Hello Poetry!

April is Poetry Month. I love poems.

• Teachers and Writers Collaborative always has awesome articles on teaching poetry. I'm hoping to put something together with poetry and comics for my second graders.
• Wishes, Lies, and Dreams is an awesome, fabulous, and beautiful book about writing poetry with children. It has simple but awesome ideas!
• Poets.org has curricula and lesson plans that are cool.

Discovering Race Relations

Here are some resources that could be applicable during Black History Month. RaceBridges offers a spectrum of lesson ideas from looking at Obama's speech on race to looking at the history of discrimination against Native Americans in Alaska.

bell hooks for kids = wonderful stuffs

Recently read this book with my students. How could I pass up a bell hooks children's book on love?

I asked the students to write a response to the prompt, "Homemade Love is..."

One student said:

Love is made of family and friends. My family is a caregiver.
My family is so funny!
This [is] how love is made. Is made of so many wonderful stuffs.

EdLib features Resources from Free Minds Free People Conference

Greetings! This month’s lab report features curriculum materials from the amazing Free Minds, Free People conference that took place in Houston in June. You can learn more about the conference by visiting www.freemindsfreepeople.org. This report also includes a collection of resources for teaching about Hurricane Katrina. Many thanks to those who contributed the items listed in this report. We hope network members will continue to enrich this important social justice education tool by posting their own teaching materials.

the lab report is a monthly update of curriculum materials posted to the EdLib Lab, the network's online database of social justice teaching materials. To join this community of educators, sign up here for the Education for Liberation Network listserv.

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Using Their Words by Social Justice Critical Inquiry Project

Using their Words showcases social justice education projects in elementary school classrooms. All the units housed on this site: -were designed and implemented by elementary school teachers and student teachers focus on social justice issues such as racism, gentrification, fairness, child labor etc. -help students ask difficult questions about the world -are designed to engage children in social action to change the conditions of their worlds -have been integrated with standards or mandated curricular programs. (Free Minds, Free People workshop: Catch us if You Can)

Grade Levels: Elementary
Cost: No

A Katrina Reader: Readings by & for Anti-Racist Educators and Organizers by a team of white anti-racist solidarity activists

A collection of close to 700 articles, reports, and resources, organized thematically, that attempts to document the history of racism and resistance on the Gulf Coast. An effort is made to highlight the voices of grassroots organizers speaking about their own struggles.

Grade Levels: High
Cost: No

Why Did This Happen? by Susan Wilcox, Ed.D. at The Brotherhood/Sister Sol

The NEW curriculum from The Brotherhood/Sister Sol for helping young people engage in critical inquiry, develop a love of learning, and transform their lives. (Free Minds, Free People workshop: Sister Museum)

Grade Levels: Teacher Training Material
Cost: Yes

Fences by Abby Ashford-Grooms at Austin Social Justice Teacher Inquiry Group

This is an outline of an approach to teaching Fences by August Wilson. Teachers will see the kinds of questions and inquiry that lead students to think about their own fences, those that keep us out and those that keep us in. This unit is part of a larger group of lesson plans under the category "BorderLands" by the Austin Social Justice Teacher Inquiry Group. (Free Minds, Free People workshop: BorderLands)

Grade Levels: High
Cost: No

Writers Corp Resources

From WritersCorps in San Francisco

Anthologies, Lesson Plans, and Resources

Jump Write In!
Days I Moved Through Ordinary Sounds

Jump Write In! is a collection of lesson plans created by WritersCorps
Teaching Artists. It was published by Josey-Bass. Summary about the
book (on the sidebar to the right), including the TOC: http://www.sfartscommission.org/WC/for-teachers/

There are also some of the exercises on the site for people to use.
It's in the Teaching Tools section of our site http://www.sfartscommission.org/WC/
The lessons are sortable by topic. There are a just few up right
now, but a lot more will be added.
http://www.sfartscommission.org/WC/for-teachers/teaching-tools/

Days I Moved is an anthology of fiction, poetry and memoir by Teaching
Artists who have served in WritersCorps. Each writer shares a brief
memoir about their time as teaching artists, as well as their own
creative work.

Summary about the book: http://www.sfartscommission.org/WC/events/days-i-moved/

Authors who are in the book: http://www.sfartscommission.org/WC/events/the-authors-of-days-i-moved/

The student work section of the site features poems and photos by
students, also sortable by category, or the cloud tag on the right: http://www.sfartscommission.org/WC/student-work/

Making Room for Hope: Howard Zinn

I don't believe it's possible to be neutral. The world is already moving in certain directions. And to be neutral, to be passive, in a situation like that, is to collaborate with what is going on. And I, as a teacher, don't want to be a collaborator.

Have you watched Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train? If not, you must. Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States, reminds us that to be neutral is to collaborate with the status quo. Many people, particularly teachers, argue that teachers must remain neutral. No one is neutral. Neutrality, lack of questioning, and lack of action equate to agreement and endorsement of the current state of affairs.

Zinn's People's History reinforces the fact that, as teachers, it is not only how we teach (and the inclusive and inquiry-based practices that guide us), but also what we teach. It is in what we teach that we are able to offer truth or lies of omission and de-emphasis. In the film, Zinn spoke of viewing history as creative--history can either help us to imagine a new future if it allows us to see glimpses of the ability to achieve this future in the past, or history can paralyze us--make us hopeless. History can uncover hidden resistances to power and awaken consciousness within us. Equally important, multiple histories can allow us to see situations from the viewpoints of others'. Zinn inspires me to remember how important it is, no matter how risky, to live in defiance to that which we believe is unloving, unjust, and wrong.

Teaching Resources:

• A People's History of the United States
• People's History: Teaching Edition
• People's History Graphic Novel
  
• Voices of a People's History
• A Young People's History of the United States
• The Zinn Education Project
• Howard Zinn's Website
• A People's History of the Classroom, Rethinking Schools

Definitely check out The Zinn Education Project above!

Creating and Exploring Peace with Art

I have always believed that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.

The opposite of life is not death, but indifference.

The opposite of peace is not war, but indifference
to peace and indifference to war.

The opposite of culture, the opposite of beauty, the opposite of generosity is indifference.

Elie Wiesel,
Nobel Peace Laureate

Resources for building peace:

• The Art in Peacemaking: A Guide to Integrating Conflict Resolution Education into Youth Arts Programs: amazing and free!
• Peace Games' Blog: tips & tools for teaching peacemaking
• Making Peace, Restoring Justice via What Kids Can Do: covers three successful examples of peacemaking in action
• Early Childhood Adventures in Peacemaking by William J. Kreidler and Sandy Tsubokawa Whittall

The Student Nation

Just discovered The Student Nation (from The Nation). Check it out. Also: resources for the classroom.

Teaching Fair Trade

Global Exchange offers a free Fair Trade Cocoa curriculum for the classroom.

Awesome Resource for Lesson Plans

Check out Educators for Social Responsibility's Connected and Respected: Lessons From the Resolving Conflict Creatively Program, an elementary curriculum on conflict resolution and social and emotional learning.

Planning to Change the World - One Day at a Time

Education for Liberation Network and The New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCore) have published Planning to Change the World: A Plan Book for Social Justice Educators. The 2008-2009 Plan Book aims to help teachers incorporate social justice into classroom activities. (And is useful for those of us who use paper, rather than blackberries to keep track of our schedules! Of course, I don't know any teachers who have blackberries...)

What's useful:

The book offers a number of quotes related to social change & education. A couple of my favorites (although they are all inspiring):

• Prejudice is like a hair across your cheek. You can't see it, you can't find it with your fingers, but you keep brushing at it because the feeling of it is irritating. --Marian Anderson, opera singer
  
• No government has the right to tell its citizens whom to love. The only queer people are ones that don't love anybody. --Rita Mae Brown, author and activist for gay rights
  
• I don't think anybody anywhere can talk about the future of their people or of an organization without talking about education. Whoever controls the education of our children controls our future. --Wilma Mankiller, first woman elected Chief of the Cherokee Nation.
  

There are conversation/journal questions throughout, to be used to spark discussion with students. For example, "Would you stand up for someone else's rights? Have you ever witnessed someone else's rights being violated? What did you do or what might you do next time?" They aren't daily or even weekly, so I wish there were more. 

I also like the ideas and titles for social justice recognitions to give to students. (I won't give them away here though...)

The calendar includes a number of significant dates--the best part is that these dates are paired with teaching resources in the back of the book. For example, March 9, 2009 will be the 50th anniversary of A Raisin in the Sun's Broadway debut--the first Broadway play written by a black woman. The book includes a link to a unit plan on the play that includes 18 lessons and resources materials. These dates and lesson plans/resources are an exciting part of the book.

A few pages of the book outline the work and successes of teachers for social justice. Also useful, but I'd like to see more.

Things that would make great additions to this book:

• Elementary/Secondary Editions (differentiated)
  
• More questions for conversations (daily or weekly)
  
• Additional examples of the work of educators
  
• An online version of the calendar
  
• A website to track user's success or implementation of discussions or lesson plans

The bottom line:

A useful buy. The lesson plans, dates, quotes, and discussion questions are excellent resources to add to a social justice educator's toolkit. Why buy a planner at Office Max or Target when you can get Planning to Change the World for the same price?