Teaching Materials Archive

Portrait of Palestinian family of Ramallah, circa 1900-1910.

Teaching the Seeds of Violence in Palestine-Israel

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 2024. 33 pages.
A mixer/mystery activity on Zionism, anti-Zionism, peasant resistance, the Great War, the British Mandate, and more.

Independence or Catastrophe? Teaching Palestine Through Multiple Perspectives

Teaching Activity. By Samia Shoman. Rethinking Schools. 2014.
A social studies teacher uses conflicting narratives to engage students in studying the history of Palestine and Israel, focusing on the events of 1948.

The Heroes We Need Today: Teaching About the Radical Ida B. Wells

Teaching Activity. By Matt Reed. Published by Rethinking Schools. 2023.
This mixer activity helps students uncover the radical legacy of Ida B. Wells.

Five Black women who served as officers of the Women’s League in Newport, Rhode Island.

Teaching the Reconstruction Revolution: Picturing and Celebrating the First Era of Black Power

Teaching Activity. By Adam Sanchez. 2022. Rethinking Schools.
A lesson that help students understand, imagine, and celebrate the Reconstruction period as the first era of Black power in the United States.

Rosa Parks and Ericka Huggins at a Black Panther Party free breakfast program.

Framing Black Power Through the Life of Rosa Parks

Teaching Activity. By Tiffany Mitchell Patterson and Jessica Rucker.
In this lesson, students explore the core ideas of Black Power through a gallery walk with images and quotes connected to the life of Rosa Parks, and then consider how to define Rosa Parks’s activism.

Rosa Parks Lived a Long and Active Life, So Why Is This Timeline So Boring and Short?

Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. 3 pages.
This timeline activity builds on students’ viewing of the 2022 film, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, and involves collaborating on a new timeline of Mrs. Parks' life.

“Intolerable Conditions”: Teaching About Northern Racism Through Rosa Parks’s Detroit

Teaching Activity. By Say Burgin, Jeanne Theoharis, and Ursula Wolfe-Rocca.
Students learn to “talk back” to official accounts of the Detroit Uprising of 1967 by focusing on its root causes. They also get a fuller sense of Rosa Parks’s life and politics, and the Black freedom struggle outside of the South.

How the Word Is Passed: Discussion Questions, Writing Prompts, and Teaching Ideas

Teaching ideas and discussion questions for How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith.

Classroom filling with water | Zinn Education Project

Teaching About Climate Change

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 2009. Rethinking Schools.
The environmental crisis requires a profound social and curricular rethinking.

collage of six Black abolitionists in the United States.

‘If There Is No Struggle…’: Teaching a People’s History of the Abolition Movement

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools. 16 pages.
In this lesson, students explore many of the real challenges faced by abolitionists with a focus on the American Anti-Slavery Society.

Lewis Hine’s Photographs

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson. Rethinking Schools. 4 pages.
Using photographs to spark creative writing and critical thinking about child labor issues and social justice.

Beautiful Trouble Toolbox

Teaching Guide. A collection of strategic tools and training opportunities for movement organizers.

Colin in Black and White: The Kaepernick Curriculum

Teaching Guide. Presented by Ra Vision Media & Know Your Rights Camp. 2022. 85 pages.
In conjunction with the Netflix series of the same name, this teaching guide provides students with resources and activities to understand and address systemic and institutional racism.

Challenge Islamophobia

Lessons and resources to place Islamophobia firmly within a U.S. context and shared cultural history.

Teaching Critically About Lewis and Clark: Challenging Dominant Narratives in K–12 Curriculum

Book — Non-fiction. By Alison Schmitke, Leilani Sabzalian, Jeff Edmundson. 2020. 216 pages.
This much-needed guide unpacks the colonial narrative that dominates most mainstream histories of the Corps of Discovery expedition.

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.

Rethinking Ethnic Studies

Teaching Guide. Edited By R. Tolteka Cuauhtin, Miguel Zavala, Christine Sleeter, Wayne Au. Rethinking Schools. 2019. 363 pages.
Brings together many of the leading teachers, activists, and scholars to offer examples of Ethnic Studies frameworks, classroom practices, and organizing at the school, district, and statewide levels.

The New Teacher Book (Book) | Zinn Education Project

The New Teacher Book: Finding Purpose, Balance, and Hope During Your First Years in the Classroom

Teaching Guide. Edited By Linda Christensen, Stan Karp, Bob Peterson, Moé Yonamine. Rethinking Schools. 2019. 376 pages.
Offers practical guidance on how to flourish in schools and classrooms and connect in meaningful ways with students and families from all cultures and backgrounds.

Rhythm and Resistance: Teaching Poetry for Social Justice

Teaching Guide. Edited by Linda Christensen and Dyan Watson. Rethinking Schools. 2015. 262 pages.
Lessons and poetry to help students develop writing skills, build community, and create a vision of a future with justice.

The Power of the Story: The Voice of Witness Teacher’s Guide to Oral History

Teaching Guide. Edited by Cliff Mayotte. 2013 (2nd edition).
A guide to explore contemporary issues through oral history, and to develop the communication skills necessary for creating oral history projects in communities.

New York and Slavery: Time to Teach the Truth

Teaching Guide. By Alan J. Singer. 2008. 178 pages.
Narrative description of slavery in the north and strategies for engaging young people as historians on the topic.

Rethinking Popular Culture and Media

Teaching Guide. Edited by Elizabeth Marshall and Özlem Sensoy. Rethinking Schools. 2011. 330 pages.
Collection of essays that offer strong critiques and practical teaching strategies about what is "popular" and the messages being communicated by mass media.

Beyond Tolerance: A Resource Guide for Addressing LGTBQI Issues in Schools

Teaching Guide. Published by New York Collective of Radical Educators. 2010.
A curricular resource guide on Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Bisexual, Questioning, and Intersex (LGBTQI) for educators.

Columbus and Las Casas

Teaching Activity. By Gayle Olson-Raymer. 15 pages.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 1 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on Columbus' arrival in the "New World," and the contrasting accounts of Bartolome de Las Casas and Eduardo Galeano.

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.