We Refuse Discussion Questions
Questions to accompany Chapter One: Revolution of We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance by Kellie Carter Jackson.
Continue reading
Resource Type: Teaching Activities (Free)
“We the People”: Whose Rights Does the Constitution Protect?
Teaching Activity. By Jesse Hagopian. 40 pages.
A lesson to help students consider not just what the Constitution says, but what it leaves out.
Continue reading
A lesson to help students consider not just what the Constitution says, but what it leaves out.
Why Did the United States Invade Venezuela? Student Inquiry
Teaching Activity. By Jesse Hagopian. 2026. 24 pages.
Students are invited to explore competing explanations for U.S. intervention in Venezuela and then develop their own hypothesis.
Continue reading
Students are invited to explore competing explanations for U.S. intervention in Venezuela and then develop their own hypothesis.
Teaching “Mexican Repatriation”: Uncovering Histories of Deportation and Belonging
Teaching Activity. By Erin Green. 2025. Rethinking Schools.
A 5th-grade teacher engages students in a unit on the forced deportation of 2 million Mexicans and Mexican Americans from the United States during the Great Depression.
Continue reading
A 5th-grade teacher engages students in a unit on the forced deportation of 2 million Mexicans and Mexican Americans from the United States during the Great Depression.
The People v. the Hip-Hop Industry
Teaching Activity. By Jessica A. Rucker. 2021. Rethinking Schools.
A high school teacher and her students question “Who owns and controls hip-hop?” — and put the hip-hop industry on trial.
Continue reading
A high school teacher and her students question “Who owns and controls hip-hop?” — and put the hip-hop industry on trial.
Rethinking Teaching About the USPHS Untreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee: A Revision that Centers Resistance
Teaching Activity. By Gretchen Kraig-Turner. 2024. Rethinking Schools.
A high school science teacher revises her lesson on the USPHS Untreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee to center resistance.
Continue reading
A high school science teacher revises her lesson on the USPHS Untreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee to center resistance.
Hunger on Trial: An Activity on the Irish Potato Famine and Its Meaning for Today
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools. 13 pages.
A trial role play helps students reflect on responsibility for the deaths of Irish peasants during the so-called potato famine.
Continue reading
A trial role play helps students reflect on responsibility for the deaths of Irish peasants during the so-called potato famine.
Union Maids
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 5 pages.
Activity for students to write from the point of view of one of the women featured in the film Union Maids.
Continue reading
Activity for students to write from the point of view of one of the women featured in the film Union Maids.
Stealing Home: Eminent Domain, Urban Renewal, and the Loss of Community
Teaching Activity. By Linda Christensen. Rethinking Schools. 9 pages.
Teaching about patterns of displacement and wealth inequality through the history of Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop communities and the building of Dodger Stadium.
Continue reading
Teaching about patterns of displacement and wealth inequality through the history of Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop communities and the building of Dodger Stadium.
What We Don’t Learn About the Black Panther Party — but Should
Teaching Activity. By Adam Sanchez and Jesse Hagopian. Rethinking Schools. 33 pages.
A mixer lesson introduces students to the pivotal history of the Black Panthers.
Continue reading
A mixer lesson introduces students to the pivotal history of the Black Panthers.
Poetry of Defiance: How the Enslaved Resisted
Teaching Activity. By Adam Sanchez.
Through a mixer activity, students encounter how enslaved people resisted the brutal exploitation of slavery. The lesson culminates in a collective class poem highlighting the defiance of the enslaved.
Continue reading
Through a mixer activity, students encounter how enslaved people resisted the brutal exploitation of slavery. The lesson culminates in a collective class poem highlighting the defiance of the enslaved.
How to Make Amends: A Lesson on Reparations
Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca, Alex Stegner, Chris Buehler, Angela DiPasquale, and Tom McKenna.
Students meet dozens of advocates and recipients of reparations from a variety of historical eras to grapple with the possibility of reparations now and in the future.
Continue reading
Students meet dozens of advocates and recipients of reparations from a variety of historical eras to grapple with the possibility of reparations now and in the future.
Repair: Students Design a Reparations Bill
Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca.
In this activity, students take on the role of activist-experts to improve upon a Congressional bill for reparations for Black people. They talk back to Congress’ flimsy legislation and design a more robust alternative.
Continue reading
In this activity, students take on the role of activist-experts to improve upon a Congressional bill for reparations for Black people. They talk back to Congress’ flimsy legislation and design a more robust alternative.
Teaching With Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All
Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. 25 pages.
Students engage in an interactive activity with short excerpts from Martha Jones’ book to learn about the leading role of Black women in the fight for voting rights throughout U.S. history.
Continue reading
Students engage in an interactive activity with short excerpts from Martha Jones’ book to learn about the leading role of Black women in the fight for voting rights throughout U.S. history.
“Founding” Documents We Don’t Learn About
Teaching Activity. By Mimi Eisen. 2025. 51 pages.
A set of primary source documents and teaching activities reveal a profound cast of voices from the era of the American Revolution. None of them are “Founding Fathers.”
Continue reading
A set of primary source documents and teaching activities reveal a profound cast of voices from the era of the American Revolution. None of them are “Founding Fathers.”
“Semiquincentennial Blues” – Teaching the 250th Anniversary of the United States through Blues Poetry
Teaching Activity. By Jesse Hagopian. 2025. 19 pages.
A lesson for the 250th anniversary of the U.S. founding exploring the blues as both a cultural art form and a vehicle for political resistance.
Continue reading
A lesson for the 250th anniversary of the U.S. founding exploring the blues as both a cultural art form and a vehicle for political resistance.
Race, Class, and the Constitutional Convention
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 2025. 36 pages.
This is a unit with three lessons. The first invites students to think critically about key issues that confronted the framers of the Constitution — examining the perspectives not only of the elites attending the actual Constitutional Convention, but also of enslaved African Americans, poor white farmers, and white workers. The other two lessons are: The Constitutional Convention: Who Really Won? — with students exploring whose interests the Constitution advanced — and Federalist Paper #10: Suppressing “Wicked Projects,” a critical reading activity on James Madison's seminal defense of the Constitution.
Continue reading
This is a unit with three lessons. The first invites students to think critically about key issues that confronted the framers of the Constitution — examining the perspectives not only of the elites attending the actual Constitutional Convention, but also of enslaved African Americans, poor white farmers, and white workers. The other two lessons are: The Constitutional Convention: Who Really Won? — with students exploring whose interests the Constitution advanced — and Federalist Paper #10: Suppressing “Wicked Projects,” a critical reading activity on James Madison's seminal defense of the Constitution.
Beyond Loyalists and Patriots
Teaching Activity. By Tiferet Ani and Mimi Eisen. 2026. 27 pages.
In this mixer lesson, students surface choices and outcomes navigated by an array of Black and Indigenous people in the American Revolution to examine what freedom meant to those excluded from it at the U.S. founding.
Continue reading
In this mixer lesson, students surface choices and outcomes navigated by an array of Black and Indigenous people in the American Revolution to examine what freedom meant to those excluded from it at the U.S. founding.