Text Exemplars for Social Studies

Grades 6-8

Freedman, Russell. Freedom Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. New York: Holiday House, 2006.(2006)

From the Introduction: “Why They Walked”

Not so long ago in Montgomery, Alabama, the color of your skin determined where you could sit on a public bus. Ifyou happened to be an African American, you had to sit in the back of the bus, even if there were empty seats upfront.

Back then, racial segregation was the rule throughout the American South. Strict laws—called “Jim Crow” laws—enforceda system of white supremacy that discriminated against blacks and kept them in their place as second-classcitizens.

People were separated by race from the moment they were born in segregated hospitals until the day they wereburied in segregated cemeteries. Blacks and whites did not attend the same schools, worship in the same churches,eat in the same restaurants, sleep in the same hotels, drink from the same water fountains, or sit together in the samemovie theaters.

In Montgomery, it was against the law for a white person and a Negro to play checkers on public property or ridetogether in a taxi.

Most southern blacks were denied their right to vote. The biggest obstacle was the poll tax, a special tax that wasrequired of all voters but was too costly for many blacks and for poor whites as well. Voters also had to pass a literacytest to prove that they could read, write, and understand the U.S. Constitution. These tests were often rigged to disqualifyeven highly educated blacks. Those who overcame the obstacles and insisted on registering as voters facedthreats, harassment. And even physical violence. As a result, African Americans in the South could not express theirgrievances in the voting booth, which for the most part, was closed to them. But there were other ways to protest, and one day a half century ago, the black citizens in Montgomery rose up in protest and united to demand theirrights—by walking peacefully.

It all started on a bus.

Grades 9-10

Kurlansky, Mark. Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World. New York: Walker, 1997. (1997)From Chapter 1: “The Race to Codlandia”

A medieval fisherman is said to have hauled up a three-foot-long cod, which was common enough at the time. Andthe fact that the cod could talk was not especially surprising. But what was astonishing was that it spoke an unknownlanguage. It spoke Basque.

This Basque folktale shows not only the Basque attachment to their orphan language, indecipherable to the rest ofthe world, but also their tie to the Atlantic cod, Gadus morhua, a fish that has never been found in Basque or evenSpanish waters.

The Basques are enigmatic. They have lived in what is now the northwest corner of Spain and a nick of the Frenchsouthwest for longer than history records, and not only is the origin of their language unknown, but also the origin ofthe people themselves remains a mystery also. According to one theory, these rosy-cheeked, dark-haired, long-nosedpeople where the original Iberians, driven by invaders to this mountainous corner between the Pyrenees, the CantabrianSierra, and the Bay of Biscay. Or they may be indigenous to this area.

They graze sheep on impossibly steep, green slopes of mountains that are thrilling in their rare, rugged beauty. Theysing their own songs and write their own literature in their own language, Euskera. Possibly Europe’s oldest livinglanguage, Euskera is one of only four European languages—along with Estonian, Finnish, and Hungarian—not in the Indo-European family. They also have their own sports, most notably jai alai, and even their own hat, the Basque beret,which is bigger than any other beret.

Grades 11-CCR

McPherson, James M. What They Fought For 18611865. New York: Anchor, 1995. (1994)From Chapter 2: “The Best Government on God’s Footstool”

One of the questions often asked a Civil War historian is, “Why did the North fight?” Southern motives seem easierto understand. Confederates fought for independence, for their own property and way of life, for their very survivalas a nation. But what did the Yankees fight for? Why did they persist through four years of the bloodiest conflict inAmerican history, costing 360,000 northern lives—not to mention 260,000 southern lives and untold destruction ofresources? Puzzling over this question in 1863, Confederate War Department clerk John Jones wrote in his diary: “Ourmen must prevail in combat, or lose their property, country, freedom, everything…. On the other hand the enemy, inyielding the contest, may retire into their own country, and possess everything they enjoyed before the war began.”

If that was true, why did the Yankees keep fighting? We can find much of the answer in Abraham Lincoln’s notablespeeches: the Gettysburg Address, his first and second inaugural addresses, the peroration of his message to Congresson December 1, 1862. But we can find even more of the answer in the wartime letters and diaries of the menwho did the fighting. Confederates who said that they fought for the same goals as their forebears of 1776 wouldhave been surprised by the intense conviction of the northern soldiers that they were upholding the legacy of theAmerican Revolution.

These and othertext exemplars in included in Appendix B, Common Core State Standards for ELA & Literacy.

Module 1: Common Core Instruction for ELA & Literacy

Session 3: Text Complexity 6-12 Social StudiesOregon Department of Education