The (Young) People’s Climate Conference: Teaching Global Warming to 3rd Graders
Teaching Activity. By Rowan Shafer. Rethinking Schools.
A teacher adapts the “Climate Change Mixer” designed for older students as a springboard for a unit on global warming and climate justice. She asks, "How could I bring up an issue so big and abstract, so gloom and doom, with 3rd graders? How could I not?"
Time Periods: 21st Century
Themes: Climate Justice, Environment, Democracy & Citizenship, Laws & Citizen Rights, Native American, Organizing, World History/Global Studies
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The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond.
Students “become” several of the social groups who participated in the 1934 Longshore Workers Strike—some of whom had to answer the question, “Which side are you on?”
Time Periods: 20th Century, Prosperity, Depression, & World War II: 1920 - 1944
Themes: Labor, Organizing, Social Class
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Birth of a Rank-and-File Organizer
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 7 pages.
Writing activity for students to complete the narrative of women workers striking at a glove-making factory, exploring possible outcomes.
Themes: Labor, Organizing, Social Class, Women's History
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Blockadia: Teaching How the Movement Against Fossil Fuels Is Changing the World
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow, Adam Sanchez, and Tim Swinehart.
A role-play activity engages students in building solidarity among different groups and organizations fighting fossil fuels and searching for alternatives.
Time Periods: 21st Century, 2001 - Present
Themes: Climate Justice, Environment, Organizing
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COINTELPRO: Teaching the FBI’s War on the Black Freedom Movement
Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. 29 pages. Rethinking Schools.
Through examining FBI documents, students learn the scope of the FBI’s COINTELPRO campaign to spy on, infiltrate, discredit, and disrupt all corners of the Black Freedom Movement.
Time Periods: 20th Century, People’s Movement: 1961 - 1974, Post-Civil Rights Era: 1975 - 2000
Themes: African American, Civil Rights Movements, Democracy & Citizenship, Organizing, Racism & Racial Identity
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Dirty Oil and Shovel-Ready Jobs: A Role Play on Tar Sands and the Keystone XL Pipeline
Teaching Activity. By Abby Mac Phail. 17 pages. Rethinking Schools.
A role play on the Keystone XL Pipeline battle.
Time Periods: 21st Century, 2001 - Present
Themes: Climate Justice, Environment, Native American, Organizing, US Foreign Policy, World History/Global Studies
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Exploring Women’s Rights: The 1908 Textile Strike in a 1st-grade Class
Teaching Activity. By Dale Weiss. 3 pages. Rethinking Schools.
A teacher's reflections about a curriculum unit on women's rights contextualizes the history of the feminist movement within the broader struggle of people working for greater equality in the United States.
Time Periods: 20th Century, Turn of the Century: 1900 - 1909
Themes: Labor, Organizing, Women's History
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Food, Farming, and Justice: A Role Play on La Vía Campesina
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow, Chris Buehler, Julie Treick O'Neill, and Tim Swinehart. Rethinking Schools.
This role play invites students to take on identities of La Vía Campesina activists around the world, to compare/contrast circumstances in order to discover the common goal of “food sovereignty.”
Time Periods: 20th Century, 21st Century
Themes: Climate Justice, Environment, Food, Organizing, World History/Global Studies
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The Homestead Strike
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 10 pages.
This role play activity on the famous 1892 Homestead Strike, explores the possibility of solidarity among workers of very different backgrounds and at different levels in the workplace hierarchy.
Themes: Immigration, Labor, Organizing, Social Class
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‘If There Is No Struggle…’: Teaching a People’s History of the Abolition Movement
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 16 pages. Rethinking Schools.
In this role play, students become members of the American Anti-Slavery Society, facing many of the real challenges to ending slavery.
Time Periods: 19th Century, Early 19th Century: 1800 - 1849, Civil War Era: 1850 - 1864
Themes: African American, Civil Rights Movements, Democracy & Citizenship, Laws & Citizen Rights, Organizing, Racism & Racial Identity, Slavery and Resistance
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Labor Songs
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 7 pages.
Students explore the power of songs to build solidarity and increase understanding. This is the final activity from Bigelow and Diamond’s labor history book, The Power in Our Hands, and draws on the other lessons.
Themes: Art & Music, Labor, Organizing, Social Class
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Lawrence, 1912: The Singing Strike
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond.
Role play on the 1912 Bread and Roses strike in Lawrence, Mass.
Time Periods: 20th Century, World War I: 1910 - 1919
Themes: Art & Music, Immigration, Labor, Organizing, Women's History
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Organic Goodie Simulation
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 7 pages.
Lesson engages students in a lively simulation that helps them experience some of the pressures that lead workers to organize.
Themes: Economics, Labor, Organizing, Social Class
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Pump Up the Blowouts: Reflections on the 40th Anniversary of the Chicano/a School Blowouts
Teaching Activity. By Gilda L. Ochoa. Rethinking Schools.
Reflections on teaching students about the 1968 walkouts by Chicano students in California.
Time Periods: 20th Century, People’s Movement: 1961 - 1974
Themes: Civil Rights Movements, Education, Latinx, Organizing, Racism & Racial Identity
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“A School Year Like No Other”: Eyes on the Prize: “Fighting Back: 1957-1962”
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools.
A companion lesson to the Eyes on the Prize segment on school integration.
Time Periods: 20th Century, People’s Movement: 1961 - 1974
Themes: African American, Civil Rights Movements, Education, Laws & Citizen Rights, Organizing, Racism & Racial Identity
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Seneca Falls, 1848: Women Organize for Equality
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow.
A role play allows students to examine issues of race and class when exploring both the accomplishments and limitations of the Seneca Falls Convention.
Time Periods: 19th Century, Early 19th Century: 1800 - 1849
Themes: Civil Rights Movements, Democracy & Citizenship, Laws & Citizen Rights, Organizing, Women's History
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Sharecroppers Challenge U.S. Apartheid: The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
Teaching Activity. By Julian Hipkins III, Deborah Menkart, Sara Evers, and Jenice View.
Role play on the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) that introduces students to a vital example of small “d” democracy in action. For grades 7+.
Time Periods: 20th Century, People’s Movement: 1961 - 1974
Themes: African American, Civil Rights Movements, Democracy & Citizenship, Organizing
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Shutdown!—Confronting Plant Closures
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond.
In this role play activity, students assume the roles of union members and attempt to figure out how to respond to a threatened plant closure.
Themes: Economics, Labor, Organizing, Social Class
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The Singing Strike and the Rebel Students: Learning from the Industrial Workers of the World
Reading for Teachers. By Bill Bigelow.
Author describes how students applied strategies from the Lawrence strike to their own present day activism.
Time Periods: 20th Century, World War I: 1910 - 1919
Themes: Education, Labor, Organizing, Social Class
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Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union: Black and White Unite?
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond.
Role play on farm labor organizing in the 1930s shows how racism had to be challenged to create effective worker alliances.
Time Periods: 20th Century, Prosperity, Depression, & World War II: 1920 - 1944
Themes: African American, Labor, Organizing, Racism & Racial Identity
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