Language Arts

Teaching Activity PDFs

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Five Years After the Levees Broke: Bearing Witness Through Poetry

Teaching Activity PDF. By Renée Watson. 7 pages.
A teacher’s reflection on the power of poetry to spark critical discussion and reflection on current issues of inequality surrounding disaster response in the United States.

African American, Art & Music, Environment & Food, Language Arts, Laws & Citizen Rights, Media, Racism & Racial Identity

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Haiku and Hiroshima: Teaching About the Atomic Bomb

Teaching Activity PDF. By Wayne Au. 3 pages.
Lesson for high school students on the bombing of Hiroshima using the film Barefoot Gen and haiku.

Language Arts, US Foreign Policy, Wars & Related Anti-War Movements

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Promoting Social Imagination Through Interior Monologues

Teaching Activity PDF. By Bill Bigelow and Linda Christensen. 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.

Language Arts, Racism & Racial Identity, Slavery, Wars & Related Anti-War Movements, Women's History

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Unleashing Sorrow and Joy: Writing Poetry from History and Literature

Teaching Activity PDF. By Linda Christensen. 10 pages.
Teacher reflection on different ways to effectively incorporate poetry into history or literature classes.

Language Arts, Racism & Racial Identity, Women's History

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Warriors Don’t Cry: Connecting History, Literature, and Our Lives

Teaching Activity PDF. By Linda Christensen. 21 pages.
Role play and writing activities for language arts and social studies on the Little Rock Nine, Brown v. Board, and schooling in general. Designed for use with the memoir, Warriors Don’t Cry.

African American, Civil Rights Movements, Education, Language Arts, Racism & Racial Identity

Teaching Guides

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Reading, Writing, and Rising Up: Teaching About Social Justice and the Power of the Written Word

Teaching Guide. By Linda Christensen. 2003. 196 pages.
Lessons for teaching a range of writing genres while addressing social justice themes.

Education, Language Arts

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Teaching for Joy and Justice: Re-imagining the Language Arts Classroom

Teaching Guide. By Linda Christensen. 2009. 300 pages.
Through stories, Christensen demonstrates how to draw on students’ lives and the world to teach poetry, essay, narrative, and critical literacy skills.

Language Arts