Grade 8 Spring — The 20th-Century World, the Long Civil Rights Movement as Multi-Movement Struggle, and a Civics Deep-Dive (US + Global 1898–Present, K-8 History Capstone)

Lesson 5 50 min hist.g8.s.lesson_05

Russian Revolution 1917-22, Roaring Twenties, Harlem Renaissance + Great Migration 1910-70 — Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Duke Ellington

Skills targeted

Analyze Roaring Twenties + Harlem Renaissance + Great Migration: 18th Amendment Prohibition + women's changing roles + named Harlem Renaissance writers, musicians, artists; Great Migration 1910-70 6M+ Black Americans
Analyze Russian Revolution and rise of Soviet Communism 1917-1922: February + October Revolutions; USSR Dec 30 1922

Objectives

Students place Russian Revolution Feb + Oct 1917 + USSR formation Dec 30 1922 on chronology.
Students identify >=5 Harlem Renaissance figures with specific works/years.
Students explain Great Migration 1910-70 as racial-terror flight AND opportunity-pull dual cause.

Vocabulary

BolshevikMenshevikssovietProhibitionspeakeasyflapperHarlem RenaissanceGreat MigrationUNIANAACPjazzblues

Lesson plan

Warm-up

5 min

Play 30-sec Bessie Smith blues + Duke Ellington jazz clip. Display MG-12 poster. Read aloud Hughes 'I, Too' 1926 in full (8 lines).

Teacher moves

Play music clip
Read Hughes 1926
Recite TWELVE PROMISES

Direct instruction

15 min

Today covers two interwoven 1917-1939 arcs. (1) RUSSIAN REVOLUTION + SOVIET UNION: Russia entered WWI as autocracy + collapsed under war strain; February Revolution March 8-16 1917 (International Women's Day strikes Petrograd → Tsar Nicholas II abdication March 15 + Provisional Government Kerensky); Lenin returned April 16 1917 from Swiss exile via Germany sealed train; October Revolution Nov 7 1917 (Old Style Oct 25) Bolshevik Red Guards stormed Winter Palace; Treaty of Brest-Litovsk March 3 1918 ceded Ukraine + Baltics + Finland to Germany; Russian Civil War 1918-21 Red Army (Trotsky organizing) vs White Army + Allied intervention (US + UK + France + Japan) + Anarchists (Makhno); War Communism + grain requisitioning + Volga famine 1921 ~5M dead; NEP New Economic Policy 1921-28; USSR formed Dec 30 1922 (Russian SFSR + Ukrainian SSR + Byelorussian SSR + Transcaucasian SFSR); Lenin died Jan 21 1924; Stalin defeated Trotsky 1924-29; named: Lenin + Trotsky + Stalin + Aleksandra Kollontai (Commissar of Social Welfare 1917 first woman in cabinet anywhere) + Rosa Luxemburg (German Spartacist murdered Jan 15 1919). US response: Red Scare 1919-20 + Palmer Raids Nov 7 1919 + Jan 2 1920 + Sacco-Vanzetti 1920-27 + immigration restriction Emergency Quota 1921 + Johnson-Reed Immigration Act 1924 ('national origins' favoring Northern + Western European). (2) ROARING TWENTIES + HARLEM RENAISSANCE + GREAT MIGRATION: 18th Amendment Prohibition Jan 17 1920 + 21st repeal Dec 5 1933 + speakeasies + organized crime (Capone Chicago); women's changing roles (19th Amendment + flappers + Bessie Smith); Scopes Trial July 10-21 1925 Dayton TN (Darrow v. Bryan); KKK revival 1915 Stone Mountain GA + Birth of a Nation 1915 + 1925 march on Washington 50,000 hooded Klansmen + national membership ~4M by 1925. HARLEM RENAISSANCE: Locke 1925 The New Negro; Hughes 'I, Too' 1926 + 'The Negro Speaks of Rivers' 1921 + 'Let America Be America Again' 1936 + The Big Sea 1940 memoir; Zora Neale Hurston Their Eyes Were Watching God 1937 (Janie Crawford voice + Eatonville FL Black-incorporated town + Mules and Men 1935 folklore); Claude McKay 'If We Must Die' 1919 (response to Red Summer) + Home to Harlem 1928; Countee Cullen 'Heritage' 1925; Jessie Fauset Plum Bun 1929 (literary editor of The Crisis Du Bois 1919-26); Nella Larsen Passing 1929; jazz/blues Duke Ellington Cotton Club Harlem 1927-31 + Louis Armstrong Hot Five 1925-28 + Bessie Smith Empress of the Blues; visual art Aaron Douglas Aspects of Negro Life 1934 NYC public library murals + Augusta Savage Lift Every Voice and Sing 1939 NYWF; political organizing Marcus Garvey UNIA 1914 + Negro World newspaper + 1920 1st International Convention 25,000 attendees + Garvey deported 1927; Du Bois The Crisis editor 1910-34 + Dark Princess 1928; Pan-African Congresses 1919 + 1921 + 1923 + 1927. GREAT MIGRATION 1910-70 ~6M Black Americans from Southern states to Northern + Western cities — dual causation per Wilkerson 2010 The Warmth of Other Suns: push (racial terror per EJI 2017 + Jim Crow + sharecropping) AND pull (industrial labor + WWI manpower + family networks); reshapes US politics + culture + geography permanently.

Key examples

Own voice = own naming.

model Harlem Renaissance produced Black-authored literature + art + music that defined American culture; we read Hughes + Hurston + McKay + Cullen + Fauset + Larsen + Toomer + Douglas + Savage in their own voice per MG-14 PROMISES. Per Q10 SURVIVOR-OWN-VOICE-CENTERED: own-voice was the whole point.

prompt Why centered Harlem Renaissance own-voice writers?
Both/and.

model Wilkerson 2010: push (Jim Crow + lynching) AND pull (industrial labor); not either/or. ~6M moved 1910-70 — one of largest internal migrations in human history. Reshaped Chicago + Detroit + NYC + LA + Oakland demographics + politics + culture.

prompt Great Migration causes?

Checks for understanding

Name 2 Russian Revolution phases.
Name 5 Harlem Renaissance figures with specific works.
Per Wilkerson 2010 what is the dual causation of Great Migration?

Sourcework

Media


        M-8-S-CUL-05-A

Chart

24x36 poster; left half Prohibition + speakeasies + flappers + Scopes + KKK; right half Harlem Renaissance (Hughes + Hurston + McKay + Cullen + Fauset + Larsen + Ellington + Armstrong + Bessie Smith + Douglas + Savage + Garvey + Du Bois + The Crisis); centerfold Great Migration map 1910-70 ~6M Black Americans.


        MG-12

Chart

MG-12 ROARING TWENTIES + HARLEM RENAISSANCE poster — 24x36; left half: 18th Amendment Prohibition Jan 17 1920 + 21st repeal 1933 + speakeasies + organized crime + flappers + women's changing roles + Scopes Trial 1925 + KKK revival 1915 Birth of a Nation; right half: Harlem Renaissance (Langston Hughes 'I, Too' 1926 + Zora Neale Hurston Their Eyes Were Watching God 1937 + Claude McKay + Countee Cullen + James Weldon Johnson + Jessie Fauset + Nella Larsen + Duke Ellington + Louis Armstrong + Bessie Smith + Aaron Douglas + Augusta Savage + Marcus Garvey UNIA 1914 + The Crisis Du Bois ed.); centerfold: Great Migration map 1910-70 6M+ Black Americans leaving the South.


        M-8-S-CUL-05-B

Chart

18x24 chart; Feb + Oct Revolutions 1917 + Russian Civil War 1918-21 + USSR formation Dec 30 1922; named Lenin + Trotsky + Stalin + Kollontai + Luxemburg; US Red Scare 1919-20 + Palmer Raids + Sacco-Vanzetti + 1924 immigration quotas.


        MG-11

Chart

MG-11 RUSSIAN REVOLUTION + SOVIET UNION 1917-22 chart — 18x24; February + October Revolutions 1917 (Kerensky → Lenin); Bolshevik takeover + Russian Civil War 1918-21 + Red Army v. White Army; Treaty of Brest-Litovsk March 1918; USSR formed Dec 30 1922; named: Lenin + Trotsky + Stalin + Aleksandra Kollontai (women's rights) + Rosa Luxemburg (German Spartacist); Pittsburgh Courier + Black press coverage.


        M-8-S-CUL-05-C

Photograph

Composite portrait Langston Hughes + Zora Neale Hurston + Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club + Louis Armstrong + Bessie Smith + Marcus Garvey + Du Bois with The Crisis covers + Aaron Douglas mural detail + Augusta Savage Lift Every Voice 1939; caption naming each by full name + 2-3 line bio.

Guided practice

10 min

Tasks

Pairs: assigned 1 Harlem Renaissance figure; produce 3-min present-out with primary source + Q1+Q3+Q11.

scaffold Figure-specific source packet
VNPS: build Great Migration map showing top 10 origin-destination pairs (e.g. Mississippi → Chicago) with 3 named families per pair.

scaffold Pre-filled origin-destination pair list per Wilkerson 2010

Independent practice

12 min

Media


        M-8-S-CUL-05-D

Audio Physical / non-image

Audio recording of Langston Hughes 'I, Too' 1926 read by Black orator (e.g. Danny Glover or contemporary Black poet); 1 minute; classroom listening with text projected.

Formative assessment

5 min

Exit ticket

Name Bolshevik leader + date of October Revolution.
Name 3 Harlem Renaissance figures with works.
Explain Wilkerson 2010 dual causation.

scoring 3 correct = mastery; 2 = practicing; 0-1 = reteach

Closure

5 min

Moves

Add 1 sticky to MG-6
Preview Lesson 6: Great Depression + New Deal

Homework

15 min

Tasks

Read Hughes 'I, Too' 1926 + write 1 paragraph applying MG-7 Q1+Q3+Q11+Q12.

Exercises in this lesson

hist.g8.s.ex_09 Place in correct chronological order: (a) October Revolution Nov 7 1917; (b) February Revolution March 8-16 1917; (c) USSR formed Dec 30...	ordered sequence · diff 2
hist.g8.s.ex_10 Match each Harlem Renaissance figure to their work: (a) Langston Hughes; (b) Zora Neale Hurston; (c) Claude McKay; (d) Duke Ellington;...	matching · diff 2
hist.g8.s.ex_11 In 3-4 paragraphs analyze Hughes 'I, Too' 1926: identify ≥3 rhetorical strategies + claim about American identity + relationship to...	essay · diff 4

Differentiation

Scaffolds

MG-12 figure-specific source packets
Sentence frames
Audio narration of Hughes by Black orator

Extensions

Memorize Hughes 'I, Too' 1926 + perform
Read Hurston Their Eyes ch. 1 + apply MG-7 12-Q

English Learners

Bilingual primary-source editions (Spanish + Mandarin + Vietnamese + Tagalog + Arabic + Russian + Haitian Creole + ASL gloss)
Pre-teach vocabulary
Audio narration by community-elder voice

Ieps 504s

MG-15 alternative-assignment option (where MG-15 active)
Reduced text (key paragraphs only)
Extended time
Voice-to-text option

Teacher notes

Lesson 5 weaves two storylines. Hughes 'I, Too' 1926 is memorized by all students. Wilkerson 2010 dual-causation Great Migration framing is non-negotiable. Garvey + Du Bois debate previewed (Lesson 16 returns to Black Power).