Teaching Materials Archive

Rethinking Popular Culture and Media

Teaching Guide. Edited by Elizabeth Marshall and Özlem Sensoy. Rethinking Schools. 2011. 330 pages.
Collection of essays that offer strong critiques and practical teaching strategies about what is "popular" and the messages being communicated by mass media.

Teaching with Voices of a People’s History of the United States

Teaching Guide. By Gayle Olson-Raymer. 2011 (second edition). 304 pages.
Suggested questions and teaching ideas for each chapter of Voices of a People's History.

Labor Matters

Teaching Activity. By Learning for Justice.
Introduces students to the role of the labor movement in securing contemporary benefits such as the 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, and workplace safety regulations.

Beyond Tolerance: A Resource Guide for Addressing LGTBQI Issues in Schools

Teaching Guide. Published by New York Collective of Radical Educators. 2010.
A curricular resource guide on Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Bisexual, Questioning, and Intersex (LGBTQI) for educators.

Black Ants and Buddhists: Thinking Critically and Teaching Differently in the Primary Grades

Teaching Guide. By Mary Cowhey. Foreword by Sonia Nieto. 2006. 256 pages.
Practical examples and classroom stories about bringing a people's history and peace education to grades 1 and 2.

Caribbean Connections: Moving North

Teaching Guide. Edited by Catherine Sunshine and Keith Warner. 2005. 240 pages.
Literature and essays about Caribbean life in the United States.

Studs Terkel’s “Working”: A Teaching Guide

Teaching Guide. By Rick Ayers. 2001. 208 pages.
Discussion questions and teaching ideas for Terkel's classic 1974 text.

Teaching for Joy and Justice (Teaching Guide) | Zinn Education Project

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

Teaching Guide. By Linda Christensen. Rethinking Schools. 2009. 287 pages.
Through stories, Christensen demonstrates how to draw on students' lives and the world to teach poetry, essay, narrative, and critical literacy skills. Published by Rethinking Schools.

Columbus and Las Casas

Teaching Activity. By Gayle Olson-Raymer. 15 pages.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 1 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on Columbus' arrival in the "New World," and the contrasting accounts of Bartolome de Las Casas and Eduardo Galeano.

Challenging Bill Clinton

Teaching Activity. By Gayle Olson-Raymer. 17 pages.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 23 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on the Clinton presidency, as well as domestic opposition to his policies.

The Carter–Reagan–Bush Consensus

Teaching Activity. By Ron Perry.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 21 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on the recently rising disparities in power, wealth and quality of life in America.

Losing Control in the 1970s

Teaching Activity. By Jennifer Rosebrook.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 20 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on the legacy of scandal since the end of the Vietnam War and the Watergate break-in.

Women, Gays, and Other Voices of Resistance

Teaching Activity. By Jack Bareilles.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 19 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on the emergence and legacy of the 1960s counterculture, as well as the movements it helped create.

Vietnam and Beyond: The Historic Resistance

Teaching Activity. By Mike Benbow and Robin Pickering. 17 pages.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 18 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on opposition to the Vietnam War.

The Black Upsurge Against Racial Segregation

Teaching Activity. By Tasha Boettcher.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 17 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on the long Civil Rights Movement in America.

World War II and McCarthyism

Teaching Activity. By Gayle Olson-Raymer.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 16 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on domestic opposition to the "good war" and the impact of McCarthyism.

Protesting the First World War

Teaching Activity. By Colby Smart.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 14 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on anti-war efforts during the first World War, as well as the U.S. government's response.

Lawrence, 1912: The Singing Strike (Teaching Activity) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

Socialists and Wobblies

Teaching Activity. By Gayle Olson-Raymer. 17 pages.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 13 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on the labor movement at the turn of the century.

The Expansion of Empire

Teaching Activity. By Gayle Olson-Raymer. 15 pages.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 12 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on internal dissent over American expansionist policies.

Strikers and Populists in the Golden Age

Teaching Activity. By Gayle Olson-Raymer. 18 pages.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 11 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on the Gilded Age.

Civil War and Class Conflict

Teaching Activity. By Gayle Olson-Raymer. 16 pages.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 10 of Voices of a People's History of the United States" on "The Other Civil War — the class conflict fought by the poor in the north and south.

Indian Removal

Teaching Activity. By Gayle Olson-Raymer. 18 pages.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 7 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on the American policy of "Manifest Destiny" and Native American resistance to their own displacement.

The Early Women’s Movement

Teaching Activity. By Gayle Olson-Raymer.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 6 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on the early women's movement, including their efforts for social, racial, and political equality.

Half a Revolution

Teaching Activity. By Gayle Olson-Raymer. 16 pages.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 5 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on the Revolutionary War as "a rich man's war and a poor man's fight," as well as the failure of early Americans to complete a full revolution.

Preparing the Revolution

Teaching Activity. By Gayle Olson-Raymer.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 4 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on class differences and internal dissent before and during the Revolutionary War.