Year 11 History - Black Lives Matter

This course focuses on Black Civil Rights in the USA. From slavery to the campaigns of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, students will co-construct with their teacher a course that  investigates how America became so racist and why individuals and groups risked their lives to challenge legal racism. Students will assess what the recent Black Lives Matter campaign tells us how about how genuinely America has changed its values and why the issue of racism is still a hot topic in the USA today.

Film, documentary studies and internet based resources will be important learning tools for this course. Developing critical thinking skills is the key goal of History, and students who choose this course will be expected to ask questions, discuss, debate and to challenge their own and others' assumptions through independent and collaborative learning tasks.

The two assessments are NCEA based and are designed to give students a choice of context and to develop the historical thinking skills that are needed for Level Two History.

Students with an interest in NZ history will be able to use this course as a springboard to investigate an aspect of NZ race relations or Maori history, and compare and contrast NZ issues with those faced by the USA.