Segregation: The Little Rock Nine

Objective & content

This Look Closer episode (Segregation mini-series, episode 249) is a short documentary about the Little Rock Nine. A narrator explains that in 1957 Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, was a school for white students only, although three years before the Supreme Court had said that separate schools for black and white children were against the law. In September 1957, nine black teenagers wanted to start the new school year there. The governor of Arkansas sent soldiers with orders to stop them from going in, and fifteen-year-old Elizabeth Eckford, who arrived alone, could not get into the school while an angry crowd followed her. After almost three weeks at home, President Eisenhower sent his own soldiers, who walked the nine students into the school on 25 September; pupils look closer at the photos of a soldier beside each student. The episode ends in May 1958, when Ernest Green became the first black student to finish Central High School. The hard facts are stated once, plainly, with no verdict, and the episode lands on what the nine achieved.

The narration uses the past simple, with obligation and ability in the past (had to stay, couldn't get into); no grammar point is taught. Learners listen, then answer the 10 questions in the app: 7 on facts and 3 on vocabulary (governor, the Little Rock Nine, Dwight Eisenhower). The closing question (How do you think the Little Rock Nine felt on their first day?) opens a short class discussion.

Materials & prerequisites

The folder holds the audio, the slideshow and the script; there is no lesson plan. The pupil pack and the teacher pack (answers highlighted) are one A4 page each, with the text, three pictures, the key words and the 10 questions. The folder also holds a one-page pupil sheet and a teacher sheet with the answer key. Learners should know the past simple of common verbs. The script explains its new words as it goes.