- Zinn Education Project

Andrew Jackson and the “Children of the Forest”

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 5 pages.
A lesson in which students develop critical literacy skills by responding to Andrew Jackson's speech on "Indian Removal."

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

The Cherokee/Seminole Removal Role Play

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 10 pages.
What led up to the Trail of Tears? In this lesson, students learn about the decision to remove the Cherokee and Seminole people from their lands.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

Echoes of Enslavement

Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca.
Students discover “echoes of enslavement” in their own state — discrete sites of remembering, forgetting, honoring, lying, or distorting — in this lesson based on the book How the Word Is Passed by Clint Smith.

The Fugitive's Song | Zinn Education Project

Frederick Douglass Fights for Freedom

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 7 pages.
A lesson to introduce students to the numerous and varied ways African Americans resisted their enslavement, using the autobiographical Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

Irish Potato Famine | Zinn Education Project

Hunger on Trial: An Activity on the Irish Potato Famine and Its Meaning for Today

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools. 5 pages.
A trial role play helps students reflect on responsibility for the deaths of Irish peasants during the so-called potato famine.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

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.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

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.

Reading Between the Lines: An Art Contest Helps Students Imagine the Lives of Runaway Slaves

Teaching Activity. By Thom Thacker and Michael A. Lord. Rethinking Schools. 4 pages.
An art contest is used as the basis from which students can examine primary historical documents (advertisements for runaway slaves) to gain a deeper understanding of the institution of slavery in the North.

Reclaiming Hidden History: Students Create a Slavery Walking Tour in Manhattan

Teaching Activity. By Alan J. Singer. Rethinking Schools. 7 pages.
How a teacher and his students organized a tour of the hidden history of slavery in New York.

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton | Zinn Education Project

Seneca Falls, 1848: Women Organize for Equality

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 17 pages.
A role play allows students to examine issues of race and class when exploring both the accomplishments and limitations of the Seneca Falls Convention.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

U.S.–Mexico War Tea Party - Spanish Version | Zinn Education Project

U.S. Mexico War: “We Take Nothing by Conquest, Thank God”

Teaching Activity. Lesson by Bill Bigelow and student reading by Howard Zinn. Rethinking Schools. 21 pages.
Interactive activity introduces students to the history and often untold story of the U.S.-Mexico War. Roles available in Spanish.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

Who Fought to End Slavery? Meet the Abolitionists

Teaching Activity. By Adam Sanchez, Brady Bennon, Deb Delman, and Jessica Lovaas.
This mixer role play introduces students to the stories of famous and lesser-known abolitionists, through biography and investigation.

The Line Between Us (Book) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

The Line Between Us: Teaching About the Border and Mexican Immigration

Teaching Guide. By Bill Bigelow. 2006. 160 pages. Rethinking Schools.
Lessons for teaching about the history of U.S.–Mexico relations and current border and immigration issues.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

The Bobbin Girl

Picture book. By Emily Arnold McCully. 1996. 36 pages.
Historical fiction for upper elementary based on a true story about the Lowell textile workers.

Midnight Teacher 9781620141632 | Zinn Education Project

Midnight Teacher: Lilly Ann Granderson and Her Secret School

Picture book. By Janet Halfmann. Illustrated by London Ladd. 2018. 40 pages.
Tells the story of Lilly Ann Granderson, an enslaved woman who taught hundreds of people in Kentucky and Mississippi to read.

The Birchbark House

Book — Fiction. By Louise Erdrich. 1999. 244 pages.
Historical fiction set in the mid-19th century in the Lake Superior area.

Chickadee

Book — Fiction. By Louise Erdrich. 2012. 208 pages.
The fourth book in the series following the Ojibwe girl Omakayas and her family as their lands are invaded by white settlers.

Never Caught: The Story of Ona Judge

Book — Non-fiction. By Erica Armstrong Dunbar and Kathleen Van Cleve. 2019. 272 pages.
This is the true story of Ona Judge who escaped from enslavement by George and Martha Washington.

Passenger on the Pearl: The True Story of Emily Edmonson’s Flight from Slavery

Book — Non-fiction. By Winifred Conkling. 2015. 176 pages.
Young adult biography about Emily Edmonson who was one of 77 who attempted to escape slavery in Washington, D.C.

A Peoples History of the United States Book | Zinn Education Project

A People’s History of the United States: 1492 – Present

Book — Non-fiction. By Howard Zinn. 2005, with a new introduction by Anthony Arnove in 2015. 784 pages.
Howard Zinn's groundbreaking work on U.S. history. This book details lives and facts rarely included in textbooks—an indispensable teacher and student resource.