Classroom Activities
Where the Neighborhood Ends
Set in 1956, Where the Neighborhood Ends explores issues of race and class as they relate to fair housing in Chicago. This interdisciplinary unit builds students skills in history, technology, and the language arts through a variety of research, persuasive-writing, and group-discussion activities.
Lesson 1: Mapping History
By exploring the interactive history map for Where the Neighborhood
Ends, students will gain an introduction to the issues of segregation
and public housing in 1950s Chicago.
Lesson 2: Reader's Theater
Through a reader's theater performance of Where the Neighborhood
Ends, students will develop empathy for the people of the past
and an understanding of the complex forces affecting Chicago's urban
renewal programs of the 1950s.
Lesson 3: Historical Heads
This lesson uses the "historical head" conceptual framework
derived from the work of James Percoco to explore the thoughts and
feelings of the characters in Where the Neighborhood Ends.
Lesson 4: DBQ Essay
Students will write an essay on housing discrimination and urban renewal
in Chicago using the document-based questions (DBQ) approach.
Lesson 5: Conversation in the Round
Through group discussion, students will be challenged to evaluate the
history of housing segregation in Chicago and the legacy of segregation
today. They will formulate and support their own opinions, both verbally
and in writing.