Student Texts
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Our searchable library of short texts offers a diverse mix of stories and perspectives. This multigenre, multimedia collection aligns with the Common Core's recommendations for text complexity and the Learning for Justice Social Justice Standards.

Choose from informational and literary nonfiction texts, literature, photographs, political cartoons, interviews, infographics and more. You can also filter by text type, grade level, subject and topic.

“The leveled texts have really helped me engage students and introduce them to complex topics in a way they can understand.”

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Social Justice Domain
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179 Texts

Literature

Eight Hours

I.G. Blanchard's lyrics makes the case for the 8-hours day -- one of the main goals of labor unions in the late 1800s. Laborers desired a balance to their day—one that includes "eight hours" just for themselves. And they will band together to get it.
by
I.G. Blanchard
Grade Level
Social Justice Domain
July 3, 2014
Informational

Welfare is a Women's Issue

This essay expounds on the injustices and false perceptions faced by women in the welfare system. Tillmon contends that the system is overrun with sexism and that until American women are liberated by equal pay, the welfare system will continue to be a trap for them.
by
Johnnie Tillmon
Grade Level
July 3, 2014
Informational

Testimony Before the Credentials Committee, Democratic National Convention

In this transcript, Fanny Lou Hamer describes the way in which she was forced to leave the plantation where she worked as as sharecropper for 18 years, was arrested and was beaten--all on account of trying to register to vote.
by
Fannie Lou Hamer
Grade Level
Subject
Civics
History
Economics
Social Justice Domain
July 3, 2014
Informational

The burden of being a young American Muslim

Hailey Woldt describes being a part of a research team that traveled to 75 cities and visited 100 mosques as part of a study on Muslims living in a post-9/11 America. In Brooklyn, a ten-year-old boy tells of being beaten, prevented from practicing his religion in peace and called a terroist.
by
Hailey Woldt
Grade Level
6-8
Subject
Civics
Geography
Social Justice Domain
July 3, 2014
Informational

Indian Occupation of Alcatraz

The announcement on November 20, 1969 from 89 American Indians – mostly students from colleges and universities – that they were taking over Alcatraz Island, set in motion what would become the longest occupation of a federal facility by Native Americans to date. This report aired a year later on NBC News, in December 1970, six months before the occupation ended.
by
Frank Bourholtzer
Grade Level
6-8
Subject
Civics
History
Geography
Social Justice Domain
July 3, 2014
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