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"The Trouble with Tuck by Theodore Taylor,” I began to tell my class, “is an important book to me because it was one of the first that I read again and again.” I held up the 100-page paperback book for my students to see. A couple looked as if they might laugh at me, showing off a kid’s book. But I continued to tell them how the main character, Helen, trained a guide dog to lead her first dog, Tuck, when he went blind. Despite my fear that talking about books would create opportunities for put downs, I soon heard rumblings through the classroom as students dropped names of their favorite books.

A few years ago, a picture from The Roanoke Times became the fodder for emails and blog posts. It spread across the Internet in a matter of days, eventually ending up on late-night network talk shows. It began as part of a simple and obscure local news story about road construction. In the article, a pregnant woman in her 30s wondered what effect the high decibel sounds of jackhammers and earth-moving equipment would have on her unborn child. What made this conjecture so worthy of scorn and mockery?

Grades: 9-12 Subjects: Reading and Language Arts, Social Studies, ELL/ESL, Science and Health Categories: Religion; Diversity and Inclusion; Bullying and Exclusion; Stereotypes and Bias This Teaching Tolerance story

One of the surest ways to motivate students to not only write, but to write with passion, purpose and power, is to make sure they have an authentic audience. This means they must write for somebody other than me, their teacher. Students must know that there is power in their words and that they can be heard.

Building relationships with students sometimes takes a back seat to achieving passing test scores. That doesn’t have to be the case, according to this sixth-grade teacher.

Rethinking the Region: New Approaches to 9-12 U.S. Curriculum on the Middle East and North Africa—a free, online curricular resource—needs to be on your radar. Learn about this resource from two of its co-authors.

Many students are constantly tied to their phones. As educators, we can tap into that interest—and students’ curiosity and desire for entertainment—to show them gateways to a wider worldview.

Inspired by a Teaching Tolerance story, this educator asked her third-grade students to create original superheroes modeled after themselves.

Bilingual books are great tools for teaching languages and changing attitudes about other cultures, but finding quality books can be challenging. Here’s what to look for.

Many kids listen to music as often as they possibly can. Educators can tap into students’ interests in music by teaching them to critically read the lyrics they are listening to—and promote social justice through that examination.