Teacher Resources

Civil Rights Movement / Communities / Community Helpers / Families / Founding Fathers / Holidays / Immigration / Rules / Slavery / Suffragists / Westward Expansion

Civil Rights Movement

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‘63 Boycott Six-Lesson Curriculum from YURI Project, Kartemquin Films, & Mikva Challenge
This curriculum pairs with the documentary short, '63 Boycott about when 250,000 students boycotted the Chicago Public Schools to protest racial segregation in 1963.
An LGBTQ+ Inclusive Social Studies: Curricular and Instructional Considerations by Bárbara C. Cruz & Robert W. Bailey for Social Education
In this article, authors discuss the state of LGBTQ+ inclusion in the K-12 curriculum, make the case for LGBTQ+ inclusive social studies, and offer some pedagogical suggestions for the integration of this content into the mainstream curriculum.
Bayard Rustin from the National Museum of African American History & Culture
This article provides a brief biography of Rustin, a key organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and was one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s closest advisors, especially on techniques of nonviolent resistance. Early in his career, he was arrested for “moral cause” which led to his outing to the public. However, once outed, Rustin was completely open about his sexuality and was never ashamed. Criticism and discrimination over his sexuality led Rustin to play more of a background role in the Civil Rights Movement.
Civil Rights Teaching from Teaching for Change and Putting the Movement Back Into Civil Rights Teaching edited by Deborah Menkart, Alana Murray, & Jenice L. View
The Civil Rights Movement is celebrated in our national narrative as a people’s struggle for social justice. However, the powerful stories of everyday people organizing and working together for social change are lost in the teaching of a few major heroes and dates. This website, a supplement to the book, provides lessons, handouts, news, and resources for teaching about the role of everyday people in the Civil Rights Movement.
Claudette Colvin Is Fighting to Clear Her Record by Brigit Katz for Smithsonian Magazine
As this article explains, Colvin was a civil rights pioneer who pushed back against segregation nine months before Rosa Parks’ landmark protest but has long been overlooked.
Critical Historical Thinking: When Official Narratives Collide With Other Narratives by Cinthia Salinas, Brooke Blevins, & Caroline C. Sullivan for Multicultural Perspectives
In this article the authors examine The Student as Historian project in highlighting how critical historical thinking can provide other and more complex renditions of history.
Even Though He Is Revered Today, MLK Was Widely Disliked by the American Public When He Was Killed by James C. Cobb for Smithsonian Magazine
This article reminds readers that 75% of Americans disapproved of the civil rights leader as he spoke out against the Vietnam War and economic disparity.
Exploring Stonewall and the Gay Liberation Movement (Teaching Guide) from the Digital Public Library of America
This teaching guide helps instructors use a specific primary source set, Stonewall and Its Impact on the Gay Liberation Movement, in the classroom. It offers discussion questions, classroom activities, and primary source analysis tools.
Filipino American Farmworkers from Asian Americans Advancing Justice Los Angeles
Using excerpts from the PBS documentary Asian Americans, this lesson explores the experiences and contributions of Filipino American farmworkers in the fields of California’s Central Valley during the mid-1960s. Together, Filipino and Mexican Americans engage in a five-year-long workers’ strike and boycott against the California grape industry.
First Graders' Inquiry Into Multicolored Stories of School (De)Segregation by Sohyun An for Social Studies & the Young Learner
This article explains why it’s problematic to leave the multicolored history of school segregation out of social studies curriculum, provides a brief overview of the multicolored history of school (de)segregation, and shares resources for teaching about Alice Piper, Sylvia Mendez, and Mamie Tape—Indigenous, Mexican, and Chinese American, respectively, who fought against segregated schooling.
The Gray Panthers: About Us from Gray Panthers NYC
Gray Panthers believe in active engagement for achieving social and economic justice and peace. On their website, they explain how they work to create a humane society; eliminate injustice, discrimination, ageism wherever they exist; and bring together young and old, women and men of all backgrounds and orientations, to work in unison, with mutual trust and respect.
“I Question America... Is This America?” Learning To View the Civil Rights Movement Through An Intersectional Lens by Amanda E. Vickery & Cinthia S. Salinas
This qualitative case study investigates how two preservice elementary teachers crafted narratives of Black women in the Civil Rights Movement using an intersectional lens. The preservice teachers examine the intersecting identities of women in the past and present in order to present a more complex narrative of the Civil Rights Movement to elementary students.
Introducing Yuri Kochiyama from the National Portrait Gallery Introducing YouTube Channel and the Smithsonian Learning Lab
Part of a series of portrait talks, this six-minute video examines a photograph portrait of Yuri Kochiyama with biographical information about this important activist.
Justice Pedagogy: Grade 1-3 Students Challenge Racist Statues by Meir Muller for Social Studies & the Young Learner
Young children often encounter symbols glorifying prejudice and inequity through monuments and place names. When that happens, children need cognitive and emotional tools to process their experiences in a thoughtful and informed manner. To address the discomfort or lack of confidence and expertise that teachers may feel, this article describes a justice-based project implemented by preservice teachers pursuing early childhood education certification.
Life Under Apartheid: Teaching with Primary Sources from PBS Learning Media
This inquiry kit uses Library of Congress sources about the history of apartheid and South Africa's racial segregation policies.
The Limits of Master Narratives in History Textbooks: An Analysis of Representations of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Derrick Alridge for Teachers College Record
Textbooks present prescribed, oversimplified, and uncontroversial narratives of King that obscure important elements in his life. Such master narratives permeate most history textbooks and deny students critical lenses through which to examine, analyze, and interpret social issues today. This article concludes with suggestions about how teachers might begin to address the current problem of master narratives and offer alternative approaches to presenting U.S. history.
The Long Civil Rights Struggle by Jacqueline Dowd Hall for The Journal of American History
This classic article explores how confining the civil rights struggle to the South, to bowdlerized heroes, to a single halcyon decade, and to limited, noneconomic objectives creates a master narrative that simultaneously elevates and diminishes the movement. It prevents one of the most remarkable mass movements in American history from speaking effectively to the challenges of our time.
Lowndes County, the Voting Rights Act, and the Birth of the Original Black Panther Party by Hasan Kwame Jeffries for Zinn Education Project
The story of Lowndes County, Alabama offers an excellent case study on the history of the voting rights struggle after the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. This article and interview with the author provide teacher's important background knowledge.
Mighty Times: The Children’s March by Learning for Justice
This short documentary tells the story of how the young people of Birmingham, Alabama, braved fire hoses and police dogs in 1963 to protest segregation. Their heroism complements discussions about the ability of today's young people to be catalysts for positive social change. A teacher kit is available.
Much Bigger Than A Hamburger: Disrupting Problematic Picturebook Depictions of the Civil Rights Movement by Noreen Naseem Rodríguez & Amanda E. Vickery
While more diverse children's literature about youth activism is available than ever before, popular picturebooks often perpetuate problematic tropes about the Civil Rights Movement. In this article, researchers conduct a critical content analysis of the award-winning picturebook The Youngest Marcher and contrast the book's content to a critical race counterstory of the Movement focused on the collective struggle for justice in the face of racial violence.
The Myth-Busting History of Edna Griffin by Katy Swalwell & Jennifer Gallagher for Civil Rights Teaching
Edna Griffin’s life’s work provides a powerful counter narrative to the traditional framing of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. She was a woman living in the North who used court cases, boycotts, sit-ins, and protests to improve her community starting well before 1954. This overview of her life includes teaching suggestions.
Native American Activism: 1960s to Present by Lauren Cooper for Zinn Education Project
The financial and colonial drive that usurps Native peoples ways of life is not just relegated to the past; it continues today. This article provides an overview of struggle and achievement since the late 1960s.
Organizing for Voting Rights: Lessons from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee from the Zinn Education Project’s Teach the Black Freedom Struggle online classes
During the first session of this series of webinars, Charles Payne shares stories and analysis from the oral histories he collected on the grassroots, intergenerational organizing for voting rights in Mississippi with Cierra Kaler-Jones. Their hope is that students can apply lessons from SNCC to challenge widespread voter suppression today.
Remembering 1882 from the Chinese Historical Society of America
This virtual collection of resources from a traveling exhibit, a museum theater performance, and a symposium of legal and historical experts details fights for civil rights in the wake of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
Rosa Parks’ Biography: A Resource for Teaching Rosa Parks from Jeanne Theoharis, Say Burgin, and Jessica Murray
Drawing on numerous archival sources and The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks by Jeanne Theoharis, this website provides a fuller and more accurate history for people to teach and learn about Rosa Parks.
Sakada Filipinos & the ILWU (Hawai’i Sugar Strike) from The Sakada Series
This short essay provides an overview of the decades of struggle leading up to the multiethnic 1946 sugar strike in Hawai’i. The Sakadas played a lead role in the fight for labor equality within the plantation system within the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) that helped to ensure the victory of union strikes.
Teachers’ Curricular Choices When Teaching Histories of Oppressed People: Capturing the Civil Rights Movement by Katy Swalwell, Anthony Pellegrino, & Jenice L. View
This paper investigates what choices teachers made and what rationales they offered related to the inclusion and exclusion of primary source photographs for a hypothetical unit about the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. Researchers explore how teachers' choices constructed a sanitized narrative of the Civil Rights Movement that largely avoided a discussion of racism.
What We Don’t Learn About the Black Panther Party, But Should by Adam Sanchez & Jesse Hagopian for Rethinking Schools
To introduce the film Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution by Stanley Duncan, these educators developed a mixer activity in which each student takes on a role of someone who was in or connected to the Black Panthers. The roles include a thumbnail sketch of each person's biography along with details that help illuminate aspects of the party. In all of the roles, students are exposed to various reasons why people joined the Black Panther Party.
Why Did Ruby Bridges Stand Up? from C3 Teachers and Syracuse City School District
This inquiry guides students through an investigation of the actions of Ruby Bridges during the CIvil Rights Movement. By investigating the compelling question, students examine how Ruby Bridges participated in the Civil Rights Movement, what issues and problems led to the integration of public schools, and the dangers that Ruby Bridges faced—including white adults who protested her attending school.
Writing Latino/a Historical Narratives by Cinthia Salinas, María Fránquiz, & Noreen Naseem Rodríguez for Urban Review
The story of el movimiento—the Latina/o civil rights movement—as represented in the official school curriculum is an example of the challenge of teaching the complex history of the United States. This article examines elementary pre-serivce teachers creating journey boxes, a collection of primary sources (firsthand accounts), to teach students about this important social movement in U.S. history.
Young Children As Activists: Celebrating Black History Month & Marian Wright Edelman’s Work by Brigitte Emanuelle Dubois for Social Studies & the Young Learner
This article teaching kindergarteners about the life of Marian Wright Edelman, the subject of a school-wide Black History Month study at a pre-K-8 grade independent school, and the culminating demonstration near the White House organized by students to advocate for the needs and rights of children.

Communities

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Borders by Sajany Jinny Menon and Muna Saleh for D. G. Krutka, A. M. Whitlock, & M. Helmsing (Eds.) Keywords in the Social Studies: Concepts and Conversations
This chapter provides a description of how border-making, border-crossing, and dwelling within borders are being perceived, experienced, spoken about, discussed, and storied in schools.
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
This book describes how the American government systematically imposed residential segregation with undisguised racial zoning; purposefully segregated public housing; subsidies for builders to create whites-only suburbs; tax exemptions for institutions that enforced segregation; and support for violent resistance to African Americans in white neighborhoods.
Decolonizing Place in Early Childhood Education by Fikile Nxumalo
This book draws attention to the urgent need for early childhood education to critically encounter and pedagogically respond to the entanglements of environmentally damaged places, anti-blackness, and settler colonial legacies. Drawing from the author’s multi-year participatory action research with educators and children in suburban settings, the book highlights Indigenous presences and land relations within ongoing settler colonialism as necessary, yet often ignored, aspects of environmental education.
Engaging Geography At Every Street Corner by Bryan Smith for The Social Studies
The researcher explores an often overlooked feature of everyday life that can serve as a powerful heuristic for young students to engage history and geography critically: everyday place-names.
“I Didn’t Know There Were Cities in Africa!” by Brenda Randolph & Elizabeth DeMulder for Learning for Justice
This article explores common stereotypes about African environments, customs, traditions and cultural realities and how important it is to examine and challenge them for children.
Muslims & Mapping by TeachMideast
This lesson plan helps students learn to think critically about maps by exploring the diversity of the +1 billion people who belong to the community of Muslims throughout the world.
Native-land.ca by Native Land Digital
Native Land Digital includes a searchable map to learn more about the treaties and Indigenous Nations/Peoples around the world, a teacher’s guide, and other helpful resources.
The True Size Tool by James Talmage and Damon Maneice
Every map projection introduces distortion, and each has its own set of problems. Inspired by an episode of The West Wing and an infographic by Kai Krause entitled "The True Size of Africa," this tool was created to help teachers show their students just how big different parts of the world actually are.
Promoting Critical Thinking & Inquiry Through Maps in Elementary Classrooms by Ava L. McCall for The Social Studies
This article encourages elementary teachers to help students critically analyze maps in order to help them become well-informed and civic-minded citizens.
Seeing Through Maps: Many Ways to See The World by Denis Wood, Ward L. Kaiser, & Bob Abramms
This book challenges the popular world-view by questioning a number of map images and the specific messages they communicate.
Whose Culture Has Capital? by Tara Yosso for Race Ethnicity and Education
This article epxlores various forms of capital nurtured through cultural wealth, including aspirational, navigational, social, linguistic, familial and resistant capital. This approach to education involves a commitment to develop schools that acknowledge the multiple strengths of Communities of Color in order to serve a larger purpose of struggle toward social and racial justice.
Local Culture Guides by Wisconsin Teachers of Local Culture
By uncovering the connections between local culture and the curriculum, this website offers integrated lessons and resources for students and teachers that link with academic standards and place specific, local knowledge in a broad context.

Community Helpers

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Becoming Abolitionists by Derecka Purnell
This book explores issues related to police reform through a commitment to create and support different answers to the problem of harm in society—and to reduce and eliminate that harm at its roots.
“Courage to Take on the Bull”: Cultural Citizenship in Fifth-Grade Social Studies by Anna Falkner & Katherina A. Payne for Theory & Research in Social Education
This case study of one white fifth grade teacher and her two classes of culturally and linguistically diverse students shows how she created opportunities for students to use and learn about cultural citizenship.
A Dream and A Bus: Black Critical Patriotism in Elementary Social Studies Standards by Christopher L. Busey & Irenea Walker for Theory & Research in Social Education
This article examines how Black resistance, activism, and intellectual agency are represented in K–5 social studies standards across the United States. Findings revealed that Black critical patriotism is limited to temporal freedom movements and emphasizes individual acts of patriotism as opposed to sociopolitical traditions of Black collective resistance. Researchers conclude with recommendations for elementary teachers to excavate standards in order to more accurately contextualize Black history and racialized citizenship.
From Margins to Center: Developing Cultural Citizenship Education Through the Teaching of Asian American History by Noreen Naseem Rodríguez for Theory & Research in Social Education
By (re)defining the terms Asian American and American (citizen), this article explores how teachers enacted cultural citizenship education through the use of counternarratives and children’s literature that disrupted normative conceptualizations of citizen.
Kids Are Wondering About Police from the Portland Child Care Collective
Kids often ask questions that may seem tricky for adults to answer— “is my favorite police officer on tv a bad guy?” “My [family member] is a police officer. Can I still love them?” “Police are always nice to me. Why are people mad at them?” These slides offer support for engaging students in honest, age-appropriate conversations with kids about the harmful role police can hold in our society.
“My Mom’s Job Is Important”: When Students Study Work by Matt Witt for Rethinking Schools
Studying work/labor is a good way to encourage interaction between students, parents, community residents, and teachers. This article examines ideas for bringing people from the community into the classroom to talk about their work and sending students out to investigate.
Police As “Helpers”: Social Studies Content Standards and Dominant Narratives of Law Enforcement by Suneal Kolluri & Kimberly Young for Educational Researcher
While police in marginalized communities are widely viewed as illegitimate, implicated in a long history of violence, and embedded in structures of oppression, K-12 social studies standards convey them as the opposite. In this article, researchers discuss the implications of this curricular dissonance for marginalized communities.
Repurposing Our Pedagogies from the Education for Liberation Network
A recorded panel talk about abolitionist teaching in a global pandemic addresses issues of teaching about community helpers. Panelists include Stephanie Cariaga, Bettina Love, Sagnicthe Salazar, Carla Shalaby, Marylin Zuniga, Farima Pour-Khorshid, and Chrissy A. Z. Hernandez.
The Tensions Between Indigenous Sovereignty and Multicultural Citizenship Education by Leilani Sabzalian for Theory & Research in Social Education
This article examines how the erasure of Indigenous citizenship, nationhood, and sovereignty permeates multicultural citizenship education. By focusing on Indigenous studies scholarship that complicates structural inclusion as the goal of citizenship education, the researcher advocates for citizenship education that explicitly counters colonialism and supports Indigenous sovereignty.
What Does It Mean to Be Patriotic? Policing Patriotism in Sports and Social Studies Education by Andrea M. Hawkman & Selena E. VanHorn for The Social Studies
Authors discuss the relationship between social studies education and patriotism and share two lesson plans that examine the racialized and politicized experiences of three professional athletes: Gabby Douglas, Colin Kaepernick, and Megan Rapinoe.
Woke Wonderings: Police Abolition from Woke Kindergarten
This short slideshow set of prompts helps young children imagine alternatives for keeping communities safe. Other resources on this site include read alouds and supports for early childhood educators.

Families

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The Adoption History Project by Ellen Herman
This website introduces the history of child adoption in the United States by profiling people, organizations, topics, and studies that shaped adoption during the twentieth century.
Alternative Strategies for Family History Projects by Meredith McCoy, Leilani Sabzalian, & Tommy Ender for The History Teacher
Genealogy and family history projects can be an excellent way to foster students’ sense of identity, connect them to their heritage and relatives, and invite students to think about the kind of ancestor they want to be for future generations. However, current iterations of K-12 classroom family history projects often present a less expansive version of family connection that privileges Eurocentric, nuclear, and heteronormative expectations. This article explores how these projects can inadvertently marginalize and exclude students from a variety of backgrounds, including Indigenous students, students whose ancestors were enslaved, adopted students, and refugee students.
Away from Home: American Indian Boarding School Experiences from the Heard Museum, edited by Margaret Archuleta, Brenda J. Child, and K. Tsianina Lomawaima
This online exhibit examines the U.S. government aimed to assimilate American Indians into “civilized” society by placing Native children in government-operated boarding schools, far-away institutions where students were trained for servitude and many went for years without familial contact. These events that still have an impact on Native communities today.
Dancing Our Own Steps: A Queer Families' Project by Kath Reid for The International Journal of Narrative Therapy & Community Work
This paper examines the Queer Families project, which sought to explore diverse meanings of ‘family’, and ways of ‘living’ family. It draws on the history of the skills, practices, hopes, and dreams that family members brought to their versions of ‘family’, and uses the metaphor of ‘family as a verb’ to explore alternatives ways of doing ‘families of choice.’
Disarming the Nuclear Family by Willow McCormick for A. Butler-Wall, K.Cosier, R. Harper, J. Sapp, J. Sokolower, & M. Bollow Tempel’s (Eds.) Rethinking Sexism, Gender, and Sexuality
This essay is about creating a classroom book that reflects the diverse range of students' families using Families by Susan Kuklin as a mentor text.
First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage (Equality): Welcoming Diverse Families in the Elementary Classroom by Selena E. VanHorn & Andrea Hawkman for Social Studies & the Young Learner
The use of trade books to foster discussion of historical events and major Supreme Court decisions in the elementary classroom can serve as a powerful method through which elementary students can begin to see themselves as active contributors to the communities and worlds in which they live. In this article and the accompanying lesson plan, researchers share ways to teach about Supreme Court decisions, specifically the decisions that have affected marriage equality.
Funds of Knowledge for Teaching: Using a Qualitative Approach to Connect Homes and Classrooms by Luis C. Moll, Cathy Amanti, Deborah Neff and Norma Gonzalez for Theory Into Practice
This classic article explores teaching in ways that draw upon the knowledge and skills found in local households. Researchers' claim is that by capitalizing on household and other community resources, teachers can organize classroom instruction that far exceeds in quality the rote-like instruction children commonly encounter in schools.
Making Up for Lost Time: The Experience of Separation and Reunification Among Immigrant Families by Cerola Suårez‐Orozco, Irina L.G., Todorova, & Josephine Louie for Family Process
In the process of migration, families undergo profound transformations that are often complicated by extended periods of separation between loved ones—not only from extended family members, but also from the nuclear family. Qualitative data from youth, parent, and teacher perspectives of separation and reunification provide evidence that the circumstances and contexts of the separations lead to a variety of outcomes.
Queer Decisions in Early Childhood Teacher Education: Teachers as Advocates for Gender Non-Conforming and Sexual Minority Young Children and Families by Janice Kroeger & Lis Regula for International Critical Childhood Policy Studies Journal
This article discusses the use of biological knowledge(s) and fuller understandings of sexuality versus gender as fluid constructs. Reseachers focus on the current challenges for full inclusion as well as anti-bias responses, rather than bully prevention, to support LGBT+ young children and/or their families as well as current advocacy skills that teachers need in order to support children and their families reach their fullest potential.
Queer Families: Valuing Stories of Adversity, Diversity and Belonging by Christy E. Newman for Culture, Health & Sexuality
This commentary proposes three new ways of understanding and valuing accounts of what family means to LGBTQ communities, based on emerging findings from social research studies. It argues that in post-marriage equality contexts, teachers should help students celebrate the differences that exist within every community, including within diverse forms of families.
Working with Parents and Children Separate at the Border: Examining the Impact of the Zero Tolerance Policy and Beyond by Cristina Muñiz de la Peña, Lisa Pineda, and Brenda Punsky for Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma
This article provides an overview of the historical and socio-political context of family separation policies in the US, and a thorough description of the implementation and consequences of recent policies.

Founding Fathers

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Constitution Role Play: Whose “More Perfect Union”? and The Constitutional Convention: Who Really Won? by Bill Bigelow for the Zinn Education Project
The U.S. Constitution endorsed slavery and favored the interests of the owning classes. What kind of Constitution would have resulted from founders who were representative of the entire country? That is the question addressed in this role play activity.
The Counter Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America by Gerald Horne
For European colonists, the major threat to security in North America was a foreign invasion combined with an insurrection of the enslaved. And as 1776 approached, London-imposed abolition throughout the colonies was a very real and threatening possibility—a possibility the founding fathers feared could bring the slave rebellions of Jamaica and Antigua to the thirteen colonies. In this book, the author shows how the so-called Revolutionary War was in large part a conservative movement that the founding fathers fought in order to preserve their liberty to enslave others—and which today takes the form of a racialized conservatism and a persistent racism targeting the descendants of the enslaved.
Founding Myths: Stories That Hide Our Patriotic Past by Ray Raphael
This book revisits the original myths of the Founders and further explores their evolution over time, uncovering new stories and peeling back new layers of misinformation. This new edition also examines the highly politicized debates over America’s past, as well as how our approach to history in school reinforces rather than corrects historical mistakes. Raphael also wrote The First American Revolution and A People’s History of the American Revolution: How Common People Shaped the Fight for Independence.
Missing From President’s Day: The People They Enslaved by Clarence Lusane for the Zinn Education Project
For many Americans, it is subversive to criticize the nation’s founders, the founding documents, the presidency, the president’s house, and other institutions that have come to symbolize the official story of the United States. This article acknowledges that it may be uncomfortable to give up long-held and even meaningful beliefs that in many ways build both collective and personal identities, but shows how erasing enslaved African Americans from the White House and the presidency presents a false portrait of U.S. history.
More Than Slaves: Black Founders, Benjamin Banneker, and Critical Intellectual Agency by LaGarrett King for Social Studies Research and Practice
This article focuses one Black Founder, Benjamin Banneker, and his letter to Thomas Jefferson to illustrate how Black Founders philosophically responded and challenged White Founders' prejudicial beliefs about Blackness. It challenges social studies teachers’ curricular and pedagogical approaches to Black Americans during the colonial period by providing tools to explore the voices of Black Americans in U.S. history.
Mythbusting the Founding Mothers from the National Women’s History Museum
We all can picture the Founding Fathers, gathered in Independence Hall in Philadelphia, debating what to do about tyrannical Britain, and finally signing their names onto the Declaration of Independence. But what about the Founding Mothers? This explores some of the women in 18th-century America who are largely forgotten.
Native American Societies and the Evolution of Democracy, 1600-1800 by Bruce E. Johnston for Ethnohistory
This article examines how Native political organizations helped shape the thinking of Europeans as they became Americans.
“The Room Where It Happens”: Using the “Great/Not So Great” Framework for Evaluating the Founders in Lower Elementary Social Studies by Scott L. Roberts, Stephanie L. Strachan, & Meghan K. Block for the Oregon Journal of the Social Studies
This article provides an inquiry-based framework to help elementary-level students learn about differences in opinions about historical figures before constructing their own evaluation fo these figures based on textual evidence.
Thomas Jefferson, Slavery, and the Language of the Textbook: Addressing Problematic Representations of Race and Power by Sarah Thomson for the Language Arts Journal of Michigan
This paper compares the language features of two different texts on the topic of Thomas Jefferson and enslavement, and considers how these texts present historical knowledge differently through their language choices.
Visiting Chutchui: The Making of A Colonial Counterstory On An Elementary FIeld Trip by Harper Keenan
What might the content and design of an Indigenous colonial counterstory look like in teaching young children about colonial history? What might an
Indigenous counterstory offer to children’s historical learning in the U.S. context? Findings suggest that such a counterstory, presented
concretely as a different way of looking at a place, may provide generative possibilities for authentic engagement with conflicting sources of historical knowledge.
West of the Revolution: An Uncommon History of 1776 by Claudio Saunt
This book looks beyond the familiar story of the thirteen colonies to explore the many other revolutions roiling the turbulent American continent in 1776: the Spanish landing in San Francisco, the Russians pushing into Alaska, and the Sioux discovering the Black Hills.

Holidays

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Antisemitism & Religious Intolerance from Facing History Facing Ourselves
Using the history of antisemitism to start dialogue with students, this curricular resource helps teachers examine the power this ancient hatred has to the shape thought, judgement, and behavior around the globe. Find connections between historic debates over religious liberty and contemporary global tensions over faith, identity, citizenship, and immigration.
Challenge Islamophobia from Teaching for Change
Most teaching resources and teacher workshops about Islam and Muslims focus on increasing knowledge of religious texts, beliefs, and rituals rather than addressing the root causes of Islamophobia. This project addresses that gap by placing Islamophobia firmly within a U.S. context and shared cultural history. The lessons are designed to avoid the need for a facilitator with specialized knowledge in Islamic studies.
Día de los Muertos from Dayofthedead.holiday
The goal is to build the world’s most authoritative website for the Day of the Dead. All of the content on the site comes from professional writers based in Mexico that have experienced the holiday first-hand and were excited to share their knowledge from personal experience and academic research.
Diwali in the Classroom: A Parent’s Perspective by Gauri Manglik for Learning for Justice
Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights, is celebrated by more than a billion people all over the world. Here are a few ways you can teach your students about Diwali—and promote multicultural understanding.
Indigenous Peoples’ Day Resources from the Zinn Education Project
Lessons, books, and films for teaching the truth about Columbus and Indigenous Peoples’ history.
National Day of Mourning from United American Indians of New England
UAINE is a Native-led organization of Native people and supporters who fight back against racism and support Indigenous struggles throughout the Americas. The site includes educational resources to debunk the Pilgrim mythology and teach about the National Day of Mourning, fight against racist team names and mascots in sports, and iinvite UAINE guest speakers to schools.
Native America Resources (Wampanoag & Thanksgiving) from Mayflower 400
The Mayflower 400 commemoration, a collaboration between four nations (the Wampanoag, US, UK, and Netherlands) explored the legacy of the Mayflower and the impacts of the voyage. This set of resources goes far beyond the story of the ‘Pilgrim Fathers’ and the one-dimensional version of the Mayflower voyage to examine the history of four nations from multiple angles, exploring the experiences of those impacted and telling of the ruthless consequences of colonization.
Kwanzaa: Black Power & the Making of an African American Holiday Tradition by Keith A. Mayes
Since 1966, Kwanzaa has been celebrated as a Black holiday tradition—an annual recognition of cultural pride in the African American community. This book explores the political beginning and later expansion of Kwanzaa, from its start as a Black Power holiday, to its current place as one of the most mainstream of the black holiday traditions.
Teaching About Ramadan and Eid by Gauri Manglik & Sadaf Siddique for Learning for Justice
Teaching students about diverse cultural and religious traditions holds a host of benefits, including increased empathy and kindness. This article explores how to do so in this time of heightened anti-Muslim bias.
Teaching While White, Episode 10: Recovering the Voice of Native Americans in the Classroom featuring Claudia Fox Tree
This episode explores misconceptions around Thanksgiving and ways to center Native Americans in social studies and across the curriculum.
What Is Cinco de Mayo? by Lauryn Mascareñez for Learning for Justice
Mexican culture cannot be reduced to tacos, oversized sombreros and piñatas. This article encourages educators to do better with specific ideas for teaching the holiday.

Immigration

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America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States by Erika Lee
The United States is known as a nation of immigrants. But it is also a nation of xenophobia. In America for Americans, this book shows that an irrational fear, hatred, and hostility toward immigrants has been a defining feature of our nation from the colonial era to the Trump era.
Angel Island Curriculum Guides from the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation
Curriculum for elementary, middle, and high school students alongside articles, poetry, and series for anyone teaching or learning about the history of Angel Island.
Comparing Jewish Refugees of 1930s with Syrian Refugees Today from NY Times Lesson Plans
This lesson pairs a New York Times article about the historical resonance of Europe’s refugee crisis with an excerpt from “Defying the Nazis” that chronicles a relief and rescue mission in 1939. Together, these texts raise important questions about whether there are “lessons” of history and invite reflection on how individuals and governments choose to respond to those in need.
Dear America: Notes from An Undocumented Immigrant by Jose Antonio Vargas
This book is about lying and being forced to lie to get by; about passing as an American and as a contributing citizen; about families, keeping them together, and having to make new ones when you can’t.
Flipping Our Scripts About Undocumented Immigration by Mica Pollock for Geneaology
This critical family history explores common scripts about undocumented immigration. Noting a hole in her knowledge base, the author put herself on a steep learning curve to “clean her lenses”—to learn more information about opportunities past and present, so she could see and discuss the issue more clearly with students.
From Free White Person to "Illiegal Immigration": Dilemmas of Teaching US Immigration History by Esther Kim
This paper examines dilemmas within researching and building classroom resources on US immigration history: 1) deconstructing politicized
misperceptions on immigration, 2) navigating a highly politicized topic, and 3) grappling with a system in need of reform, where no clear answer is available. It ends with suggestions for teachers.
How Grandma Got Legal by Mae Ngai for the LA Times
This article reviews the historical restrictions on legal immigration and “illegal” or undocumented entry.
Immigration Beyond Ellis Island by Kazi I. Hossain for Multicultural Perspectives
The discussions that revolve around the historical role of Ellis Island seldom bears any relationship to present day immigrants’ experiences. In order to highlight the current immigration process and experiences of the newly arrived immigrants, this article argues that educators must go beyond the Ellis Island perspectives.
Is Angel Island the Ellis Island of the West? Teaching Multiple-Perspective Taking in American Immigration History by A. Vincent Ciardiello for The Social Studies
This article shows how to develop critical thinking skills by comparing two main immigration stations, Ellis Island and Angel Island, and challenge the belief that both immigrant stations served very similar functions. Instead, it offers ideas for how to teach that the treatment of Chinese immigrants at Angel Island was more inhumane and racially discriminating than that experienced by their counterparts on Ellis Island.
Learn From History: Students Discuss the Muslim Ban by Melissa Torres for EdWeek
The current actions towards Muslim men, women, and children was something the author knew needed to be unpacked with her students in-depth. She reflects on her own status as the child and grandchild of immigrants, as well as her students' families who have dealt with Japanese internment, faced quotas that kept their families divided, fled dangerous political situations, or struggle consistently with family kept far away while they came for a better life.
Operation Pedro Pan Collections Guide from the Operation Pedro Pan Group
This online repository of resources supports educators teaching about Operation Pedro Pan—the unprecedented migration of 14,000 unaccompanied minors as they left their beloved Cuba for the United States from 1960-1962.
Strangers From A Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans by Ronald Takaki
This book blends narrative history, personal recollection, and oral testimony for a sweeping history of Asian Americans including the Chinese who laid tracks for the transcontinental railroad, of plantation laborers in the canefields of Hawaii, of "picture brides" marrying strangers in the hope of becoming part of the American dream. He tells stories of Japanese Americans behind the barbed wire of U.S. internment camps during World War II, Hmong refugees tragically unable to adjust to Wisconsin's alien climate and culture, and Asian American students stigmatized by the stereotype of the "model minority."
Tai Dam from the Tai Studies Center
In 1975, when the Communists took over Laos, the Tai Dam fled to Thailand to seek asylum. This website is home to the community encouraged by Governor Robert D. Ray to resettle in Iowa in 1975-76. Since then, this population has quadrupled and 80% of Tai Dam worldwide remain united in the state of Iowa.
Teaching About Angel Island Through Historical Empathy and Poetry by Noreen Naseem Rodríguez for Social Studies & the Young Learner
This article describges a lesson taught in a combined 3rd/4th grade classroom that focused on the movement of Asians—the Chinese in particular—to America via the immigration station at Angel Island.

Rules

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A People’s History of the Supreme Court by Peter Irons
A comprehensive history of the people and cases that have changed history, this book is the definitive account of the nation’s highest court.
Beyond Deep Breathing: A New Vision for Equitable, Culturally Responsive, and Trauma-Informed Mindfulness Practice by Addison Duane, Arlène E. Casimir, Lauren C. Mims, Cierra Kaler-Jones, & Dena Simmons for The Middle School Journal
As the research on mindfulness expands to include school-based interventions, middle school educators across the country have implemented mindfulness in the classroom. However, similar to other social-emotional learning approaches, when implemented in the absence of cultural context and trauma-informed care, mindfulness can be weaponized. In this paper, scholars describe how educators can facilitate mindfulness practice in the classroom in affirming, culturally responsive and trauma-informed ways.
Can PBIS Build Justice Rather Than Merely Restore Order? by Joshua Bornstein for Okilwa, N., Khalifa, M., & Briscoe, F. (Eds.) The School to Prison Pipeline: The Role of Culture and Discipline in School
In this case study, the researcher explains how school leaders used the PBIS system to exchange one deficit identity of “disorderly” student for another of “disordered” student, subsuming other considerations of race, class, and gender identity. This chapter proposes more liberatory practices for PBIS that interrupt dominant culture discourses of normal behavior and power, and hold promise for establishing justice, rather than simply reinstating order.
Ending the School-to-Prison Pipeline/Building Abolition Futures by Erica Meiners for The Urban Review
Placing prison abolition on the horizon for scholars committed to interrupting the flow of young people toward prisons and jails, this article offers movement analysis, frameworks, and associated questions surrounding educator advocacy and engagement.
How My School Gets Students to “Behave” by Kelly Lagerwerff for Rethinking Schools
‘Doing the right thing’ is based on standards of obedience that are nearly impossible for children, who are doing their best under difficult circumstances. Their choices are to do exactly what the teacher wants and receive empty praise, or to go against what the teacher wants and be publicly shamed when they do not receive the reward. This article critiques this hierarchical and exploitative system with suggestions for better alternatives.
The RULER Approach
This is the website for RULER, a research-based approach to social and emotional learning (SEL) that teaches emotional intelligence to people of all ages, with the goal of creating a healthier, more equitable, innovative, and compassionate society.
Transformative Justice in Education Center at UC-Davis
The Transformative Justice in Education Center is a visionary space in the School of Education at the University of California, Davis that supports a vibrant community of researchers, designers, and futurists engaged in equity-oriented, justice-seeking education projects. Their work is guided by the 5 pedagogical stances created by Maisha T. Winn—History Matters, Race Matters, Justice Matters, Language Matters, and Futures Matter—that enable educators to pursue and achieve justice.
Troublemakers: Lessons in Freedom From Young Children in School by Carla Shalaby
In this book, a former elementary school teacher explores the everyday lives of four young “troublemakers,” challenging the ways we identify and understand so-called problem children. Through delicately crafted portraits of these memorable children, it allows us to see school through the eyes of those who know firsthand what it means to be labeled a problem.
Why We Can’t Afford Whitewashed Social-Emotional Learning by Dena Simmons for Ed Leadership
This article outlines how social-emotional learning (SEL) skills can help educators build communities that foster courageous conversations across difference so that students can confront injustice, hate, and inequity.
The Way I See It: The Current State of Elementary Economics by Erin Adams for Erin on Econ
This blog post is a critique of how elementary economics is taught as a mechanism of student discipline and classroom control.
We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching & the Pursuit of Educational Freedom by Bettina Love
To dismantle the educational survival complex and to achieve educational freedom—not merely reform—teachers, parents, and community leaders must approach education with the imagination, determination, boldness, and urgency of an abolitionist. This book introduces an alternative to traditional modes of educational reform and expands our ideas of civic engagement and intersectional justice.
When SEL Is Used As Another Form of Policing by Communities for Just Schools Fund
SEL conversations, practices, and curricula are too often based on white, cisgender, patriarchal norms and values which further enact emotional and psychological violence onto Black, Brown, and LGBTQ+ youth of color, in particular. The current narrative around SEL is that students must manage and regulate themselves and their emotions, conform and constrict their identities, and not express their fullest, most authentic selves. As school districts begin to devise plans for back-to-school, this article encourages educators to re-examine how we talk about and teach SEL.

Slavery

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The 1619 Project Podcast from from The New York Times Magazine The 1619 Project
This ongoing initiative that began in August 2019, the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative. The podcast supplements a book and online resources for educators and students.
Baskets of Cotton and Birthday Cakes: Teaching Slavery in Social Studies Classrooms by LaGarrett King & Ashley Woodson for Social Studies Education Review
Educative-psychic violence is a concept that helps to explain the types of harm that students experience when educators teach about slavery in superficial or reductive ways. In this article, researchers examine two provocative moments involving lessons about slavery—the use of word problems involving slavery in a mathematics classroom, and the 2016 children’s book A Birthday Cake for George Washington. They offer recommendations for using educative-psychic violence as a tool to assess their own practice.
Black Abolitionists from Zinn Education Project
To counter the invisibility of Black abolitionists who were central to the abolition movement and the ending of slavery, this website features two dozen Black abolitionists here.
Dixie's Daughters: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Preservation of Confederate Culture by Karen L. Cox
This book explores the subject of Confederate memory and the role southern women played in the construction of the "Lost Cause" through their erection of monuments and the enormous influence they had on young children's education that resonates today.
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward E. Baptist
Americans tend to cast slavery as a pre-modern institution—the nation's original sin, perhaps, but isolated in time and divorced from America's later success. To do so, however, robs the millions who suffered in bondage of their full legacy. Told through intimate slave narratives, plantation records, newspapers, and the words of politicians, entrepreneurs, and escaped slaves, this book offers a radical new interpretation of American history.
How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith
A deeply researched and transporting exploration of the legacy of slavery and its imprint on centuries of American history, How the Word Is Passed illustrates how some of our country’s most essential stories are hidden in plain view—whether in places we might drive by on our way to work, holidays such as Juneteenth, or entire neighborhoods like downtown Manhattan, where the brutal history of the trade in enslaved men, women, and children has been deeply imprinted.
“If There Is No Struggle…”: Teaching A People’s History of the Abolition Movement by Bill Bigelow from Rethinking Schools
In this lesson, students explore many of the real challenges faced by abolitionists with a focus on the American Anti-Slavery Society.
Teaching Hard History podcast hosted by Hasan Jeffries from Learning for Justice
Teaching Hard History begins with the long and brutal legacy of chattel slavery and reaches through the victories of and violent responses to the civil rights movement to the present day. It brings us the lessons we should have learned in school through the voices of leading scholars and educators.
Teach Reconstruction Campaign from Zinn Education Project
This is a repository of adaptable lessons for grades 6-12, information about a student campaign to make Reconstruction history visible in their communities, and an annotated list of recommended teaching guides, student friendly books, primary document collections, and films.
They Were Her Property: White Women As Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers
Bridging women’s history, the history of the South, and African American history, this book makes a bold argument about the role of white women in American slavery: how they actively participated in the slave market, profited from it, and used it for economic and social empowerment.
“What Is Slavery?”: Third-grade Students’ Sensemaking About Enslavement Through Historical Inquiry by Ryan E. Hughes for Theory & Research in Social Education
This study investigates how third-grade students developed their understandings of enslavement during a six-week social studies inquiry. The findings show that students conceptualized enslavement as interactions between individuals—such as getting whipped by an overseer or forced to work by a master—but did not focus on the systemic nature of power and economic gain, and that students' sensemaking about race was limited to naming enslaved people as African Americans without naming the enslavers as whites. These results point to the need for critical inquiries on enslavement in elementary schools that explicitly focus on systemic race/ism and white supremacy.

Suffragists

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The 19th Amendment Didn’t Give Women the Right to Vote by Anna North for VOX
This article explains how, after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, states were no longer allowed to keep people from the polls just because they were women, but officials who wanted to stop people from voting had plenty of other tools with which to do so.
American Women Who Were Anti-Suffragettes by Linton Weeks for NPR
Some called the naysayers "anti-suffragettes" or "anti-suffragists." Some called them "remonstrants" or "governmentalists." Some called them just plain "antis." This article dives into who these women were who actively spoke out against a woman's right to vote.
Cultivating Curiosity and Active Citizenship: Teaching Voting and the History of Voting Rights by Rebecca Valbuena for Social Studies & the Young Learner
How does one cultivate curiosity about voting and voting rights? This article walks readers through a teacher's inquiry unit on whether voting matters that includes guest speakers, simulations, and more.
The Myth of Seneca Falls and the Women’s Suffrage Movement, 1848-1898 by Lisa Tretault
The story of how the women's rights movement began at the Seneca Falls convention of 1848 is a cherished American myth. This boook demonstrates that Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and their peers gradually created and popularized this origin story in response to internal movement dynamics as well as the racial politics of memory after the Civil War.
Sisters In Spirit: Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Influence on Early American Feminists by Sally Roesch Wagner and John Fadden
This book traces the influence of the Iroquois model of freedom on women’s early struggle for equality in the United States and the revolutionary changes unleashed by the Iroquois-to-feminist relationship that continue to shape our lives today.
Tactics and Techniques of the National Woman’s Suffrage Party Campaign from the Library of Congress Women of Protest Collection
The tactics used by the NWP to accomplish its goals were versatile and creative. Its leaders drew inspiration from a variety of sources–including the British suffrage campaign, American labor activism, and the temperance, antislavery, and early women’s rights campaigns in the United States. An overview essay is linked to primary sources for educators.
Unlearning History: The Women’s Suffrage Movement from PBS Teachers Lounge
Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other women and men of color did not see their voting rights ensured until the 1964 Civil Rights and 1965 Voting Rights Acts, more than 40 years after the 19th Amendment. This site is filled with links and suggestions for educators teaching this history.
Urban Citizenship: Campaigns to Restore Immigrant Voting Rights in the U.S. by Ron Hayduk and Kathleen Call for The New Political Science
International migration challenges traditional notions of citizenship as mobile citizens may retain or regain their right to vote in elections. This paper examines the rebirth of noncitizen voting rights in US local elections during the past decades. Who spearheaded these campaigns for immigrant voting rights and why? What are key ingredients to the success or failure of these campaigns? What have been their impacts?
Using Art to Teach History to Young Learners by Lois McFayden Christianesen for Social Education
This aricle makes suggestions to teach about the long voting rights struggle through the folk art of activist Bernice Sims.
Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All by Martha Jones
From the earliest days of the republic to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and beyond, this book excavates the lives and work of black women—Maria Stewart, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Fannie Lou Hamer, and more—who were the vanguard of women's rights, calling on America to realize its best ideals.
Without A Whisper: Konnón-Kwe documentary by Katsitsionni Fox
Explore the untold story of how Indigenous women influenced the early suffragists in their fight for freedom and equality. In this documentary, Mohawk Clan Mother Louise Herne and Professor Sally Roesch Wagner join forces to shed light on the hidden history of the influence of Haudenosaunee Women on the women’s rights movement.
The Women’s Suffrage Movement by Sally Roesch Wagner
Comprised of historical texts spanning two centuries, this book is a comprehensive and singular volume with a distinctive focus on incorporating race, class, and gender, and illuminating minority voices in its exploration of women's fight for voting rights.

Westward Expansion

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Affirming Indigenous Sovereignty: A Civics Inquiry by Sarah B. Shear, Leilani Sabzalian, & Lisa Brown Buchanan for Social Studies & the Young Learner
Historical and contemporary examples of infringements on the sovereign rights of Native nations exist, in part, due to the disregard of tribal sovereignty, nationhood, and citizenship. In this article, researchers outline a four-part unit that incorporates academic keywords, provides a foundation for understanding Indigenous sovereignty, and deliberates current events related to sovereignty.
American Indians in Children’s Literature by Debbie Reese and Jean Mendoza
Established in 2006 by Dr. Debbie Reese of Nambé Pueblo, this blog provides critical analysis of Indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books.
An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history. Acclaimed historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz offers a history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples and reveals how Native Americans, for centuries, actively resisted expansion of the US empire.
Black Indians and Black Pioneers by William Loren Katz
For many African Americans, the frontier meant freedom, and from the earliest times, some seized liberty by joining Indian nations. These books detail the lives and experiences of African Americans in "the West."
Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-Building by Richard Drinnon
This book links racism with colonialism and traces this interrelationship from the Pequot War in New England, through American expansion westward to the Pacific, and beyond to the Philippines and Vietnam. He cites parallels between the slaughter of bison on the Great Plains and the defoliation of Vietnam and notes similarities in the language of aggression used in the American West, the Philippines, and Southeast Asia.
Indian Removal by Gayle Olson-Raimer for the Zinn Education Project
This teaching activity introduces students to the many ways Native people resisted European encroachment. While none of these efforts stopped the tide of Indian Removal, no actions of the settlers could fully silence or stem the power and eloquence of Indian resistance.
The Mission Project: Teaching History and Avoiding the Past in California Elementary Schools by Harper Keenan for Harvard Education Review (pre-publication version)
This case study examines a fourth-grade unit on the colonial history of California featuring “the mission project,” a long-standing tradition in California’s elementary schools that has students construct a miniature model of a Spanish colonial mission. The paper explores how the use of model making invites children to engage with colonial history and what the assignment reveals about how adults teach children about the violent past. Keenan argues that the mission project perpetuates a societal pattern of “ritual avoidance."
Native Knowledge 360 from the National Museum of the American Indian
NK360° provides educational materials, virtual student programs, and teacher training that incorporate Native narratives, more comprehensive histories, and accurate information to enlighten and inform teaching and learning about Native America. NK360° challenges common assumptions about Native peoples and offers a view that includes not only the past but also the vibrancy of Native peoples and cultures today.
“Now You Just Can’t Do Nothing”: Unsettling the Settler Self in Social Studies Education by Christine Stanton for Social Education
When it comes to confronting settler colonialism within our schools, curriculum, and lives, all teachers have agency—and responsibility. The author of this essay is a white woman who details how her past, present, and future have been, are, and will continue to be influenced by settler actions and identities. Confronting this reality, she can throw my hands up and say “But that happened so long ago, there is nothing I can do about it now,” or she can learn from/with Indigenous mentors and do something to change how I teach about Indigenous experiences.
The Old Durham Road Black Pioneer Settlement: Contested Place As An Invitation to Curriculum by Naomi Norquay & Pariss Garramone for Journal for the Association of Canadian Curriculum Studies
In this essay, researchers outline the recorded history of the Old Durham Road and share data from an oral history project1 to examine competing versions of that history to explore how the concept of place worked to support the pre-eminence of the White pioneer narrative within the stories of settlement. THey end with an example of how they made space in the local elementary school’s social studies curriculum for this contested history and how, through a class composition, stories about the area’s Black pioneer settlers were re-placed.
Recovering the Voice of Native Americans in the Classroom from Teaching While White Podcast
This episode is an interview with Native teacher Claudia Fox Tree about what students learn (or don't) about Native Americans in U.S. schools.
Searching for the Gold Mountain from the Library of Congress Immigration & Relocation in U.S. History
Part of a bigger archives of primary source sets for teachers, this bundle of resources focuses on Chinese immigrants who worked on the Transcontinental Railroad.
Silencing California Indian Genocide in Social Studies Texts by Clifford E. Trazer & Michelle Lorimer for American Behavioral Scientist
During the 1850s and 1860s, white settlers perpetrated genocide against California Indians. Militia and regular troops supported by the state and federal governments committed acts of genocide as defined by the United Nations including murders, rapes, kidnappings, and enslavement of California Indians during the Gold Rush era. This article examine the silences around these histories in educational resources.
Teaching Critically About Lewis and Clark: Challenging Dominant Narratives in K-12 Curriculum by Alison Schmitke, Leilani Sabzalian, & Jeff Edmundson
The Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery is often presented as an exciting adventure story of discovery, friendship, and patriotism. However, this same period in U.S. history can be understood quite differently when viewed through an anticolonial lens and the Doctrine of Discovery. How might educators critically interrogate the assumptions that underlie this adventure story through their teaching? This book challenges dominant narratives and packaged curriculum about Lewis and Clark to support more responsible social studies instruction.
They Did Not Stop To Wipe Their Foreheads! Using the C3 Framework to Critique Arguments in History Texts by Jay M. Shuttleworth & Amy Mungur for the Georgia Social Studies Journal
This paper explains a procedure for analyzing claims in history textbooks using the case of Chinese laborers’ qualifications to work on the transcontinental railroad.
This Land hosted by Rebecca Nagle
This podcast hosted by a member of the Cherokee Nation examines a recent Supreme Court decision that determined the future of five tribes and nearly half the land in Oklahoma starting with a murder on the side of the road in 1999.
The Time Is Now: Taking Initiative for Indigenous Studies in Elementary Curriculum by Leilani Sabzalian, Riya Miyamoto-Sundahl, & Robin Fong
In this article, authors describe how two 4th grade educators and a teacher education professor collaborated to rethink and revise a social studies curriculum unit, illustrating the small, but important, changes teachers can make to more responsibly implement Indigenous studies curriculum.
What Can the Transcontinental Railroad Teach Us About Anti-Asian Racism? by Ray Rogers for National Geographic
This essay reflects on how Chinese immigrants helped achieve one of the greatest engineering feats in U.S. history, but their sacrifices are seldom remembered.
Who Gets to Die of Dysentary? Ideology, Geography, and the Oregon Trail by Katharine Slater for Children’s Literature Association Quarterly
In this article, which looks primarily at the 1985, 1992, and 2002 editions of The Oregon Trail, the author examines the game’s interrelated ideology and geography, arguing that it reinforces its colonialist worldview through representations of place, space, and time.

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