Theme: Art & Music

Below are books and lessons for K-12 on art and music.
For teachers looking for posters and other artwork for their classrooms, check out People’s History Artists for the Classroom.
   

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.
Teaching Activity by Norm Diamond
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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.
Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow
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Union Maids (Teaching Activity) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

Union Maids

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 4 pages.
Activity for students to write from the point of view of one of the women featured in the film Union Maids.
Teaching Activity by Norm Diamond
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Remembering Mahmoud Darwish

Teaching Activity. By Naomi Shihab Nye and Linda Christensen. 4 pages.
An essay, poem, and teaching idea utilizing famous Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish's work to help students "name the invisible forces that imprison them."
Teaching Activity by Linda Christensen
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Sun City – A Teaching Guide

Teaching Guide. By Bill Bigelow. 6 pages.
Lessons to accompany the 1985 video "Sun City" that promoted the cultural boycott of South Africa initiated by Little Steven van Zandt of Bruce Springsteen’s E St. Band.
Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow
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I and I: Bob Marley

Picture book. By Tony Medina. Illustrations by Jesse Joshua Watson. 2009. 48 pages.
The life of Bob Marley told through poems and illustrations.
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I See the Rhythm

Picture book. By Toyomi Igus and Michele Wood. 2005. 32 pages.
A lyrical voyage through 500 years of African American music, from its roots in Africa to contemporary hip-hop for ages 6+.
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Sing a Song How Lift Every Voice and Sing Inspired Generations (book cover) | The Zinn Education Project

Sing a Song: How Lift Every Voice and Sing Inspired Generations

Picture book. By Kelly Starling Lyons. Illustrated by Keith Mallett. 2019. 32 pages.
The 120-year history of the song through generations of her family who have passed it on — starting with a young girl who learned it in 1900 in Jacksonville, Florida, from her principal (James Weldon Johnson) and his brother.
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1919 by Eve Ewing book cover

1919

Book — Non-fiction. By Eve L. Ewing. 2019. 96 pages.
Poetic reflections on the Chicago Race Riots of 1919 — part of 'Red Summer' — in a history told through Ewing's speculative and Afrofuturist lenses.
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Artists in Times of War

Artists in Times of War

Book — Non-fiction. By Howard Zinn. 2004. 112 pages.
In this collection of four essays, Zinn writes about the unique role of artists, activists, and publishers in working toward change.
Teaching Activity by Howard Zinn
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