Bill Bigelow

Bill Bigelow is curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools magazine and co-director of the Zinn Education Project. He is the author or co-editor of many Rethinking Schools publications, including A People’s History for the Classroom, The Line Between Us: Teaching About the Border and Mexican Immigration, Rethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World, Rethinking Our Classrooms — Volumes 1 and 2, Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years, and A People’s Curriculum for the Earth: Teaching Climate Change and the Environmental Crisis. Bigelow lives in Portland, Oregon, and has taught high school social studies since 1978.

All Content By This Author

Daughter of Earth: Reading, Writing, and Social Class

Resource Types: Teaching Activities (Free)
Page Length: 7
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 7 pages.
Students read a poignant excerpt from Agnes Smedley's novel, Daughter of Earth, and use it to think and write about how schooling—their own included—teaches lessons about social class.
The War to Free the Slaves (Material) | Zinn Education Project

A War to Free the Slaves?

Resource Types: Teaching Activities (Free)
Page Length: 7
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 7 pages.
Students explore some of the myths of the Civil War through examining excerpts from Lincoln’s first inaugural address, the rarely mentioned original Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution that Lincoln promised to support, and the Emancipation Proclamation.
Who Freed the Slaves (Material) | Zinn Education Project

Timeline on the Civil War and Abolition

Resource Types: Articles
Page Length: 3
Student Handout. By Bill Bigelow. 3 pages.
This timeline can be used as a resource for lessons on the Civil War, President Lincoln, the 54th Regiment, and the end of slavery.
Rethinking the Vietnam War | Zinn Education Project

Rethinking the Teaching of the Vietnam War

Resource Types: Teaching Activities (Free)
Page Length: 8
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools. 8 pages.
A role play on the history of the Vietnam War that is left out of traditional textbooks.

A People’s History for the Classroom

Resource Types: Teaching Guides
Page Length: 120
Teaching Guide. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools. 2008. 120 pages.
Lessons to introduce students to a more accurate, complex, and engaging understanding of U.S. history than is found in traditional textbooks and curricula. Published by Rethinking Schools.
Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years (Teaching Guide) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years

Resource Types: Teaching Guides
Page Length: 192
Teaching Guide. Edited by Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson. Rethinking Schools. 2003. 192 pages.
Readings and lessons for grades 5 to 12 about the impact and legacy of the arrival of Columbus in the Americas.

La Guerra con Mexico

Resource Types: Spanish/Bilingual, Teaching Activities (Free)
Page Length: 8
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. Translated by Floralba Vivas. Rethinking Schools.
Handout in Spanish for the U.S. Mexico War Tea Party.