La Guerra con Mexico
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. Translated by Floralba Vivas. Rethinking Schools. Handout in Spanish for the U.S. Mexico War Tea Party.
Reclaiming Hidden History: Students Create a Slavery Walking Tour in Manhattan
Teaching Activity. By Alan J. Singer. Rethinking Schools. How a teacher and his students organized a tour of the hidden history of slavery in New York.
Reading Between the Lines: An Art Contest Helps Students Imagine the Lives of Runaway Slaves
Teaching Activity. By Thom Thacker and Michael A. Lord. 4 pages. Rethinking Schools. An art contest is used as the basis from which students can examine primary historical documents (advertisements for runaway slaves) to gain a deeper understanding of the institution of slavery in the North.
U.S. Mexico War: "We Take Nothing by Conquest, Thank God"
Teaching Activity. Lesson by Bill Bigelow and student reading by Howard Zinn. 21 pages. Rethinking Schools. Interactive activity introduces students to the history and often untold story of the U.S.-Mexico War. Roles available in Spanish.
Salt of the Earth: Grounds Students in Hope
Teaching Activity. By S.J. Childs. Rethinking Schools. The author describes how she introduces students to the classic 1953 film, Salt of the Earth, about a miners' strike in New Mexico.
Pump Up the Blowouts: Reflections on the 40th Anniversary of the Chicano/a School Blowouts
Teaching Activity. By Gilda L. Ochoa. Rethinking Schools. Reflections on teaching students about the 1968 walkouts by Chicano students in California.
Rethinking the Teaching of the Vietnam War
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools. A role play on the history of the Vietnam War that is left out of traditional textbooks.
Promoting Social Imagination Through Interior Monologues
Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Linda Christensen. 3 pages. Rethinking Schools. Empathy, or "social imagination," allows students to connect to "the other" with whom, on the surface, they may appear to have little in common.
Rethinking the U.S. Constitutional Convention: A Role Play
Teaching Activity. By Bob Peterson. 14 pages. Rethinking Schools. A role play on the Constitutional Convention which brings to life the social forces active during and immediately following the American Revolution with focus on two key topics: suffrage and slavery. An elementary school adaptation of the Constitution Role Play by Bill Bigelow. Roles available in Spanish.
'We Had Set Ourselves Free': Lessons on the Civil Rights Movement
Teaching Activity. By Doug Sherman. Rethinking Schools. The author describes how he uses biographies and film to introduce students to the role of people involved in the Civil Rights Movement beyond the familiar heroes. He emphasizes the role and experiences of young people in the Movement.
Books: Non-Fiction
A People's History of Science: Miners, Midwives, and "Low Mechanicks"
Book - Non-fiction. By Clifford D. Conner. 2005. New look at history of science, highlights hunter-gatherers, farmers, sailors, miners, blacksmiths, and more.
Time Periods: 20th Century, People's Movement: 1961 - 1974
Themes: Science, Slavery and Resistance
In A People's History of Science the attention is at last turned to hunter-gathers, peasant farmers, sailors, miners, blacksmiths, folk healers, and others who wrested the means of their survival from an encounter with nature on a daily basis.
The science of medicine began with knowledge of plants—therapeutic properties discovered by preliterate ancient people. Chemistry and metallurgy originated with ancient miners, smiths and potters; geology and archaeology were also born in the mines. Mathematics owes its existence and a great deal of its development to surveyors, merchants, clerk-accountants, and mechanics of many millennia.
Howard Zinn calls this "…a delightfully refreshing new look at the history of science. I know of nothing like it, because it approaches that history free of the usual elitist preconceptions, and shows, in an inspiring way, the role that ordinary people, working people, played in the development of science." [Description by Book Noise.]
ISBN: 9781560257486 | Published by Nation Books.
A People's Curriculum for the Earth: Teaching Climate Change and the Environmental Crisis
Teaching Guide. Edited by Bill Bigelow and Tim Swinehart. 400 pages. 2014. Rethinking Schools. Articles, student readings, and teaching activities to understand environmental problems and imagine solutions.
Dirty Business: "Clean Coal" and the Battle for Our Energy Future
Film. Produced by Peter Bull, Justin Weinstein, Alex Gibney. 2010. 88 minutes. A feature documentary that addresses the questions: Can coal be made clean? Can renewables and efficiency happen on a scale large enough to replace coal?
Feb. 22, 1974: Sam Lovejoy Topples Nuclear Plant Tower
Sam Lovejoy, slipped onto the Montague Plains and sabotaged the 500 foot weather tower Northeast Utilities had erected to test wind direction at the site.
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