Search

This lesson focuses on questions of identity as students read and analyze Angelou’s inspirational poem “Still I Rise” and apply its message to their own lives. Students learn how Maya Angelou overcame hardship and discrimination to find her own voice and to influence others to believe in themselves and use their voices for positive change.

Children are surrounded – and targeted – by advertisements: on television, the computer, even on their journeys to and from school. Children need specific strategies for reading and talking about advertisements and their impact. Reading Ads with a Social Justice Lens is a series of 13 multidisciplinary mini-lessons that provide such strategies and build critical literacy. The lessons are designed for students in grades K-5 and include suggestions for simple adaptations. These lessons open up important conversations about the relationship between advertisements and social justice. Children will see that they have the power to decide how media will influence them. They will also engage in social justice projects that address some of the unfair messages they find in advertising.

In this lesson, students will read a short biography of César Chávez—one of our nation’s greatest labor leaders. They will examine how much of the success attributed to Chávez was the result of the efforts of thousands of other people helping and supporting him. Students will learn about labor unions and reflect on how powerful it can be to speak up with others for change.

This lesson focuses on PEN America's News Consumers' Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. Students will read the bill of rights, rephrase some of the rights and responsibilities, and rank the rights in order of importance. Finally, students will work together to construct a short dramatic skit that shows the significance of one right of their choosing.

This lesson uses the strategies of “student questioning for purposeful learning” (SQPL) and jigsaw grouping to engage students in examining Constitutional issues related to school-based grooming policies.