As part of a social, economic, and legal/political civil rights study, class members brainstorm a list of current civil rights issues that affect their community and then select one issue that they think they could work to change as a class project. In the second lesson, scholars conduct a close reading of the First Amendment and the five freedoms it guarantees. They then examine the civil rights timeline to see how civil rights groups applied these freedoms to create change. Using the issue pupils chose in Lesson One and guided by the "First Amendment as a Tool for Change" worksheet, groups create plans to use all five freedoms in a service-learning project to address the issue. After groups present their plans, learners select one project to implement. Finally, young activists examine local civil rights issues presented in news media sites to determine what elements make these stories attention-grabbing and trustworthy. Using this information and their worksheets from the first two lessons in the series, groups create a multimedia presentation of their service-learning project.
