How to Check a Marcus Garvey Lesson Plan
Marcus Garvey is one of the most misquoted people of the twentieth century. A lesson can look careful and still hand children words he never said. Here are eight checks you can run on any Garvey lesson in about ten minutes, ours included.
Check where each quotation came from, whether the words are really his, whether the lesson uses his own writing, whether it tells the hard parts, whether the dates are right, whether the reading level is stated, whether standards are named, and whether a child has real work to do.
Score each check 0, 1 or 2. A lesson that scores 13 or more out of 16 is worth your class time, whoever made it.
Eight Questions to Ask Any Lesson
Does every quotation name its source?
A real quotation names a book and a page or volume, so anyone can look it up.
Look for a title such as The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, Message to the People, or The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, and a page, lesson or volume number.
Warning signA quotation with no source, or a source with the wrong date. Philosophy and Opinions was not published in 1919.
Can you find the words in that source?
Pick one quotation and search for it in the named book. The exact words should be there.
This takes two minutes and tells you more than any promise on a product page. If you do not have the book, the Marcus Garvey GPT checks a quotation against a closed set of his writings. It is a research aid, so confirm anything important in the book itself.
Warning signWords in quotation marks that turn out to be a paraphrase. Also, the most shared line about history and roots is not Garvey’s. It belongs to Charles C. Seifert.
Does the lesson use his own writing?
Students learn most from his own words, and a good lesson labels which words are his and which are the author’s.
A summary is useful, but students should also read at least one passage in Garvey’s own words and be told where it comes from.
Warning signA passage written in his voice with no note saying who wrote it.
Does it tell the hard parts?
A fair lesson tells what he built, what went wrong, and who worked against him.
The Black Star Line was a real shipping company, and its ships had real troubles. Garvey was tried for mail fraud and convicted in 1923, and the federal Bureau of Investigation had agents inside his organization. He was pardoned on 19 January 2025. The record for all of it is in Robert A. Hill’s Papers.
Warning signA lesson that only celebrates, or a lesson that only says “fraud.” Either one leaves out half of the record.
Are the dates and names right?
Check one date against a scholar’s timeline before you teach it.
Robert A. Hill’s Papers include a chronology for each period. One date is enough to show whether the author checked the record.
Warning signA flag, a ship or a speech placed before it existed. The red, black and green flag was unveiled in August 1920, so a ship sailing in 1919 cannot be flying it.
Is the reading level stated?
An age range says who a lesson is for, and a reading level says how hard the words are. A good lesson gives both.
A twelve-year-old and a fourteen-year-old can read the same book at different speeds. Knowing the reading level helps you decide whether to read it aloud or hand it over.
Warning signOnly “grades 6 to 12” and nothing else.
Are the standards named?
Look for the exact standard codes on the product page, such as CCSS RI.6.1.
The codes tell you what a lesson teaches. If your state uses different standards, the codes still show you the skill.
Warning signThe word “aligned” with no standards listed.
Does a child do real work with it?
A good lesson asks a child to find evidence, judge it and write, and not only to read and answer.
Look at the student pages. The work should ask for a claim, proof from the text, and a reason.
Warning signOnly coloring, word searches or trivia questions that a child can answer without reading.
Score Any Lesson Out of 16
Score each check 2, 1 or 0. Use the words in the row as your guide. Keep the score with the lesson so you can compare two lessons side by side.
| Check | 2Yes | 1Partly | 0No or not shown | Your score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Sources | Every quotation names a book and a page or volume. | Some do. | None do, or a source is wrong. | ___ |
| 2 Words found | You found your test quotation in the named source. | You found it in different words. | You could not find it. | ___ |
| 3 His own writing | Students read his words, labeled as his. | Only summaries of his words. | Text in his voice with no label. | ___ |
| 4 Hard parts | Tells what he built, what went wrong, and who worked against him. | Tells one side well and mentions the other. | Only celebrates, or only says “fraud.” | ___ |
| 5 Dates and names | The date you checked matches a scholar’s timeline. | No dates given to check. | A date, flag, ship or speech is out of place. | ___ |
| 6 Reading level | Age or grade range and reading level are both stated. | Only one of them. | Neither. | ___ |
| 7 Standards | Exact standard codes are listed. | Says “aligned” with no codes. | Nothing about standards. | ___ |
| 8 Real work | Students find evidence, judge it and write. | Students read and answer questions. | Only coloring, puzzles or trivia. | ___ |
Total: ___ out of 16
A lesson is only as good as the quotations it stands on.
How We Check Ourselves
We trace each quotation to a source we hold
Every Garvey quotation we publish traces to a primary source we have read: The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, Message to the People, The Black Man magazine, and volumes of The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers. We log each quotation with its source and location. If we cannot verify a line, we hold it back.
Our work stands on scholarship
We draw on the writing of Robert A. Hill, Tony Martin, Rupert Lewis, John Henrik Clarke and Amy Jacques Garvey.
We name the standards and the reading level
Our one-hour lesson plans list their Common Core standards on the Teachers Pay Teachers page. The Arturo Schomburg lesson, for example, is tagged RI.6.1, RI.7.1, RI.8.1, W.6.1, W.7.1 and W.8.1. The Story of Marcus Garvey is written at about a sixth-to-seventh-grade reading level, and we state that apart from its age range.
We correct our mistakes in public
If you find an error in anything we publish, tell us at info@thegarveyclassroom.com. Our FAQ explains how we handle corrections.
Run the eight checks on a lesson you already own, then on ours. If a lesson from The Garvey Classroom scores below 13, tell us which check it missed.
Confidence is your birthright.