May 17

Socratic Seminar groups and questions

Link to the Google Doc groups – http://bit.ly/JVUR4Y 

For the earlier hours, I decided to change up the questions.  Everybody has to do question #1, and then you pick one question for your part.

1.Compare the degress of success or failure of the Civil Rights Movement and Populist Movement. Consider: a. legislation passed, b. effectiveness of legislation, c. difference between stated goals and accomplished goals, d. effect on the dominant culture of the U.S.

Part 1 / Group 1 (choose only one)

#2.  Why were many whites suprised by the black revolt of the 1950s and 1960s?

#3 Why did Truman and his advisers feel a need to “act on the race question” immediately following World War 2?  What evidence exists to support Zinn’s answer to this question?

Part 2 / Group 2 (choose only one)

#4 What compromises did civil rights leaders make in order to have federal approval of the 1963 March on Washington?  Why do you think they felt that federal approval was worth such compromise? 

#5 What do you think Zinn means by this “….but voting was not a fundamental solution to racism or poverty?”

Part 3 / Group 3 (choose only one)

#6 Why did King speak out against the war in Vietnam?  Why did he not speak out against the war earlier than he did?

#7 How was “busing” an “ingenious concession to protest”?  Did it contribute to deferring the dream (from Langston Hughes’ poem)?

Your 2 questions on the Zinn chapter need to be emailed / typed and turned in by Monday’s class period. 

If you’ve lost your chapter, here’s a copy of Howard Zinn’s book online (free), starting with Ch. 17.  http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinn17explo.html