GRADE LEVEL: Middle School, High School
COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, Language Using Bitmoji to Build a Virtual Backdrop
As soon as teachers received the news that many schools would start the 2020-21 school year in virtual spaces, educators across the country began creating “bitmoji classrooms” to share with their students. These virtual classrooms, created on a Google or PowerPoint slide, enable teachers and others to design and…
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Teach students about the role and importance of the youth vote and have them consider barriers to the youth vote.
GRADE LEVEL: High School
COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking & Listening, Language The Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution granted women the right to vote and was ratified on August 18, 1920.
Women's Suffrage Movement: Seeking the Right to Vote
Suffrage is the right or privilege of voting. In 1848, hundreds of mostly women and some men attended the first woman's rights convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y. to “discuss the social, civic and religious condition…
GRADE LEVEL: Elementary School, Middle School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking & Listening, Language Racism: A Unique Point of View from a Young Black Actor
In June 2020, Lonnie Chavis, the twelve-year old actor who stars in This Is Us, wrote and published an essay called “America Needs to Change” about his experiences with racism. He wrote the essay in the wake of an ongoing public conversation and reckoning about the ongoing issue of police violence…
Echoes & Reflections
GRADE LEVEL: Middle School, High School
COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening The purpose of this unit is for students to understand the effects of the Holocaust on its most innocent victims—children—since targeting babies and children was an important step in the attempt by the Nazis to erase the Jews and their future. Students will also research post-Holocaust genocides and analyze children’s rights…
Echoes & Reflections
GRADE LEVEL: Middle School, High School
COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening In this unit, students learn about the origins of antisemitism and how this hatred was exploited by the Nazis during the 1920s and 1930s as part of their racist ideology. Students define the terms antisemitism and stereotype, review text and video sources, and create a timeline reflecting examples of antisemitism throughout history. Students will…
GRADE LEVEL: Elementary School, Middle School
COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, Language Masks Have Been Used for Protection and Expressing One's Identity
In April 2020, wearing masks became an important part of our attire and everyday lives due to the global pandemic. The CDC strongly recommends wearing a cloth face covering or face mask to slow the spread of COVID-19. Masks can be used to express one’s cultural or ethnic identity…
Echoes & Reflections: Teaching the HolocaustThe purpose of this unit is for students to learn about one of humanity’s darkest chapters—the systematic mass murder of the Jews that came to be known as the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question.” This includes learning about the Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing squads), the Nazi extermination camps, and the perpetrators and collaborators who took part in the murder. Students also learn how Jews attempted to maintain…
Echoes & Reflections: Teaching the HolocaustGRADE LEVEL: Middle School, High School
COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, Language The lessons in this unit increase students’ awareness that antisemitism did not end after the Holocaust and provide them with opportunities to learn about the persistence of antisemitism in its contemporary forms. Students investigate the ways in which old ideas about Jews and Judaism have given rise to new expressions of…
GRADE LEVEL: High School
COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, Language How is the Coronavirus Impacting People of Color?
Coronavirus is devastating nations and communities around the globe. New demographic data from some U.S. cities and states reveals that the disease is disproportionately impacting communities of color in the U.S. According to the data, African American people are more likely to become infected with and die from coronavirus than…
Echoes & Reflections: Teaching the HolocaustThis unit provides an opportunity for students to examine the complex issues of responsibility and guilt within the context of the Nazi occupation of Europe. Students will also learn about the war crimes trials following World War II and consider the responsibility of the free world to provide a safe haven for refugees attempting to escape Europe. This unit also provides students with an introduction to Holocaust denial as a contemporary form of…
Teach students about the difference between caucuses and regular primary elections and engage them in a mock classroom caucus election.
Echoes & Reflections: Teaching the HolocaustThe purpose of this unit is to provide students with an understanding of the political, legal, social, and emotional status of the Jewish survivors. This unit also examines the role of the liberators following the defeat of the Nazis at the end of World War II.
Learning Objectives:
Describe the complex emotional ramifications of liberation for Jews at the end of World War II.
Describe the complex emotional ramifications of liberation…
Echoes & Reflections: Teaching the HolocaustThe purpose of this unit is for students to learn about the Weimar Republic’s fragile democracy between 1918 and 1933 and to examine historical events that allowed for the complete breakdown of democracy in Germany between 1933 and 1939, which led to the unfolding of anti-Jewish policies. Students will investigate primary source materials in order to understand how legislation, terror, and propaganda isolated German Jewry from German…
GRADE LEVEL: High School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking & Listening, Language Presidential Elections: Sexism at Work
The 2020 presidential election is unique in that six of the Democratic candidates who ran or are running for President are women. This unprecedented number of women candidates has led to a heightened awareness of how they are perceived, treated and scrutinized as viable candidates.
The Most Female Presidential Candidates in History
In 2019, six…
GRADE LEVEL: Middle School
COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Speaking and Listening, Language Seeing a Positive Reflection of Yourself in Media
O’Plérou Grebet, a 22-year-old digital artist from the Ivory Coast, was recently in the news because he created his own emojis, reflecting life in contemporary West Africa. In an interview with CNN, he stated, "I noticed that media and most articles about Africa were talking about the bad sides of the continent only. They reduced the…
GRADE LEVEL: High School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Speaking and Listening, Language Polls and Opinion Surveys are Part of Our Daily Lives
From responding to surveys on social media to reading results from the latest election poll, we are inundated with information about what the public thinks about a variety of topics and issues. During elections, polls are used to provide information to the general public and for candidates to gain insight into their standing in the race. During the…
Echoes & Reflections
GRADE LEVEL: Middle School, High School
COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening This unit provides students with an opportunity to learn about the types of rescue that occurred in Nazi-occupied Europe and to consider the moral and ethical choices that non-Jews made in order to help Jews survive. The unit also outlines the obstacles and dangers that hidden children faced during the Holocaust. Throughout the unit, students have…
Right-Wing Extremists and Others Storm the U.S. Capitol
On January 6, 2021, Congress met in the U.S. Capitol to count electoral votes and certify the results of the 2020 Presidential election. While this took place, a violent mob of right-wing extremists and others stormed the Capitol. They came to Washington, D.C. (and several state capitals) to disrupt and overturn the results of the Presidential election. As House and Senate lawmakers held their floor debates, angry rioters—many…
GRADE LEVEL: Middle School, High School
COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, Language Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric and Policies
The U.S. has a long history of anti-immigrant bias. Years of anti-immigrant rhetoric, bias, discrimination and policies have permeated our country. In August 2019, a deadly shooting that killed twenty-two people in El Paso, Texas highlighted this anti-immigrant bigotry. The suspected gunman drove more than 650 miles from…