Rethinking Schools Books

Rethinking Schools is co-coordinator (along with Teaching for Change) of the Zinn Education Project and the majority of lessons on the Zinn Education Project website originate in Rethinking Schools publications. Launched in 1986, Rethinking Schools is a nonprofit publisher working for equity and justice in public schools and the broader society. Below are teaching guides and other books published by Rethinking Schools.

Reading, Writing, and Rising Up (Teaching Guide) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

Reading, Writing, and Rising Up: Teaching About Social Justice and the Power of the Written Word

Teaching Guide. By Linda Christensen. Rethinking Schools., 2017, 2nd edition. 314 pages.
Lessons for teaching a range of writing genres while addressing social justice themes.

Teaching Activity by Linda Christensen

Rethinking Multicultural Education: Teaching for Racial and Cultural Justice

Teaching Guide. Edited by Wayne Au. Rethinking Schools. 2023 (3rd edition).
A Rethinking Schools collection of articles and lessons for multicultural, anti-racist, social justice education in K-12.

A People’s History for the Classroom

Teaching Guide. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools. 2008. 120 pages.
Lessons to introduce students to a more accurate, complex, and engaging understanding of U.S. history than is found in traditional textbooks and curricula. Published by Rethinking Schools.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

Teaching for Black Lives

Teaching Guide. Edited by Dyan Watson, Jesse Hagopian, Wayne Au. 2018. Rethinking Schools. 368 pages.
Essays, teaching activities, role plays, poems, and artwork, designed to illuminate the movement for Black students' lives, the school-to-prison-pipeline, Black history, gentrification, intersectional Black identities, and more.

Teaching a People’s History of Abolition and the Civil War

Teaching Guide. Edited by Adam Sanchez. 2019. Rethinking Schools. 181 pages.
Students will discover the real abolition story, one about some of the most significant grassroots social movements in U.S. history.

More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing

Book — Non-fiction. Edited by Jesse Hagopian. 2014. 336 pages.
A collection of essays, poems, speeches, and interviews from frontline fighters who are defying the corporate education reformers and fueling a national movement to reclaim and transform public education.

Teaching Activity by Edited by Jesse Hagopian