Teach the Headlines in Fall 2020

A rally at Willowbrook High School in Villa Park, Illinois. By risingthermals via Flickr.

Teach the headlines this fall with lessons from the Zinn Education Project about the climate crisis, immigration, Black Lives Matter, voter suppression, the COVID-19 pandemic, and more. See the examples below.

Teaching Activities

Meet Today’s Climate Justice Activists

Sylvia McAdam (photo) | Zinn Education Project

In this “mixer on the people saving the world,” students learn the names and stories of dozens of climate justice activists.


Repair: Students Design a Reparations Bill

Students take on the role of activist-experts to design a robust Congressional bill for reparations for African Americans.


Who Gets to Vote? Teaching the Struggle for Voting Rights in the United States

A unit with three lessons on voting rights, including the history of the struggle against voter suppression.


Who’s to Blame? A People’s Tribunal on the Coronavirus Pandemic

Who is responsible for a heinous crime, the spread of the deadly COVID-19? Students weigh the evidence.


Deportations on Trial: Mexican Americans During the Great Depression

Deportations Family Leaving | Zinn Education Project

Students analyze who is to blame for the illegal, mass deportations during the Great Depression.

Teaching SNCC: The Organization at the Heart of the Civil Rights Revolution

Investigate the activism of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, including freedom rides and voter registration.

Teach People’s History Remotely

By Sally Deng via Rethinking Schools.

In Teaching ZEP Lessons Remotely: Recommitting to the Why — If Not the How — of Our Pedagogy, we offer suggestions and resources for teaching people’s history remotely.

Teaching for Black Lives

Share your experience teaching any lesson from the Rethinking Schools book, Teaching for Black Lives, and we will send you a free copy.

Here are lessons in Teaching for Black Lives:

This offer is made possible by the contributors to the Teach the Black Freedom Struggle campaign.

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