African American Biography Task Cards - Black History Month Activities

80 notable African Americans who were pioneers in their fields are profiled in these Black History mini biographies. This African American history task card resource helps your students develop their writing, speaking and listening skills. Included are 16 ways to use these Black American biographies. You can use this resource during Black History Month or anytime you're teaching Black History or American History classes. Please open the Preview to see a list of all the famous Black Americans included in this resource.

Resource at a Glance:

★ What will students learn?

* Basic facts about the lives of 80 influential Black Americans who were born between 1720 and 1960.

* How to use facts and phrases to write a short biography about important African American people.

★ Who is it for?

* All students, including English Language Learners at an intermediate and higher level of language proficiency.

★ How does it help teachers?

* Students learn about famous and not-so-famous African Americans who had an impact on U.S. American history.

* Students practice their skills in writing, grammar and mechanics by transforming the information on task card biographies into complete sentences and paragraphs.

* 2 models of biographies are provided for students at different levels of writing proficiency.

* Suggestions for other activities extend students’ learning.

* An included rubric saves teachers time if they want to assess their students’ written work.

What educators who have used this resource say about it:

♥ "I love all of the different ways you can use these task cards!" -- Angelica M.

♥ "These are perfect for my ELL students!" -- Meghan S.

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What you get in this product:

★ A table of contents for easy reference (1 page)

★ A Notes to the Teacher section with explanatory information (1 page)

★ A list of the ELA Common Core standards addressed (1 page)

★ 4 sample WIDA Model Performance Indicators (1 page)

★ 16 ideas for using the task cards (1 page)

★ Student materials for 2 game activities (2 pages)

★ An evaluation rubric for writing tasks (1 page)

★ Model task card biography with 2 example paragraphs at different levels of writing complexity (1 color page and 1 black-and-white page for a total of 2 pages)

★ 80 biographies of important African Americans, 4 per page (20 pages)

★ Photographs of all 80 people in a poster collage plus student answer sheet and answer key for accompanying student activity (3 pages)

More Info:

Every task card presents basic biographical information plus some interesting facts about an African American who was born in the 18th, 19th, or 20th century.

Simple instructions for doing 9 types of activities (16 ideas total) are included. Activities such as writing various types of paragraphs, categorizing the task cards, giving presentations, creating posters, doing research, doing map and timeline activities, practicing note-taking, picture identification, and playing games are all described. The versatility of these task cards makes them ideal not just for Black History Month but also Language Arts, Social Studies, and even Science classes any time of the year or whenever you are teaching African American or Black history.

Your students will be inspired by the achievements of these African American scientists, diplomats, inventors, aviators, doctors, educators, businesspeople, politicians, athletes, soldiers, musicians, lawyers, nurses, abolitionists, novelists, singers, civil rights activists, explorers, poets, mathematicians, journalists, women's rights activists, and judges that are highlighted on the task cards. You can find a list of all the people profiled on these biography task cards on P. 3 of the Preview.

The information on the task cards is not presented in complete sentences because one of the suggested activities is for students to write paragraphs about the people. By transforming the keywords and fragments into complete sentences, and including a topic sentence and a closing, students practice writing good paragraphs and learn some history at the same time. You can use these task cards to do other types of writing activities, too. An evaluation rubric is included so you can easily assess your students' writing.

To use the task card biographies, just print them out and cut them apart on the dotted lines. Laminating the task cards so they last longer is recommended but not required. Some activities can take up an entire period and some can be implemented in shorter amounts of time. Depending on the activity, students can work on their own, in pairs or small groups, or as the whole class. Some of the activities can also be used in writing centers.

This resource is appropriate for ELLs at an intermediate level of language proficiency (such as WIDA Levels 3 and up) and if you work in a WIDA Consortium state, 4 sample Model Performance Indicators are included. ELLs at a lower level of language proficiency (such as WIDA Level 2) may be able to do a few of the suggested activities and these are listed in the teacher notes.

In addition, if you work in a Common Core state, a list of ELA standards this resource addresses is included.

Some of your students may be familiar with several of the 80 people profiled but there are probably many other African Americans included in this resource whom they have never heard of before. Here's a list of all the people included (in alphabetical order by last name):

Hank Aaron, Mohammad Ali, Maya Angelou, Louis Armstrong, Arthur Ashe, Crispus Attucks, James Baldwin, Benjamin Banneker, William James Basie, Mary McLeod Bethune, Guion Stewart Bluford, Jr., Edward Brooke III, Ralph Bunche, George Washington Buckner, William H. Carney, Stokely Carmichael, George Washington Carver, Oscar Charleston, Shirley Chisholm, Eldridge Cleaver, Bessie Coleman, Benjamin Oliver Davis, Sr., Martin Robison Delany, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Paul Dunbar, Katherine Dunham, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, Duke Ellington, Medgar Evers, James Forten, Marcus Garvey, Althea Gibson, Prince Hall, Fannie Lou Hamer, Lorraine Hansberry, Dorothy Height, Matthew Henson, Zora Neale Hurston, Mae Jemison, Jack Johnson, James W. Johnson, Katharine Johnson, Frederick M. Jones, Ernest Everett Just, Maulana Karenga, Martin Luther King, Alain LeRoy Locke, Joe Louis, Mary Eliza Mahoney, Thurgood Marshall, Elijah McCoy, Garrett Morgan, Toni Morrison, Jesse Owens, Satchel Paige, Rosa Parks, Colin Powell, A. Philip Randolph, Hiram Revels, Paul Robeson, Jackie Robinson, Bill Russell, Dred Scott, Mary Church Terrell, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Charles Henry Turner, Madam C.J. Walker, Booker T. Washington, Ethel Waters, Ida B. Wells, Phillis Wheatley, L. Douglas Wilder, Roy Wilkins, Camilla Williams, Cathay Williams, Daniel Hale Williams, Carter G. Woodson, Malcolm X.

As an educator of English Language Learners, most of my students were members of racial and/or ethnic minorities. I wanted my BIPOC middle schoolers to see themselves reflected in the materials we used and activities we did in my classroom as they developed their language skills. This resource was created with that idea in mind.

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You might also like:

★ Black History Month Reading Passage, Crossword & Word Search Puzzles, Poster

★ Martin Luther King Day Word Search & Crossword Puzzles

★ Women in America & Around the World Biography Task Cards BUNDLE

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Common Core Standards © Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved. Any claims of correlation or alignment to the CCSS Standards are solely those of The ESL Nexus and have not been evaluated or endorsed by the NGA. The ESL Nexus is the sole creator of this product and does not claim endorsement or association with the creators of the CCSS standards.

Any claims of correlation or alignment to the WIDA ELD standards are solely those of The ESL Nexus and have not been evaluated or endorsed by the WIDA Consortium. The ESL Nexus is the sole creator of this product and does not claim endorsement or association with the creators of the WIDA standards.

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