Nelson Mandela - Understanding Actions of Individuals and Civic Ideals

      As students are engaged with units of study related to the U.S. Constitution, they certainly explore the concept of citizenship and explore the topic of civic ideals. While you explore this concept, you can also extend student thinking to support students as writers. You might look at the civics portion like this (writing is included at the end of the lesson):

• Social Studies Discipline: Civics
• Concept: Citizenship
• Understand: Students will understand that an individual's actions communicate their conviction to civic ideals.
• Essential Question: How do actions reveal someone's conviction to civic ideals?
• Why is this a transferrable concept? Everyone takes ownership of their vision of citizenship and everyone develops their own understanding of what civic ideals look like within their lives. In our day to day actions, we see evidence of what people in society believe about civic ideals. Sometimes we agree with those actions, sometimes we don't. The ways people apply civic ideals might look different across time, place, or culture.
• Know: Students will know civic ideals (including freedom, rule of law, equality, civility, cooperation, respect, responsibility, and civic participation)
• Skill: Students will be able to relate and describe how group/individual actions are connected to an individual's/group's belief about civic ideals.

In this learning activity, students will engage with a multiple resources. The video shows Maya Angelou sharing a poem about Nelson Mandela. The video includes specific images and specific phrases from a poem that students might use to support the goals for this lesson.
Source One - Video: His Day is Done - Maya Angelou's Tribute Poem for Nelson Mandela

Source 2 - The Day is Done (poem)

Source 3 - 17 Inspiring Facts About Nelson Mandela (from The New Yorker)

Student task:
As writers - Use source 1 and 2 to understand how video and language are used to communicate the impact of a citizen on society.
As citizens - Use details from all sources to describe how Nelson Mandela's actions and beliefs reveal his conviction to civic ideals and society.

Assessment:
As citizens - To show you have transferred this idea, create a list of inspiring facts about someone you admire (possibly yourself). Identify how this individual's actions are related to his/her beliefs about civic ideals.
As writers - Write a poem to effectively communicate the impact of "someone you admire" on society.