WebQuest on Roll Of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Directions—Answer the questions that follow in complete sentences and be sure to restate the question in your response.

Go to www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/brown/photos.htm

to answer the questions below.

1.    Study the photographs. What stands out to you about these images? Describe the quality of life for sharecroppers.

Go to http://tinpan.fortunecity.com/kowalski/112/dictionary/sharecropping.htm

answer the questions below.

2.    Define sharecropping.

3.    How is sharecropping similar to slavery?

4.    If slavery is illegal, how is sharecropping legal?

5.  Describe the traps that tied sharecroppers to the land.

Go to www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_kkk.html

to answer the questions below.

6. What groups do the KKK oppose?

7. During what time period did the KKK have the most political power?

8. What things did the KKK do to frighten people and maintain power over nonwhites?

9. Imagine the reaction of a man being hunted by the KKK. How would it be different for his wife? for his children?

10. Mob violence occurs when a group of people become focused on a violent plan, and "feed" off one another in their excitement. Soon no one person can stop the violent events from taking place. What examples of mob violence can you think of from recent times? If you can't think of any, write a fictional event demonstrating mob violence.

Go to www.americanradioworks.org/features/remembering/laws.html to answer the question below.

11. Define Jim Crow laws. Give some examples.

Go to www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/jimcrowguide.pdf to answer the questions below.

12. In "Program One: Promises Betrayed", read the account of Ned Cobb. What does this story tell you about social power in the Jim Crow era? How has it changed from then to now?

13. In "Program One: Promises Betrayed", read the account of Addie and Jerry Holtzclaw. What does this story tell you about the importance of education to the black people of the Jim Crow era? Why do you think they felt this way?

Go to http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/peopleevents/e_lynch.html  to answer the questions below.

Read "An Apology for Injustices in History" by Jill Egan.

14. Define lynching.

15. Describe the mood of the environment in which a lynching took place.

16. What stance did local newspapers take on the event of a lynching?  Describe the coverage in the papers.

17. What effect does it seem a lynching had on those that actually did it?