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Water and Environmental Racism
Teaching Activity. By Matt Reed and Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. Rethinking Schools.
A mixer activity, inspired by the 2016 Democracy Now! documentary Thirsty for Democracy, introduces students to the struggle of residents to access safe water for drinking, cooking, and bathing in the majority-Black cities of Flint, Michigan; Jackson, Mississippi; and Newark, New Jersey.
How We Remember: The Struggle Over Slavery in Public Spaces
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow, Jesse Hagopian, Cierra Kaler-Jones, Ana Rosado, and Ursula Wolfe-Rocca.
Students read about sites of memory in How the Word Is Passed and imagine how to commemorate what occurred there. They then compare that to how the respective site is currently commemorated and described by docents.
Subversives: Stories from the Red Scare
Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca.
In this mixer lesson, students meet 27 different targets of government harassment and repression to analyze why disparate individuals might have become targets of the same campaign, determining what kind of threat they posed in the view of the U.S. government.
Repair: Students Design a Reparations Bill
Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca.
In this activity, students take on the role of activist-experts to improve upon a Congressional bill for reparations for Black people. They talk back to Congress’ flimsy legislation and design a more robust alternative.
The Rebellious Lives of Mrs. Rosa Parks
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow.
In this mixer lesson, students learn about Rosa Parks’ many decades of activism by taking on roles from various times in her life. In this way, students learn about her radicalism before, during, and long after the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Deportations on Trial: Mexican Americans During the Great Depression
Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca.
In this role play students analyze who is to blame for the illegal, mass deportations of Mexican Americans and immigrants during the Great Depression.
Teaching SNCC: The Organization at the Heart of the Civil Rights Revolution
Teaching Activity. By Adam Sanchez. Rethinking Schools. 24 pages.
A series of role plays that explore the history and evolution of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, including freedom rides and voter registration.
When the Impossible Suddenly Became Possible: A Reconstruction Mixer
Teaching Activity. By Adam Sanchez and Nqobile Mthethwa. 25 pages.
A mixer role play explores the connections between different social movements during Reconstruction.
About Us
The Zinn Education Project promotes and supports the teaching of people’s history in middle and high school classrooms across the country. Based on the lens of history highlighted in Howard Zinn’s best-selling book A People’s History of the United States, the website offers free, downloadable lessons and articles organized by theme, time period, and reading level.
Testimonials
What Our Students Should Know About the Struggle for the Ballot — but Won’t Learn from Their Textbooks
By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca
Why Teach People's History
