Lou Hamer told through visual images they encounter on their gallery walk. They will find their voices by presenting what they consider to be the most interesting aspects of their collaborative image analysis to the class. Further, as they are encouraged to imagine their own historical marker/memorial, students will find their voice by creating a flyer announcing the unveiling of their marker, intended for broad distribution.
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Freedom Song (Grades 6-12) Morgan, R.J.]
Students are encouraged to find their own voices by experiencing the transformative power of song, reflecting upon the role songs play within movements for social change, and critically examining the role of artist-allies. Further, students should been encouraged to express their views regarding the complex practice of allyship in writing, speech, or through a musical performance.
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Photographing Like Fannie Lou (Grades 6-12) Correa, Pablo
Students recognize how images have been used in American History and today. Students are inspired by examples of images to relay emotions and concepts and are encouraged to use photography to capture feelings and document oppression, struggle, and resiliency in their own lives. Students are encouraged to find their own voices by capturing photos which highlight their personal stories.
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The Origins of Fannie Lou Hamer’s Activism and Why It Matters (Grades 9-12) Houck, Davis W.
Students are encouraged to find their own voices within this unit through a short writing assignment, groupwork, and an extended Freedom Vote activity of the teacher’s choosing.
Fannie Lou Hamer and the Fight for Economic Justice (Grades 9-12) Ervin-Rawls, Alicia
Students are inspired by Fannie Lou Hamer to find their own activist voices. Just as Hamer identified problems in her community and developed solutions to solve those problems, so too are students encouraged to raise awareness about contemporary community problems.
The Beginning of the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi (Grades 11-12) Houck, Davis W.
Students will understand why many claim the Civil Rights Movement started only in 1954 and the connection to Emmett Till. And why White southerners responded so negatively to the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. And finally, students will learn why the Citizens’ Councils formed and with what effect, and what motivated the reaction against Fannie Lou Hamer’s activism.
The Fight for Voting Rights (Grades 9-12) Morgan, R.J.
Students recognize how voices have been silenced in American History and today. Students are also inspired by examples of resistance to this oppression—Barack Obama, Fannie Lou Hamer, and the MFDP. Students are also encouraged to find their own voices by speaking out against contemporary voter disenfranchisement.
The Great Divide: Separating the Wheat from the Tares (Grades 11-12)
Through the process of primary source analysis and in the face of competing claims, students will be encouraged to develop an opinion on a controversial issue and argue for one side. Students will also consider the merits of the opposing side and reflect on the complexity of public memory.