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Critical literacy is just as important for visual texts, such as cartoons, as it is for the written word. This toolkit will help your students read Sikhtoons while thinking about the social justice implications.

At the start of my career as an eighth-grade language arts teacher, it never bothered me when students were described by teachers as “low,” “middle,” or “high” as a way to label their abilities. No disrespect was meant toward our learners; it was just a fast and easy way to describe our kids and get to know them when we had so little time with them.

This week reminded us of two pioneering women in aviation. The nation mourned the death of Sally Ride, the first American woman in space. At the same time, many of us celebrated the 115th birthday of Amelia Earhart.

Mention school desegregation, and most people envision the Little Rock Nine—not the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD). But Tucson is exactly where the battle for desegregation is being fought today.

This teacher asked herself, “What do I need to know to better support this student?” The answer led to more questions.

Animal care helps Los Angeles middle schoolers practice patience and cooperation.

Recently my family stopped at the Civil War battlefield at Vicksburg, Miss., to take a walk and soak in some history. Near the monument to Louisiana’s troops stood a young boy, about 8 or 9, with his mom and dad. The boy was dressed up as a gray-clad Confederate soldier. The combination of the outfit and the Confederate flag sticker on his family’s car told me something important about this boy. It told me that he was a lot like me at that age.

Each spring, at the start of baseball season, fourth-graders at my school connect with Shorty, a character from Ken Mochizuki’s book Baseball Saved Us. Shorty’s a Japanese-American child who plays baseball on a makeshift field in an internment camp during World War II. Mochizuki’s consummate read-aloud story encourages a fired-up discussion in the library. Students talk about the inequities and intolerances foisted on kids and adults alike. It’s the kind of lesson that I thoroughly enjoy teaching, year after year.

A student’s frustration over a math lesson offers an opportunity to learn about respect.

The emancipation story remains largely incomplete, over 150 years later.