Teaching Activity. By Wayne Au. Rethinking Schools. 3 pages.
Lesson for high school students on the bombing of Hiroshima using the film Barefoot Gen and haiku.
Continue reading
Film clip. Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner. Various years.
Video poems by a Marshallese artist show the injustices and harm of environmental racism, nuclear weapons, and climate change around the world.
Continue reading
Article. By Moé Yonamine. Rethinking Schools, Summer, 2019.
A high school ethnic studies teacher describes how students in the Pacific Island Club used poetry to refocus the narrative surrounding climate justice onto frontline communities.
Continue reading
Henry Dumas, a critically acclaimed author, was fatally shot by the New York Transit police.
Continue reading
Poetry. Edited by Melissa Tuckey. 2018. 460 pages.
A collection of poetry about colonial dispossession, the environmental crime of war, food and culture, resource extraction, resistance, and the Global South.
Continue reading
Teaching Guide. By Richard Beach, Jeff Share, and Allen Webb. 2017. 148 pages.
This book offers essential resources for English language and literature teachers to teach climate justice.
Continue reading
Teaching Activity. By Adam Sanchez.
Through a mixer activity, students encounter how enslaved people resisted the brutal exploitation of slavery. The lesson culminates in a collective class poem highlighting the defiance of the enslaved.
Continue reading
Book — Non-fiction. By Clint Smith. 2016. 84 pages.
A teacher and scholar celebrates Black humanity, and guides readers toward self-reflection through his coming-of-age poems that are political, historical, and deeply personal.
Continue reading
Teaching Activity & Article. By Michelle Nicola. Rethinking Schools.
Using Marshallese poet and climate justice activist Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner’s poem “Dear Matafele Peinam,” a teacher helps 7th graders think about the sacred spaces in their own lives and how they will be affected by climate change.
Continue reading
Book — Non-fiction. By Martín Espada. Reprinted in 2016. 160 pages.
Essays and poems attacking social injustice and marginalization.
Teaching Activity by Martín Espada
Continue reading
Teaching Guide. Edited by Linda Christensen and Dyan Watson. Rethinking Schools. 2015. 262 pages.
Lessons and poetry to help students develop writing skills, build community, and create a vision of a future with justice.
Continue reading
Teaching Guide. Edited by Cliff Mayotte. 2013 (2nd edition).
A guide to explore contemporary issues through oral history, and to develop the communication skills necessary for creating oral history projects in communities.
Continue reading
Book — Non-fiction. Edited by William Sturkey and Jon N. Hale. 2015. 176 pages.
A collection and examination of the creative literary work of students published during 1964 Freedom Summer in Mississippi.
Continue reading
Book — Fiction. By Margarita Engle. 2012. 144 pages.
A portrait in verse of a young girl struggling with dyslexia in Cuba at the turn of the 20th century.
Continue reading
Book — Non-fiction. By Michele Bollinger and Dao Tran. 2012.
A collection of 101 brief and accessible profiles of rebels, radicals, and fighters for social justice.
Continue reading
Book — Fiction. By Pam Muñoz Ryan. 2010. 384 pages.
An introduction to the life of Pablo Neruda as a child in historical fiction for young adults.
Continue reading
Teaching Activity. By Linda Christensen. Rethinking Schools. 10 pages.
Teacher reflection on different ways to effectively incorporate poetry into history or literature classes.
Continue reading
Teaching Activity. By Naomi Shihab Nye and Linda Christensen. 4 pages.
An essay, poem, and teaching idea utilizing famous Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish's work to help students "name the invisible forces that imprison them."
Continue reading
Teaching Activity. By Renée Watson. Rethinking Schools. 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.
Continue reading
Teaching Guide. By Linda Christensen. Rethinking Schools., 2017, 2nd edition. 314 pages.
Lessons for teaching a range of writing genres while addressing social justice themes.
Continue reading
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.
Continue reading
Teaching Activity. By Linda Christensen. Rethinking Schools. 21 pages.
Role play and writing activities for language arts and social studies on Brown v. Board and the Little Rock Nine. Designed for use with the memoir Warriors Don’t Cry.
Continue reading
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Linda Christensen. Rethinking Schools. 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.
Continue reading
Hip hop’s origins began at a dance party where DJ Kool Herc used two turntables to create a “break beat.”
Continue reading
Book — Non-fiction. By Clint Smith. 2021. 336 pages.
An examination of how monuments and landmarks represent — and misrepresent — the central role of slavery in U.S. history and its legacy today.
Continue reading
