Teaching Outside the Textbook

The Zinn Education Project is giving away classroom sets (25 books per set) of Howard Zinn’s best-seller, A People’s History of the United States, to 20 teachers who submit 2-4 page stories about how they teach a people’s history in the classroom. A total of 500 books to be given away! Books have been donated by HarperCollins.

We have provided some questions to help elicit the reason, use, and impact of your teaching a people’s history story.

Deadline is Monday, April 26.

Guidelines

The responses should be in narrative form, from 2 to 4 pages in length. Please address these questions in your narrative response.

Reason
When did you first start using A People’s History of the United States and/or the Zinn Education Project materials in the classroom? Why?

Use
List the Zinn Education Project teaching activity that you used and/or excerpt(s) from A People’s History of the United States. Describe the class you used it in and why you selected it. If you used a Zinn Education Project teaching activity, did you modify it? If so, how? If you used an excerpt from A People’s History of the United States, how did you use it? (That is, not just as a reading assignment. Describe the lesson or teaching activity.)

Impact
What impact did using an excerpt or teaching activity have on students? What comments did they make, what insights did they gain, what questions did they have? Student quotes are encouraged. Did you face any pushback or criticism using these materials? Did this impact your use of the book or teaching activities?

Submission Details

You must be registered for the Zinn Education Project website to qualify.

Send story submissions by 9pm EST on Monday, April 26, to: submissions@zinnedproject.org.

Include your:
Name
City and State
Email Address
Subject and Grade

Remember, there are 20 opportunities to get a classroom set of A People’s History of the United States!

If more than 20 stories are submitted, we will randomly select the 20 teachers to receive the class sets.