- 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.

Statues of Native Americans walking, representing the Trail of Tears, in Florida

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

Promoting Social Imagination Through Interior Monologues

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Linda Christensen. Rethinking Schools. 3 pages.
Empathy, or "social imagination," allows students to connect to "the other" with whom, on the surface, they may appear to have little in common.

Teaching Activity by Linda Christensen

A photograph of Black Panther children in a classroom with their teacher, Evon Carter, widow of Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter, at the Intercommunal Youth Institute, the Black Panther Party school.

‘What We Want, What We Believe’: Teaching with the Black Panthers’ 10-Point Program

Teaching Activity. By Wayne Au. Rethinking Schools. 7 pages.
How students can use the Black Panther Party's 10-Point Program to assess issues in their own communities and to develop 10-Point Programs of their own. Available in Spanish.

Teaching Activity by Wayne Au

The Color Line

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 6 pages.
A lesson on the countless colonial laws enacted to create division and inequality based on race. This helps students understand the origins of racism in the United States and who benefits.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

The Power in Our Hands: A Curriculum on the History of Work and Workers in the United States

Teaching Guide. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 1988. 184 pages.
Role plays and writing activities project high school students into real-life situations to explore the history and contemporary reality of employment (and unemployment) in the U.S.

Teaching Activity by Norm Diamond

The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Film. 2002. 4 episodes — 56 minutes each.
Documentary on the history of the Jim Crow era.

Japanese American Internment Featured Image

A Lesson on the Japanese American Internment

Teaching Activity. By Mark Sweeting. Rethinking Schools. 4 pages.
How one teacher engaged his students in a critical examination of the language used in textbooks to describe the internment.

Who Freed the Slaves (Material) | Zinn Education Project

Timeline on the Civil War and Abolition

Student Handout. By Bill Bigelow. 3 pages.
This timeline can be used as a resource for lessons on the Civil War, President Lincoln, the 54th Regiment, and the end of slavery.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

School Days: Hail, Hail, Rock ‘n’ Roll!

Teaching Activity. By Rick Mitchell. Rethinking Schools. 10 pages.
Description of a course on the history of music in the United States.

Race and Membership in American History: The Eugenics Movement

Teaching Guide. By Alan Stoskopf. Facing History and Ourselves. 2002.
Resources for teaching about the eugenics movement in the United States.

The War to Free the Slaves (Material) | Zinn Education Project

A War to Free the Slaves?

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 7 pages.
Students explore some of the myths of the Civil War through examining excerpts from Lincoln’s first inaugural address, the rarely mentioned original Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution that Lincoln promised to support, and the Emancipation Proclamation.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

Testing, Tracking, and Toeing the Line: A Role Play on the Origins of the Modern High School

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools. 13 pages.
A role play on the origins of the modern high school allows students to question aspects of schooling they often take for granted, such as tracking (“ability grouping”) and standardized testing — and to reflect on the racial biases of these so-called reforms.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

Walkout

Film. Produced by Moctesuma Esparza. 2006. 111 minutes.
Walkout tells the true story of the Chicano students of East L.A., who in 1968 staged several dramatic walkouts in their high schools to protest academic prejudice and dire school conditions.

Race — The Power of an Illusion

Film. By California Newsreel. 2003. Three episodes – 56 minutes each.
A three-part documentary series that questions the very idea of race as biology.

Depiction of rioters and police during the New York City draft riots of 1863.

The Draft Riot Mystery

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 9 pages.
Students are invited to solve a mystery, using historical clues, about the real story of the Draft Riots.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

Book — Non-fiction. By James W. Loewen. 2018. 480 pages.
Provides a detailed critique of 12 leading high school history textbooks.

Open Minds to Equality: A Sourcebook of Learning Activities to Affirm Diversity and Promote Equity

Teaching Guide. By Nancy Schniedewind and Ellen Davidson. 4th Edition. Rethinking Schools. 2014. 408 pages.
Full of activities to help students explore inequalities and cooperation.

The First Slaves

Teaching Activity. By Gayle Olson-Raymer.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 2 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on early American slavery, resistance, and rebellion.

Indian Removal

Teaching Activity. By Gayle Olson-Raymer. 18 pages.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 7 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on the American policy of "Manifest Destiny" and Native American resistance to their own displacement.

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.

Pump Up the Blowouts: Reflections on the 40th Anniversary of the Chicano/a School Blowouts

Teaching Activity. By Gilda L. Ochoa. Rethinking Schools. 5 pages.
Reflections on teaching students about the 1968 walkouts by Chicano students in California.

Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union: Black and White Unite?

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 12 pages.
Role play on farm labor organizing in the 1930s shows how racism had to be challenged to create effective worker alliances.

Teaching Activity by Norm Diamond

What the Tour Guide Didn’t Tell Me: Tourism, Colonialism, and Resistance in Hawai’i

Teaching Activity. By Wayne Wah Kwai Au. Rethinking Schools. 5 pages.
Lesson on the history of Hawai'i and the impact of colonization and tourism.

On the Road to Cultural Bias: A Critique of The Oregon Trail

Article. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools.
Critique of the popular "Oregon Trail" computer game.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow