STEM Ed Announcement: 5 Free Lesson Plans celebrate Womens History

[Morton Sternheim <mort@k12s.phast.umass.edu>]

This is not a UMass program.
Contact information is below.

Listen to these Women Stories in your classroom  . . .
Bearing witness to the heroic actions and words of women
Telling inspiring stories that are little known and rarely told  . . .

            RaceBridges For Schools honors 

            National Womens History Month.
            
We offer to you 5 free printable lesson plans with audio downloads.          
Hear the inspiring stories of our favorite women storytellers. Also hear a
Native American man remembering the life and actions of an Alaskan woman
and justice pioneer.

            http://www.RaceBridgesForSchools.com/womenshistory
            
Listen to these stories and use the lesson plans with your students of
moving stories of inclusion and exclusion, loss and hope, past and present.
            
Use these stories in your classroom to inspire and challenge your students
to reflect on their world-view and to broaden their horizons.
            
Use these stories as discussion starters for a faculty inservice  session to
prompt and animate discussion about race-relations and inclusion.
            
The 5 lesson plans come with complete text as well as audio, teacher         
guides, student activities and further resources on related themes.
            
These units are also suitable for young adult group discussion as         
springboards on the subjects of race and racism.
            
                
Olga Loya 
                        
Latina Storyteller Olga Loya tells excerpts from her original story:
Being Mexican American : Caught Between Two Worlds - Nepantla. Growing up Mexican
American in Los Angeles. Caught between the Latino and Anglo cultures,
she realizes that she might belong to an even wider family and
community and that perhaps there is a way to live with them all. Warm
and spirited.



Linda Gorham 

                        
African American storyteller Linda Gorham tells two stories. One is I Am Somebody : 
Story Poems for Pride and Power. This an upbeat and moving celebration of
Linda's family tree and heritage. The lesson plan guides teachers
to invite "pride poems" from their students. In her story
Rosa Parks : One of Many Who Sat Down to Stand Up Linda personalizes
the words and action in a story of the famed Rosa Parks. The lesson plan explores
the many other heroes of the civil rights movement who 'sat down'
to stand up for justice.  Self-worth, dignity and courage come alive. 
                        
 
Gene Tagaban 

                        
Native American storyteller Gene Tagaban remembers Elizabeth Peratrovich, Tlingit
woman, of Petersburg, Alaska. She attended Western Washington State
University.  When she returned with a new husband to live in Juno, no
one would rent her a home because she was native. This was the limit to
Elizabeth.  She said: "No more signs. We need better housing, good jobs 
and good education for the people. And the right to sit wherever we
wanted." Gene Tagaban lovingly remembers the life of Elizabeth
Peratrovich through the stories told to him by his own grandmother. 
The story remembers the shining day, after much struggle and bigotry of the
passage of the Alaskan Anti-Discrimination Bill in 1945, 20 years before Rosa
Parks refused to sit in the back of the bus.  This account is part of
Gene Tagaban’s longer story of identity and belonging : Search Across the
Races : I Am Indopino ... Or How to Answer the Question : 'Who Are You?'.
                        

                        
Dovie Thomason 
                        
                        
Native American storyteller Dovie Thomason tells her true story: The Spirit
Survives: The American Indian Boarding School Experience: Then and Now.
This story weaves together personal narrative and historical accounts about the
Indian boarding schools to reveal how they were used to decimate native
culture and how some Indians stood up to them.  Shocking and Inspiring.
                        
                        
                    
Anne Shimojima
                        
                        
Japanese American Storyteller Anne Shimojima tells her original story
Hidden Memory: Internment: Knowing Your Family's Story and Why it Matters.
About her family in the United States, especially during the time of World War
II when some of her family were sent to the Japanese-American
internment camps. Explores in an engaging way xenephobia, racism and
being 'unseen' in society. Courage and resiliance in a story
that is rarely told. 
                        
            
            
Use these units to mark Womens' History Month or at any time. 


Other Lesson Plans on a variety of diversity themes can be found at:
http://www.RaceBridgesForSchools.com/womenshistory