In this class, we will explore America's diversity through questions of immigration, race, gender/sexuality and class--some of the major ways our culture is organized. It is comprised of 9 lessons based on online resources, plus 2 auto-ethnography assignments. This class was originally taught by Huma Mohibullah at Renton Technical College. 

Religion is a significant aspect of human cultures everywhere. In these lessons, we explore questions such as: What are the main elements of religion? Why is believing in a higher power important to human beings across cultures? How is religion related to our social orders? How is religion related to the politics of today's world?This resource is comprised of 7 lessons based on online modules, plus a final presentation assignment. Each lesson includes a discussion or written assignment. This class was originally taught by Huma Mohibullah at Renton Technical College. 

BlackPast.org provides free access to documents, transcripts, timelines, videos, and lesson suggestions. With over 6,000 pages of information, BlackPast.org is the single largest free and unrestricted resource on African American and African history on the Internet today. Through this knowledge, the site aims to promote greater understanding to generate constructive change in our society.This resource highlights teacher-developed lessons for using BlackPast.org in the classroom and links to different sections of the BlackPast.org website.

Friends Across The Wires is an original, full-length play, written and directed by Laura Ferri and produced by Tamara Bunnell, exploring the impact of the Japanese American Incarceration during WWII through the lens of young people in Seattle. 

This is the teacher guide to accompany a viewing of Friends Across The Wires, an original play exploring the impact of the the Japanese-American Incarceration during WWII on a group of young people in Seattle. The guide offers background to the play as well as opportunities to engage with primary sources to learn about historical patterns of racism.Film, written and directed by Laura Ferri, is available under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivatives license.Teacher guide, by Tamara Bunnell, is available under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial license.

Students begin this unit by exploring the themes of humanity and community as they discuss  the many factors that influence the development of personal identities. They unpack together how we show versus hide different parts of ourselves, and how our identities can be both fixed and ever-changing. Then, students listen to oral histories by Vietnamese Americans to learn how displacement and resettlement have impacted them personally and shaped their outlook on helping others. Using evidence from these firsthand accounts, students answer the question: What can the experiences of displaced people teach us about community, resilience, and humanity? Throughout this unit, students work in teams to create a podcast where they reflect on their collective responsibility to stand in solidarity with displaced people.

Students begin this unit by discussing their relationship with art, and the extent to which they believe art drives resistance movements. Students then participate in a Gallery Walk that highlights how members of the Puerto Rico community in the Young Lords used art to advance their ideas and preserve their culture. Students center the activism of Indigenous peoples in Puerto Rico by studying bomba music and murals. This helps them understand the roots of art—both visual and performance—as activism, and respond to the question: How can understanding Latinidad through art help us confront social and political injustices? Throughout this unit, students work in teams to create a poster series that inspires civic engagement and action on issues of social and political injustice.

This lesson from the Holocaust Center for Humanity provides an opportunity to define and recognize hatred in all of its forms and how hate and prejudice can escalate when no one speaks up or takes action. The resource incorporates the Pyramid of Hate, created by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Echoes and Reflections, and further adapted by the Holocaust Center for Humanity.

The content included in the Holocaust Center for Humanity website is intended for educational purposes only and is free for viewing online.

Students learn about the efforts of Ida B. Wells and other Black female journalists who used investigative reporting to challenge ideas and people that perpetuated social and political injustices. Students look to Black female journalists today by learning about Natasha S. Alford’s feature stories on race in Puerto Rico, and draw on past and present examples of journalism to help them respond to the unit driving question: How can journalism challenge inequality and injustice? Students use the tenets of investigative reporting to explore the achievements and challenges of the era, then work to shine a light on the possibilities of racial equity by writing and publishing a feature story about an issue of injustice today.

StoryWorks develops inclusive and transformative educational theater experiences that provide students with the opportunity to examine our country’s civil rights history. Through content consistent with school curriculum standards, the program engages students in experiential learning and inspires them to ask deeper questions about the historical underpinnings behind contemporary issues. The process creates pathways to civic engagement, creates lasting memories and instills a tangible sense of social belonging. This StoryWorks educational project is built around Beautiful Agitators, a theatrical play about Vera Mae Pigee, a hair stylist and business owner in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and one of the unsung heroes of the civil rights era. Using her beauty parlor as a hub for Delta-based organizing and resistance, Pigee operated her salon by day and then transformed it into a clandestine center for civil rights organization and education in the evenings. Known for her big hats and larger than life personality, Mrs. Pigee led the direct action that registered nearly 6,000 African Americans to vote in the region. Although Pigee was largely left out of the history books, along with many women of the movement, our play Beautiful Agitators and accompanying curriculum revives her legacy, highlighting her methods and tactics. Inspired by the innovative K-12 civil rights education standards developed by the Mississippi Civil Rights Commission. Our commitment is to expand upon the standards by further developing content related to social justice, power relations, environmental justice, diversity, equity, mutual respect, and civic engagement. Beautiful Agitators combines inquiry with higher-order thinking skills of analysis, evaluation and synthesis. Set in a beauty parlor owned and operated by a Black woman in the Mississippi Delta, our curriculum is based on our investigation into primary sources and their relationship to critical moments in the national movement. This foundation of historical context allows for students and educators to find contemporary parallels which further engage learners to reflect upon the legacy of the civil rights movement and the struggles that we, as citizens, continue to grapple with today.View the complete play Beautiful Agitators on the StoryWorks Theater site.Implementation1. Beautiful Agitators Performance Classroom watches a prerecorded, staged reading of the play Beautiful Agitators, which was created and performed by artists from the Mississippi Delta, home of Vera Mae Pigee.2. Lesson Plan Activities Following the eight-lesson plan structure, students will read aloud or act out scenes from the play. This participatory interaction with the text and the historical events promotes a high level of engagement from the students and encourages experiential learning. These activities directly correspond to scenes in the play and to specific content area standards. Teacher leads guided discussions and helps to explain the historical context and theme of each scene. Students/actors have the opportunity to share their experiences having portrayed these historical figures. 

This unit of study consisits of 5 activities to investigate the effects of Native American Boarding Schools on the individual, the family, and the community. Students will analyze before and after pictures of indigenous students, primary source comments given by boarding school survivors, and historic newspapers to asertain attitudes towards Native Americans during this time period. Middle school students will conclude with a short writing assignment. Secondary students will prepare an essay that relates the attitudes of the time to the practices in Native American Boarding Schools. This is an emotionally difficult subject and special care should be taken if you have Native students in your classrooms, as this topic is traumatic for families who have survived this experience. See Multicultural Considerations before beginning.

This unit begins by asking students to consider life in Africa before colonization and the forced enslavement of Africans. Students read Omar ibn Said’s autobiography to understand the Islamic scholar’s experiences before he was captured in West Africa and after he was enslaved in America. Excerpts from Olaudah Equiano’s autobiography provide a detailed glimpse of his childhood in Africa before he was kidnapped and sold into slavery. Students examine these two stories and others for evidence of resistance, liberation, connection to culture, and shared humanity as they develop a response to the question: How can we better understand America’s past and present by listening to often omitted and unheard voices from the slave trade? Working in teams, students create a podcast about an unheard story in order to start a conversation about the lasting effects of the Transatlantic slave trade and the importance of Black history in America.