③ Transfer · Solve the problem

Phase 3 — Meet the problem

⛔ Gate check: only open this phase once students have finished Surface and Deep. This is where they transfer everything they built into a real, messy decision.

This is Problem-Based Learning. Students don't answer questions about Birmingham — they step inside the spring of 1963 as stakeholders, and the teacher guides rather than tells. The whole phase runs the problem-solving and decision-making process named in §113.41(c)(31)(B).

🎟️ Entry ticket — 1-minute warm-up

Problem-solving teaching · d 0.61§113.41(c)(9), (c)(31)(B)

Step 1 · Meet the Problem

Read the narrative aloud. Read it once for the story, then again for details students will need.

It is the spring of 1963, and Birmingham, Alabama, is one of the most rigidly segregated cities in America. Signs mark "white" and "colored" at every water fountain, lunch counter, and waiting room. Change through the courts has crawled; "all deliberate speed" has meant almost none at all.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and local leaders have chosen Birmingham for a campaign of nonviolent direct action — marches, sit-ins, and a boycott of downtown stores. The city's public safety commissioner, Bull Connor, answers with mass arrests. When adult volunteers run low, thousands of students step forward in what becomes the Children's Crusade — and the nation watches police dogs and fire hoses turned on young people.

King is arrested and, from his cell, writes an open letter answering white clergy who have called the protests "unwise and untimely." Some voices in the community argue nonviolence is too slow and that people have a right to defend themselves. In Washington, the Kennedy administration weighs whether — and how — the federal government should act.

The decision cannot wait. When the law itself is unjust, how should the movement push for change — and how should students, leaders, and officials respond?

First reaction (not answers yet): what did you notice? What do you wonder? Keep it open — the point is to pull students into the problem.

⚠️ Handling difficult history: the violence used against nonviolent protesters — dogs, fire hoses, arrests, and the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing — is taught here directly and with dignity as documented events. The segregationist official is represented factually as a historical position, not sanitized, not sensationalized, and not endorsed (TEC §28.0022).

🏛️ The documented events: read the concise, sourced account — National Park Service · Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument ↗ (§113.41(c)(9)).

Multiple perspectives · d 0.75§113.41(c)(28)

Step 2 · Take a stakeholder role

Assign or let students choose a stakeholder. Each will reason from that person's point of view. Every role has something real at stake in the spring of 1963.

🕊️ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — nonviolent direct action

You believe unearned suffering, borne without violence, can move a nation's conscience. How far do you press, how do you answer those who say "wait," and how do you keep the movement nonviolent?

✊ A young student activist (the sit-ins / Children's Crusade)

You are ready to march and be arrested for your own future. Should students face the dogs and hoses — and how do you weigh the risk against the power of your example?

🔥 A voice urging faster, self-defense change (in the spirit of Malcolm X)

You argue that nonviolence is too slow and that people have a right to defend themselves. How do you make the case that Birmingham's approach asks too much patience?

⛪ A white moderate clergy member ("this is not the time")

You favor gradual change through the courts and worry the protests are "unwise and untimely." How do you justify waiting — and how do you answer King's reply to you?

🏛️ A segregationist city official (in the mold of Bull Connor / Gov. Wallace)

You defend segregation and "law and order" as the existing legal order of your city and state. This role is studied as a documented historical position — represented factually, examined, and not endorsed.

🇺🇸 A federal official (the Kennedy administration)

You weigh whether and how Washington should intervene — the politics, the law, and the images from Birmingham. What can the federal government do to protect minority rights, and at what cost?

Problem-based learning · d 0.53§113.41(c)(31)(B), (c)(28)

Step 3 · Hunches → Know → Need-to-Know

Build three shared columns on chart paper. This identifies the problem and plans the inquiry — the first moves of §113.41(c)(31)(B).

💭 Hunches	✅ Know (from the text)	❓ Need to know
Our guesses about what is happening and what each side might do.	Facts we can point to (it's the spring of 1963; Birmingham is rigidly segregated; the courts have moved slowly; King leads a nonviolent campaign; students march; officials answer with arrests).	Questions we must answer — What did the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" actually argue? What was the Children's Crusade? What did the federal government do? What did the 1964 and 1965 laws change?

Turn "Need to know" into the H of KWHL: How will we find out? (which sources, whom to consult). Record it — this is the class's research plan.

Transfer strategies · d 0.75§113.41(c)(28), (c)(29)

Step 4 · Inquiry & investigation

Groups pursue their "Need to know" questions using vetted sources (see the facilitator guide for suggested public-access sources). Students gather and use valid information, applying the source routine they practiced in Phase 2. Keep filling the Learned column of KWHL as answers come in.

Teacher-as-guide moves: answer a question with a question; point to a source, not the answer; ask "How do you know?" and "Whose view is missing?"

📚 Investigation sources: NPS · Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument ↗ · LoC · Civil Rights History Project ↗ · King Institute · "Letter from Birmingham Jail" ↗ · DocsTeach · Civil Rights ↗. Full list + how-to in the facilitator guide.

Weigh & choose · d 0.75§113.41(c)(31)(B), (c)(28)

Step 5 · Propose & defend a course of action

From their stakeholder's point of view, each group develops a recommendation for how the movement should push for change in Birmingham in 1963 — and how students, leaders, and officials should respond — and defends it with evidence. Assessment happens throughout the process, not only here (the reasoning is the point).

Groups present an 8-part problem/solution brief (poster, slides, or spoken):

Title & group members (and your stakeholder role)
What is the problem?
Why is it a problem — and for whom?
Who are the stakeholders?
Options we considered (advantages & disadvantages of each)
Our recommended course of action
The evidence and sources behind it
How we'd know if it worked

Evaluation & reflection · d 0.75§113.41(c)(31)(B), (c)(9)

Step 6 · Debrief & metacognition

Close the loop — the evaluate step of the problem-solving process. Discuss across roles so students hear how the same spring of 1963 looked from every side.

Did our course of action address the real problem — an unjust law and how to change it — or just the immediate confrontation?
Did we use evidence from more than one source? Whose point of view did we still miss?
How did the crisis look different from another stakeholder's chair — a student's, a moderate clergy member's, a federal official's?
Transfer & evaluate (c)(9): knowing what followed — the March on Washington, the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 — how do you now judge the choices made in Birmingham? Where else does this decision-making process fit today?

Connect to today & to the standards: people still weigh strategy, risk, and conscience when a law seems unjust. Name the steps students just used — identify, gather, list options, weigh advantages and disadvantages, choose, implement, evaluate — that is §113.41(c)(31)(B).

🧑‍🏫 Facilitator guide & sources ✅ Assessment pack

🎫 Exit ticket — check yourself

‹ Phase 2 — Deep Unit home

Aligned to (not reproduced from) 19 TAC Ch.113 §113.41; effect sizes from Visible Learning MetaX. The Meet-the-Problem narrative is a teaching fiction grounded in the documented events of the spring of 1963.