Linda Christensen

Linda Christensen

Linda Christensenhas taught high school language arts in Portland, Oregon for almost 40 years. She is the Director of the Oregon Writing Project at Lewis & Clark College. She currently co-teaches an 11th-grade language arts class at Jefferson High School in Portland, Oregon, with Dianne Leahy. She is the author of Reading, Writing, and Rising Up: Teaching about Social Justice and the Power of the Written Word and Teaching for Joy and Justice: Re-imagining the Language Arts Classroom, both published by Rethinking Schools.

All Content By This Author

Burning Tulsa: The Legacy of Black Dispossession

Resource Types: Articles
By Linda Christensen
The author describes teaching about racist patterns of murder, land theft, displacement, and wealth inequality through the 1921 Tulsa Massacre.

The term “race riot” does not adequately describe the events of May 31 - June 1, 1921 in Greenwood, a Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In fact, the term itself implies that both Blacks and whites might be equally to blame for the lawlessness and violence. The historical record documents a sustained and murderous assault on Black lives and property. This assault was met by a brave but unsuccessful armed defense of their community by some Black World War I veterans and others.

Rethinking Elementary Education

Resource Types: Teaching Guides
Page Length: 360
Teaching Guide. Edited by Linda Christensen, Mark Hansen, and Bob Peterson. Rethinking Schools. 2012. 360 pages.
The best collection of writing from Rethinking Schools magazine about how to teach for social justice at the elementary level. Published by Rethinking Schools.
Daisy Bates, Little Rock 9, and NAACP officers | Zinn Education Project

Warriors Don’t Cry: Connecting History, Literature, and Our Lives

Resource Types: Teaching Activities (Free)
Page Length: 21
Teaching Activity. By Linda Christensen. Rethinking Schools. 21 pages.
Role play and writing activities for language arts and social studies on Brown v. Board and the Little Rock Nine. Designed for use with the memoir Warriors Don’t Cry.

Remembering Mahmoud Darwish

Resource Types: Teaching Activities (Free)
Page Length: 4
Teaching Activity. By Naomi Shihab Nye and Linda Christensen. 4 pages.
An essay, poem, and teaching idea utilizing famous Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish's work to help students "name the invisible forces that imprison them."
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