Curriculum and Resources
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Student Guide to Identifying Propaganda
This set of lessons helps students to develop a critical framework for understanding messaging they receive about the world around them. It invites them to ask and answer critical questions that will help them to explore the ways that media can be used to shape a narrative in ways that can often be harmful.
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Teaching Resistance K-12 Unit Plan
This Common Core Standards-aligned curriculum was created by 150+ educators across the U.S. and aims to introduce students to the concept of resistance as a tool for social change.
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The Bluest Eye Unit Plan
Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye is a seminal piece of literature in studying the intersections of race, gender, and class. This 76-page curriculum guide includes handouts, study questions, writing prompts, and more.
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The Truth about Christopher Columbus Mini-Lesson
This mini-project primarily utilizes chapter 1 of A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn as a text and was originally created with middle grades in mind, but can be scaled up or down to elementary or high school. It is a great alternative or extension for teachers who are required to use textbooks and scripted curriculum that glorify or fail to problematize the full impact of European colonization in the Americas.
Distance Learning Archives
Music for Social Change
Musicians have always used their art to unify, to resist, and to educate. This module invites students to engage with three different songs and music videos that do just that, providing an opportunity for in-depth analysis, combined with ELA skills of identifying literary elements and annotating a text. It is written with distance learning in mind, although discussions and direct instruction throughout are highly recommended. Be aware that some of the lyrics and videos contain profanity.
Building Community in the Virtual Classroom
As schools across the nation adjust to distance learning as a safe and healthy alternative for serving students, many teachers have turned their attention to building community with and amongst their students in the virtual classroom in order to support students’ mental and emotional health and ultimately to support their learning. This list of 16+ ideas was developed with the suggestions of teachers from the Lit C.I.R.C.L.E. Instagram platform and also contains some direct links to resources referenced.
Virtual Teacher Report Card
Use this tool in order to gain valuable feedback from your students to assess your teaching practice. This particular version has been adapted from the original in order to account for the unprecedented nature of teaching in the U.S. through a pandemic, social upheaval, and more by refocusing the attention from traditional standards of teacher assessment to ones that more fully embody what is needed by students at the moment.
Netflix and Skills
This lesson, created for distance learning, can be used over the course of 2-4 weeks and asks students to critically analyze a film of their choice. It culminates with an argumentative writing piece that explores whether the film challenges or perpetuates social injustices.
Short Story Project
The Short Story 4 Square Project is a distance learning lesson that introduces students to a number of different short stories, all written by people of color. It can be adapted for various lengths of study and invites students to consider conflicts and common themes that can be found across multiple stories.