Making Change Through Activism

Grade Level: 5

Subject: Language Arts and Social Studies

Making Change Through Activism is a unit designed for fifth grade students where they will explore the concept of human rights and the use of activism when those rights are violated. They will examine historical activist movements and their foundations, leaders, goals, strategies, and achievements, before making connections to current movements and issues. The unit aims to highlight social justice issues and center marginalized BIPOC voices of empowerment and resistance through a close look at activist movements fighting for the rights of migrant farm workers and LGBTQ+, Black, and Indigenous populations, including the migrant farm workers movement of the 1960s, the Stonewall Riots, the Dakota Pipeline protests at Standing Rock, and the Black Lives Matter movement. Students reflect upon important issues in their own communities and become activists as they brainstorm and develop an activist artifact. This integrated unit meets core content standards in Language Arts and Social Studies.

The Power of Music for Social Movements

Grade Levels: 3 5

Subject: Music

In this unit, The Power of Music for Social Movements, students in grades three through five will analyze activist songs with a focus on their expressive qualities, such as mood, tempo, lyrics, and instruments used to better understand the intent of the song. As a class, students will examine what constitutes an injustice and identify injustices in their classroom, school, and/or community. In small groups, students will modify the lyrics of an existing activist song to communicate actions they wish to take in response to an injustice. Through this experience, students begin to develop an understanding of how music is an effective tool for bringing awareness to injustices and encouraging collective action. This integrated unit meets core content requirements for Music.

Becoming an Activist for Racial Justice

Grade Level: 3

Subjects: Language Arts, Math, and Social Studies

Becoming an Activist for Racial Justice is a unit designed for third grade students that explores anti-racist activism within students local communities and invites students to become activists themselves. Teachers interested in using this unit will need to make connections with their own local CBOs that work for racial justice. Suggestions for doing so are included in the unit. This integrated unit meets core content standards in English Language Arts, Social Studies, and Mathematics.

Say Something: Our Fight For Fairness

Grade Level: 2

Subjects: Social Studies and Language Arts

This unit, Say Something: Our Fight For Fairness, designed for second grade students, will analyze rules and laws for fairness and identify ways that they can address rules and situations that are unfair. Through this process, they will understand that each one of us has the power to make a change when things are unfair. Students will be guided to think about our nations history, including fair labor laws and school segregation laws, and those who have often been on the receiving end of unfair treatment based on their characteristics (race, class, ethnicity, language ability, etc.). The unit concludes with reflection and critical analysis of the students own immediate community. Students and their families will identify instances of injustice or unfairness in their community, and then students will take action towards change by working collaboratively with peers on an advocacy project. This integrated unit meets standards in Social Studies and Language Arts.

Our Language Community

Grade Level: Kindergarten

Subjects: Language Arts and Social Studies

To create a classroom and school community where all language resources are valued and important, this unit designed for kindergarten students, Our Language Community, aims at challenging and disrupting norms about language: 1) that one named language is more important or valuable than another (for example, English in the United States); 2) English needs to be the sole language of schooling; and 3) there is only one correct way to speak and write any given language. The unit focuses on students' identities and language use, the diversity of community languages, and our love of our languages. Students conduct a survey to discover which languages their classmates speak at home. Students use this information to create multilingual home language posters and books. Through childrens literature, students are empowered to use and be proud of all language tools at their disposal. After learning about the power and diversity of language, students create a welcoming and inclusive linguistic classroom community by conducting a Linguistic Landscape Action Project in which they label classroom items in their many home languages. To act for change, the students and teacher collaborate on a letter to the school principal advocating for permission to label common school items and areas in the languages of the school community. This integrated unit meets core content standards in English Language Arts and Social Studies.

Black Lives Matter at School succinctly generalizes lessons from successful challenges to institutional racism that have been won through the BLM at School movement that began at one school in 2016 and has since spread to hundreds of schools across the country. This book will inspire many hundreds or thousands of more educators to join the BLM at School movement at a moment when this antiracist work in education could not be more urgent.