Celebrate Mandela Day today.

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges: Critical Discussion of Social Issues

Through a series of picture book read-alouds, students engage in critical discussion of complex issues of race, class, and gender.

 

Grades   3 – 5  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Literature as a Catalyst for Social Action: Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges

Students are invited to confront and discuss issues of injustice and intolerance in response to reading a variety of fiction and nonfiction texts.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Unit

Giving Voice to Child Laborers Through Monologues

Students present monologues in the "voice" of someone involved in child labor in England, respond to questions, and then discuss contemporary child laborers and compare them to the past.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Promoting Diversity in the Classroom and School Library through Social Action

Students explore the effects of stereotypes by analyzing children's books. Then they create bookmarks that encourage readers to question the assumptions of stereotyped books and to seek out matching, balanced texts.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Unit

Giving Voice to Students Through "This I Believe" Podcasts

Students write and record their own essays for a class blog by first completing a series of activities designed to get them thinking and writing about their experiences.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

I Have a Dream: Exploring Nonviolence in Young Adult Texts

Students will identify how Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of nonviolent conflict-resolution is reinterpreted in modern texts. Homework is differentiated to prompt discussion on how nonviolence is portrayed through characterization and conflict. Students will be formally assessed on a thesis essay that addresses the Six Kingian Principles of Nonviolence.

 

Grades   10 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Unit

Seeking Social Justice Through Satire: Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal"

This lesson assists advanced students in grades 10–12 in comprehending Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" and developing a presentation to satirize a contemporary social issue.

 

Grades   K – 2  |  Lesson Plan  |  Recurring Lesson

Living the Dream: 100 Acts of Kindness

This lesson provides the "action piece" for any study of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In this project, students participate in Dr. King's dream by doing 100 acts of kindness.

 

Grades   3 – 5  |  Lesson Plan  |  Unit

Moving Toward Acceptance Through Picture Books and Two-Voice Texts

Students read and discuss literature about intolerance and diversity. They work with a partner to write two-voice poems that illustrate situations of intolerance at their school and suggest a step toward acceptance.

 

Grades   2 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Captioning the Civil Rights Movement: Reading the Images, Writing the Words

Teachers guide students to carefully view images from the Civil Rights Movement and write captions that accurately describe the images and/or their probable purposes.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Unit

MyTube: Changing the World With Video Public Service Announcements

This assignment will go viral with students as they think about the meanings of words and images in public service announcements from YouTube before creating a PSA of their own.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Communicating on Local Issues: Exploring Audience in Persuasive Letter Writing

Students will research a local issue, and then write letters to two different audiences, asking readers to take a related action or adopt a specific position on the issue.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Persuading the Principal: Writing Persuasive Letters About School Issues

Students learn that you don't have to raise your voice to raise a point. Writing a persuasive letter to your principal is a great way to get your opinions heard.

 

Grades   6 – 10  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Creating a Persuasive Podcast

Students learn how to get their voice out on the web when they research issues important to them and compose a persuasive podcast to post online.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Sí, Se Puede: Making a Difference, One Letter at a Time

After reading the book ¡Si, Se Puede!/Yes, We Can!: Janitor Strike in L.A., students learn about labor unions, strikes, and organizing for change. Students interview staff members in their school to learn about their daily work life, and write persuasive advocacy letters.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Unit

Crit Lit for Kids: From Critical Consciousness to Service Learning

Students take their ideas from the classroom page to the community pavement when they participate in a service-learning project based on their multimedia presentations.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Developing Persuasive Arguments through Ethical Inquiry: Two Prewriting Strategies

In this lesson, students use focused prewriting strategies to explore content and ethical issues related to a persuasive assignment.

 

Grades   11 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Examining the Legacy of the American Civil Rights Era

As part of their study of Richard Wright's Black Boy, students research and reflect on the current black-white racial divide in America. By examining the work of literature in the context of contemporary events, students will deepen their understanding of the work and of what it means to be an American today.

 

Grades   5 – 9  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Exploring Perspectives on Desegregation Using Brown Girl Dreaming

Students read and discuss a selection of poems from Jacqueline Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming to explore varying views on the process of desegregation in America.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Unit

Fighting Injustice by Studying Lessons of the Past

Social injustice occurs every day all over the world. In this lesson, students research a few historical examples of social injustice, including the Holocaust, the Trail of Tears, and Japanese internment.

 

Grades   7 – 9  |  Lesson Plan  |  Unit

Finding Solutions to Food Waste: Persuasion in a Digital World

Using various reading strategies and resources, students explore the issue of food waste. They also create persuasive arguments and blog posts examining this topic.