For more than a decade, teachers have looked to Reading, Writing, and Rising Up: Teaching About Social Justice and the Power of the Written Word as a trusted text to integrate social justice teaching in language arts classrooms. This accessible, encouraging book has been called “a profound work of emancipatory pedagogy” and “an inspiring example of tenacious and transformative teaching.”

Read an interview with Linda Christensen about the new edition.

What role did the classroom play in the second edition?

The classroom is my source of inspiration. Out of the classroom I can create curriculum, but I need to observe students, listen to their class talk, and read their pieces to determine whether the lessons land or fall with students. I needed to see how lessons resonated with students today versus students 20 years ago. I keep returning to the classroom because it’s where I find my joy. I can’t think about teaching in isolation, away from classrooms. Continue reading.

Praise for the 2003 Original Edition

“What a good and useful book! Read these beautifully written chapters and show them to teachers, so we can become the educators needed by our students. Linda Christensen . . . gives us the tools to teach meaningful classes, to build good schools, and to work for a just society.” —Ira Shor, professor of English at City University of New York, and author of, Empowering Education and When Students Have Power.

“At long last, we have a book that both shows and tells how to teach students to produce not only ‘pretty words and adept dialogue,’ but ‘searing analysis.’ This profound work of emancipatory pedagogy brings together theory, classroom practice, personal narrative, and student work. . . a must-read for every teacher seeking to reach students that are ‘unreachable.'” —Geneva Smitherman, University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University, and author of Talkin’ That Talk: Language, Culture, and Education in African America

ISBN: 9780942961690 | Rethinking Schools

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ISBN: 9780942961409 | Rethinking Schools

Reviews

While many folks have abandoned the term multicultural education in favor of social justice, anti-bias, anti-racist, and/or anti-oppressive education, this collection reminds us that no matter the terminology we use, highlighting the experiences of the marginalized is vital to our collective liberation. From uplifting decolonization, Black history, and queer joy to critiquing capitalism and offering a beautiful and often heartbreaking array of personal narratives and classroom examples, this volume is necessary reading for educators committed to offering young people the education they deserve. — Noreen Naseem Rodríguez, Assistant Professor of Elementary Education and Educational Justice at Michigan State University, co-author of Social Studies for a Better World and Teaching Asian America in Elementary Classrooms

Rethinking Multicultural Education is both thoughtful and timely. As the nation and our schools become more complex on every dimension–race, ethnicity, class, gender, ability, sexuality, immigrant status–teachers need theory and practice to help guide and inform their curriculum and their pedagogy. This is the resource teachers at every level have been looking for. — Gloria Ladson-Billings, Kellner Family Chair in Urban Education Emerita, University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children.

If you are an educator, student, activist, or parent striving for educational equality and liberation, Rethinking Multicultural Education: Teaching for Racial and Cultural Justice will empower and inspire you to make a positive change in your community. — Curtis Acosta, Founder, Acosta Latino Learning Partnership and Assistant Professor, University of Arizona

Event

Online Book Launch and Celebration
Wednesday, December 13th at 4pm PT, 6pm CT, 7pm ET

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Strangers in Their Own Country, made available for download on the African Activist Archive website, presents the lives and struggles of the people of South Africa with stories, poems, role plays, news articles and historical readings.

This is the first and still one of the best collections of readings and lessons for students on the history of apartheid.

Contents

Preface

Perspectives of Teaching South Africa

Lesson 1: South African m & m Simulation

Lesson 2: Facts on South Africa

Lesson 3: Film: Last Grave at Dimbaza

Lesson 4: The “Homelands”: Point/Counterpoint

Lesson 5: Laws of South Africa

Lesson 6: The Pass Laws: And a Threefold Cord

Lesson 7: South African Story Writing

Lesson 8: Film: Afrikaner Experience

Lesson 9: Film: Generations of Resistance

Lesson 10: Nelson Mandela: The Rivonia Trial Speech to the Court

Lesson 11: Black Unions Struggle for Justice

Lesson 12: South Africa in the Region

Lesson 13: Learning to Resist: Namibia

Lesson 14: Debate: Should U.S. Corporations Invest in South Africa?

Lesson 15: Letters on South Africa

Lesson 16: Final Project

Student Handouts

ISBN: 0865430101 | Africa World Press

Classroom Story

I used Strangers in their Own Country to talk about South African apartheid. I used it in connection with Facing History and Ourselves, about justice and reconciliation, and identity.  I would connect the content to current issues. It helped my students understand the topic through different themes of identity, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

—Tamaria Crider

High School Social Studies Teacher, Chicago, Illinois

More Online Resources

	African Activist Archive. In addition to the lessons above, the website provides extensive multimedia historical materials and interviews with activists in the U.S. movement in solidarity with struggles of African peoples against apartheid, colonialism, and injustice.
	South African History Online: toward a people’s history. SAHO’s mission is “to break the silence of our past and to create the most comprehensive online encyclopedia of South African history and culture. SAHO has committed itself to involve heritage and academic institutions as well as ordinary South Africans in rewriting our history and in that way contributing to reconciliation, the building of a common humanity and a non-racial, non-sexist, and democratic society.”
	Africa Access provides an online database with critical reviews of children’s books to help teachers, librarians, and parents select titles that do not reinforce stereotypes about Africa.

The post Strangers In Their Own Country: A Curriculum Guide on South Africa appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

They also argue that it should be taught in the simplest way possible. Drawing on twenty years of experience, the authors present the Question Formulation Technique, a concise and powerful protocol that enables learners to produce their own questions, improve their questions, and strategize how to use them. Make Just One Change features the voices and experiences of teachers in classrooms across the country to illustrate the use of the Question Formulation Technique across grade levels and subject areas and with different kinds of learners. [Publisher’s description.]

ISBN: 9781612500997 | Harvard Education Press

Related Resources

Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions: One small change can yield big results. By Dan Rothsein and Luz Santana. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 27, Number 5 September/October 2011. Article about the approach by the authors.

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With selected chapters written by Humboldt County teachers Jack Bareilles (McKinleyville High School), Natalia Boettcher (South Fork High School), Mike Benbow (Fortuna High School), Ron Perry (Eureka High School), Robin Pickering, Jennifer Rosebrook (Arcata High School), Colby Smart (Ferndale High School), and Robert Standish (South Fork High School). [Publisher’s description.]

ISBN: 9781583229347 | Seven Stories Press

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One of the historic examples in the lesson is the Pullman strike. Here is an artist’s rendering of the clash between striking Pullman workers and federal troops. Click on image for link to Illinois History article about the strike.

This lesson introduces students to the origins of the minimum wage and the 40-hour work week. Using reader-friendly articles and small group activities, the lesson emphasizes the actions taken by workers and activists to make sure a minimum wage was established in law and enforced.

The readings and activities are appropriate for grades 6 to 12 and can be used in social studies or language arts classrooms.

Below are the objectives and introduction to the lesson. The complete Labor Matters lesson, including links to handouts and an extended activity, can be found on the Teaching Tolerance website.

Objectives

• Students will understand their connection to the history of organized labor
• Students will identify major strategies and tactics of labor organizers
• Students will consider ways to apply these or other tactics to improve working conditions today
• Students will identify some major figures in the history of the labor movement, and recognize the role of average, less-celebrated workers in the success of that movement.

Introduction

To understand the debate over the Employee Free Choice Act, one must understand the basics of the labor movement and union organization. That’s not easy, in a world in which union organization has hit a low point. Fewer than ten percent of American workers today are unionized, compared to 35 percent in the mid-20th century. Yet we all benefit from rules such as the 40-hour workweek, the minimum wage, and workplace safety regulations.

This lesson draws on students’ prior knowledge to help them understand the importance of the labor movement.

Complete Labor Matters lesson, produced by Teaching Tolerance.

Related Resources

Teaching Tolerance offers other lessons on labor and organizing, such as:

• Looking at Labor: students examine the pay scale for jobs vs. the value of those jobs to society.
• Farmworkers and the Union: A Lesson from Viva La Causa: lesson on strategies used by unions, for use with the 39-minute film Viva La Causa about the grape strike and boycott led by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta in the 1960s. (This film can be requested for free, one per school, from Teaching Tolerance.)

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Woven through the book is Mary’s unflinching and humorous account of her own roots in a struggling large Irish Catholic family and her early career as a community activist. Her students learn to make connections between their lives, the books they read, the community leaders they meet, and the larger world.

If you were inspired to become a teacher because you wanted to change the world, and instead find yourself limited by teach-to-the-test pressures, this is the book that will make you think hard about how you spend your time with students. It offers no easy answers, just a wealth of insight into the challenges of helping students think critically about the world, and starting points for conversations about diversity and controversy in your classroom, as well as in the larger community. [From publisher’s description.]

Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword by Sonia Nieto

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Compassion, Action, and Change

Chapter 3: Routines: A Day in the Life of the Peace Class

Chapter 4: It Takes a Village to Teach First Grade

Chapter 5: Talking About Peace

Chapter 6: Learning Through Activism

Chapter 7: Teaching History So Children Will Care

Chapter 8: Nurturing History Detectives

Chapter 9: Seeing Ourselves and Our Families Through Students’ Eyes

Chapter 10: Responding When Tragedy Enters the Classroom

Chapter 11: Building Trust with Families and Weathering Controversy

Chapter 12: Going Against the Grain

Afterword: “Take This Hammer”

Appendix

References

ISBN: 9781571104182 | Stenhouse Publishers

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Table of Contents:

1. Statement from NYQueer
2. How to Use this Guide
3. Resource and Support Organizations
4. Youth Focused Organizations
5. Days to Recognize in the Classroom
6. Curricular Resources
7. Film and Video
8. Historical Events and Figures
9. Transgender and Intersex Support
10. Homophobia
11. Marriage Equality
12. Professional Resources
13. Booklist and Databases by Organizations Other than NYQueer
14. NYQueer’s Annotated Booklist of Children’s Literature
15. Collection of Young Adult/Adult LGBT Literature

Download guide from NYCORE Google Doc page.

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Speaking Out addresses the effects of war on gender and reparation in a five-part, interactive curriculum that is adaptable for differing educational levels, from secondary schooling to college. Based on the documentary Diamonds, Guns, and Rice, this curriculum bridges the local and the global, placing gripping personal stories in an international landscape and highlighting the creative capacities that survive war. The relevance of such lessons in today’s world proves invaluable as we ask the questions: Who are the victims of war? What are the effects of war? How are these effects overcome?

Speaking Out grew from an international peace project addressing issues of war from the personal effects of combat to institutional factors shaping armed conflicts. Stories, games, and role-playing are interwoven with lessons on colonialism, West African agricultural economy, international banking, diamond and arms trades, and peace-building projects. A copy of Diamonds, Guns, and Rice accompanies this book, providing the reader with a visual and deeply moving journey into these women’s lives.

ISBN: 9781932010053 | Ooligan Press

Review of the guide from Rethinking Schools by Jeff Edmundson

Groups of student “diamond workers” are clustered around an egg-carton game board, shifting the pieces — representing diamonds — from bowl to bowl. In the simulation, rooted in a traditional African game, students carefully devise strategies for the shifts, trying to get the most pieces in a larger end bowl. Finally, the victorious student draws a “penalty card” replicating a real-world event, such as being attacked by rebels and losing half of her diamonds; the student then is told that most of her remaining diamonds are owned by a diamond cartel partner, who gains almost all of the profit from the worker’s effort. Debriefing, students respond to the injustice and look at the system that creates it. Thus are students introduced to the global diamond trade.

This lesson comes from a new film and curriculum for high school and college students. The film, Diamonds, Guns and Rice, and the curriculum, Speaking Out, use the 1990s civil war in Sierra Leone to explore broader issues such as cross-cultural awareness, the global trade in diamonds and guns, and the effects of war on women. Given the paucity of material on contemporary Africa, let alone on women or globalization, the package is a welcome contribution.

The 1991-1999 civil war in Sierra Leone, like the related war in neighboring Liberia, was not so much a classic revolution against oppression as it was a multi-sided struggle for power that often degenerated into brutal terrorism. As in other recent wars, many children became soldiers — some through kidnapping, others because they were attracted to the power of being with an armed force. As the curriculum notes, “Since youths played such a leading role in the Sierra Leonean civil war, including carrying out atrocities in their own villages, post-conflict interventions have focused heavily on the young.” But where most efforts are directed toward male combatants, Speaking Out looks at the “daunting barriers faced by girl combatants in the aftermath of the civil war.”

The film has three sections: “Rice,” which looks at the role of both rice and women in Sierra Leonean culture; “Guns and Diamonds,” which gives an overview of the war, its causes and its horrendous effects; and “Peace,” which explores the efforts to reintegrate child soldiers after the war. Read more.

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The BRIDGE curriculum provides resources for training, leadership development, and community education. Topics covered in BRIDGE include:
– The History of Immigration 101
– Migration, Globalization, and Workers’ Rights
– Introduction to Race, Migration, and Multiple Oppression
– Migrant Rights are Human Rights
– LGBT Rights and Immigrant Rights
– Immigrant Women’s Leadership
– Building Common Ground with Other Communities: Migration, Race and Demographic Change
– Conflict Transformation Within Community Organizing

The National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights

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