Literacy test

High school (ages 12+)
People & Society

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/literacy-test

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the period of significant use?From the 1850s to the 1960s, with peak discriminatory use post-Reconstruction
2. Why were literacy tests used in the past?They were used to keep certain groups, especially Black people in the U.S. and some immigrants, from voting or entering the country.
3. How did literacy tests unfairly treat people?The questions were very hard or strange, and the people who gave the test could choose who passed, so many good readers were stopped from voting.

Disenfranchisement: The act of depriving a person or group of the right to vote or other civic privileges.
Grandfather Clause: A legislative provision exempting certain existing cases from a new rule, often used to bypass voting rights for Black citizens.
Jim Crow Laws: State and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States, often including literacy tests.
Suffrage: The right to vote in political elections.