Three-Way Match: Famous Black Americans

Teaching Theme of the Week

from Education World®

Grades 4-12 learn about the accomplishments of famous African American men and women using a unique three-way matching activity.

Subjects: Language Arts, Educational Technology, Social Studies

Grade Levels: 3-5, 6-8, 9-12

Objectives
Students will:

• use an online resource (Encyclopedia Brittannica's Black History Month Biographies) to learn about famous African Americans; and,
• follow directions to complete the three-way matching activity.

Keywords Black History Month, African Americans, research, online

Materials Needed

• printable: Famous African American Women ( PDF, 82K)
• printable: Famous African American Men ( PDF, 81K)
• computers

Procedure
This activity might be set up in your classroom computer center; students will rotate into the activity during the week. Or it will also work nicely as a whole-class activity to be completed in your school's computer center. Students can work independently or in pairs to complete the activity. If they work in pairs, be sure to instruct students on how to take turns; they might do that by alternating responsibility for researching and reading the material at hand and recording answers.

In this activity students will match famous African American men and women to their accomplishments and to the year in which those accomplishments occurred. Students will use the online resources of Encyclopedia Brittannica's Black History Biographies to complete the activity.

This activity is slightly different from the typical two-column matching activity with which students are familiar. In this three-way matching activity students:

• first draw a line in from the person's name in the left column to that person's accomplishment (in the middle column);
• then they draw a line from the accomplishment in the middle column to the year in which that accomplishment occurred in the far-right (third) column.

We have provided two printable work pages for this activity. One page focuses on famous African American women and the other highlights the accomplishments of African American men. You might have the boys research the men and the girls research the women, or vice versa; or you might give students a choice or have them do both activities.

• Famous African American Women ( PDF, 82K)
• Famous African American Men ( PDF, 81K)

If you find matching activities difficult to grade because the crisscrossing lines students draw are difficult to follow, you might have students alternate between using a pen and a pencil (draw lines related to number 1 in pen, number 2 in pencil, number 3 in pen?) or you might have students record their responses on the page in number/matching letter/year format, such as the following:

1. f (1922)

Assessment

Famous African American Women

1. c (1949)
2. g (1987)
3. i (1922)
4. h (1833)
5. j (1959)
6. a (1977)
7. d (1961)
8. b (1923)
9. e (1896)
10. f (1982)

Famous African American Men

1. i (1955)
2. a (1789)
3. h (1983)
4. c (1920)
5. f (1960)
6. e (1962)
7. j (1921)
8. b (1870)
9. g (1925)
10. d (1967)