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A note about the following: I wrote this post several months ago. It was originally scheduled to publish Thursday March 12; we decided not to post it then because the night before, COVID-19 news swept the nation and all attention was focused there.

I know that some of our readers, like me, have time and mental space to read this right now; some do not. Our email and DMs are open; please get in touch if there is any support we can provide, and take care.

On January 31, we published a Links Roundup post. While we published it under the group account, I (Allie) organized and posted it, so I'm primarily responsible for the mistakes therein-namely, that in promoting Lee and Low's writeup of the 2019 Diversity Baseline Survey, I failed to name and credit Dr. Laura M. Jiménez, as well as Betsy Beckert, as co-authors of the survey. My mistake was part of a pattern in this specific instance ( the Guardian also failed to credit Dr. Jiménez and Ms. Beckert for their work on this survey), but it is also part of a larger pattern of White erasure of BIPOC people and work. So with a healthy dose of humility that comes with recognizing myself as a big part of the problem, and with my (and our) sincere apologies to Dr. Jiménez and Ms. Beckert, that pattern of erasure is the subject of this post.

With full credit to the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond, we here at Reading While White define racism as "Race-based prejudice coupled with access to systemic, structural power." It is impossible to exist in the world without having internalized race-based prejudice, and Whiteness necessarily confers a privileged relationship to systemic and structural power upon White people. Therefore, under this definition, all White people are racist. And all White people working on anti-racist activism necessarily bring their racism into their anti-racist work.

It is an inescapable truth that I will bring my own Whiteness and my own racism into anti-racist spaces, and that I will often reproduce racism in those spaces. I can always work to do better, but part of doing better is accepting and sitting with the inherent contradiction of my being in these spaces at all, trying to do anti-racist work while not denying the fact that I am racist.

In a study on how White activists contribute to severe burnout among BIPOC activists, Paul C. Gorski and Noura Erakat identified patterns of White activists "undermining or invalidating the racial justice work of activists of color" and "taking credit for participants' racial justice work and ideas" as major contributors to BIPOC burnout (among others). According to Gorski and Erakat, "white activists derived benefits from their involvement in racial justice activism at the expense of activists of color who, in turn, were silenced, undermined, disrespected, and eventually burned out."

Specifically, in Gorski's and Erakat's study, BIPOC activists reported that White activists:

"appropriate antiracist organizations by usurping power from activists of color"

"Need... the spotlight, [which] led some to exploit activists of color either to acquire benefits-leadership positions or speaking invitations, for example-or to win validation from activists of color."

"take credit for ideas they previously dismissed from [BIPOC activists]"

"accept benefits, such as credit and recognition, for ideas and work produced by activists of color." (One interviewee offered, as an example, White Academics "who just want to get their name published with someone who is recognized for doing racial justice.")

"take the work developed by marginalized people and 'put their name on it.' [One interviewee] explained, 'I have white racial justice workers who ... even record me or photograph something I post and use it as if it's theirs, without giving me credit ... as they coopt it and reappropriate it in a way that is dangerous.'"

BIPOC activists in Gorski's and Erakat's study described these White-rooted, within-community conditions as more intense and potent than external causes of burnout: "The racism that propelled participants into racial justice movements was reproduced within those movements. For many participants, this was a particularly disappointing and stress-inducing condition because they had entered movements hoping for a reprieve from the racism with which they coped outside their movements...." It stands to reason that White activists (including us at RWW) have done as much to undermine the anti-racist movement as any external force, and we (White people, including us at RWW) inevitably continue to do so.
There are different levels of White erasure of BIPOC work, from just ignoring it to actively appropriating it. Failing to acknowledge or credit BIPOC people for their work and ideas also erases their very existence and presence in activist spaces, a particularly noxious form of racism.

Big names in the White Anti-racist movement necessarily play a role in this problem. Tim Wise has been rightly criticised for how he dominates, profits from, and moves in general through anti-racist spaces; Leslie Mac, creator of the Ferguson Response Network and much more, wrote: "From Tim Wise to Dixon White - our pain is used for profit. And repeating concepts created by Black folks thru a white lens will always sell." While I myself have learned deeply from, and am grateful for, the work of White Fragility author Robin DiAngelo, I recognize that she also benefits from White privilege within the anti-racist movement; the BIPOC people with whom she's collaborated don't have nearly the same level of national name-recognition, at least among White people (I saw Dr. DiAngelo present at a conference with Darlene Flynn in 2017; both were excellent, and I've been bothered ever since that Robin DiAngelo is a household name among White activists and Flynn is not).

We here at Reading While White fall into this category as well. Although we do not have the same level of mainstream attention nationally as Wise or DiAngelo, we do have a disproportionate degree of clout within the fields of librarianship and children's literature, given that some of our BIPOC colleagues have done this work for more than twenty years (and we turn five this Fall). Ironically, given how I subsequently erased her work, Dr. Laura Jiménez pointed this out to me when I interviewed her three years ago:

The one thing that frustrates me the most--and I'm glad that Reading While White is doing what it does--is that if I say something about a book, if Debbie or Edi says something, we're all told that we're not giving the author a chance. That they tried. We are not believed. If you look at the traffic RWW get vs the traffic I get or Edi gets, even though we've been doing this for longer, you get more, and the only difference is that you're White. To be honest, part of me resents that. And, I am glad that there are people willing to amplify our voices. If I write something, and you pick it up, that means so many more people will be willing to hear it. And that is paramount to my work. You get a lot of crap, the same criticism, but at the end of the day, you are heard and you are believed. Without White voices, our message can't be heard. We are not believed. It's good that your team realizes it.

I am glad that Dr. Jiménez was honest here, although she was much more generous with us than we deserve, i.e., we do NOT get the same crap; what we get is much smaller, and benign by comparison. I imagine there are many BIPOC people within the children's literature field who feel similarly-or more strongly-and for good, valid reasons aren't inclined to tell us that they feel that way (see: Gorski's and Erakat's study about burnout above).

You've probably heard that Black people-especially women-need to work "twice as hard for half as much" (mainstream White America can thank Scandal for bringing that maxim into our consciousness). Think about what this means for us as White people: We work half as hard, for twice as much.

How does this show up in children's literature? For one, the bar to be published is infinitely higher for BIPOC creators; and even if you are published, the level of attention and spotlight from the vast majority of bookstores and libraries is disproportionately higher for White creators. While perusing my local Barnes & Noble the other night, I was angered by the number of mediocre books by White people, mostly men, prominently on display in the children's section. There were several that I'd hazard would never have been published, let alone given the best display space, had a Black woman submitted the same text. This itself is a form of erasure-our insistence upon highlighting the same White men, over and over, causes and allows them to take up space that should belong to BIPOC creators, and by extension, BIPOC readers.

SCBWI Minnesota recently quite literally erased-that is, deleted-the work of Dr. Sarah Park Dahlen when she pointed out that the image they'd set as their banner was a stereotypical, racist image (link included with permission). They also erased the voices of many people who'd commented in agreement with Dr. Dahlen. Deletion of harmful posts is a common form of White erasure; in one fell swoop, the original poster can erase, rather than take ownership of, their mistakes, and can also erase the voices of any BIPOC critiquing racism. In this case, SCBWI Minnesota also decided not to clarify who was responsible for the deletions (link included with permission), thereby erasing their responsibility for that act of erasure and diffusing the blame for this act of racism. Such deletions gaslight the targets of racism (which compounds the initial racism). As Dr. Ebony Elizabeth Thomas noted in a thread about patterns of White erasure she noticed last year, "oppression justifies its violence and power by arguing that the oppressed's receipts are invalid" (quote included with permission).

(A point of clarification here: SCBWI Minnesota later posted screenshots of the deleted content. Another point of clarification: Screenshots that are not transcribed are not accessible to those who use screen readers.)

Erasure also shows up in children's literature when White creators steal ideas from creators of color and present them as their own. This ranges from the constant entitlement White authors feel to tell BIPOC stories to outright theft and plagiarism. (If you haven't read Jacqueline Woodson's Who Can Tell My Story in a while, pause and re-read it now, and also make time for a re-read of Debbie Reese's An oft-posed question: "Who can tell your stories?"-and actually, also read Maya Gonzalez' My Story, Your Story, Their Story, Who Gets To Tell It before you read any more of my work). You may also have read David Bowles' recent, expert pieces on the "harmful, appropriating, inaccurate, trauma-porn melodrama" that is Jeanine Cummins' American Dirt, or Maya Gonzalez' careful documentation of how White authors Brook Pessin-Whedbee and Kelly Storck, as well as their publishers (Jessica Kingsley Publishers and Instant Help Books/imprint of New Harbinger Publications, Inc.) plagiarized her work. Recently, Tangerine Jones wrote about how authors Katherine Alford and Kathy Gunst, plus their publisher Simon and Schuster, coopted and profit from her work-and the White aggression Alford and Gunst brought against her. White plundering of Native stories and cultural content for profit also echoes the history of colonial invasion. As Professor Rebecca Tsosie says:

Indigenous peoples have property interests, even if they don't fall within the narrow definitions of Western law. This was a problem in the sixteenth century when the Doctrine of Discovery was applied as an international doctrine to validate the interests of European sovereigns in claiming property in the lands that were described as the "New World." They said that indigenous peoples don't really have property rights, they just kind of roam around on the land, and so it's okay for Europeans to go and appropriate the land and say that they have title. Now that's what we don't want to do with intellectual property rights in the modern era... [P]eople can go and basically steal indigenous songs and stories, and then they can copyright them... the harm's not merely economic, but it can be a cultural form of harm that could be very devastating.

(Many thanks to Dr. Debbie Reese for answering my questions on this subject, and for sending me that link.) All of the above are examples of the different forms that White appropriation and erasure of BIPOC work can take in the world of literature.

[CONTENT WARNING FOR THIS PARAGRAPH - discusses police killings of Black people]

But perhaps the most dangerous, destructive aspect of this erasure is the flipside. If White people leap to take credit and rewards for BIPOC work and ideas-and if we make those White names household staples, while erasing the names and existence of robbed BIPOC people-we also do the reverse, when it comes to blaming BIPOC people for their own murders while simultaneously erasing the White-owned guilt for those murders. I'm talking to White readers, now. You likely can name a slew of Black people murdered by police: Michael Brown. Eric Garner. Tamir Rice. Philando Castile. Alton Sterling. How many of their killers can you name, off the top of your head? They are: Darren Wilson. Daniel Pantaleo. Timothy Loehmann. Jeronimo Yanez. Howie Lake. Blane Salamoni. Yes, I had to look up most of those. No, they aren't all White, but their lack of mainstream name recognition still protects a White-dominant police force. None were held legally responsible for killing the above human beings. Why were their victims put on trial, their private lives plundered and exposed, by a White-dominant media and public desperate to find a reason to blame them for their own murders? Why have we (White people) done our best to malign their names and their legacies, exonerate their killers', and erase those of women and nonbinary BIPCOC victims? In the interest of Saying Her Name: Meagan Hockaday. Tanisha Anderson. Mya Hall. Alexia Christian. There are too many more. We should know them.

All of the credit for anti-racist gains, none of the blame for racism... this is still the dominant narrative in every sector of the White community, from open bigots with sheets and torches to the wokest of the woke.

At the White Privilege Conference in 2017, Darlene Flynn and Robin DiAngelo said that "getting educated just makes White folks better racists." BIPOC activists have raised concerns about White anti-racist activism for a long time; I recently re-read the famous excerpt from The Autiobiography of Malcolm X in which he advises "sincere" White people to "...find all other white people they can who feel as they do-and let them form their own all-white groups, to work trying to convert other white people who are thinking and acting so racist." This passage, among many other things, helped inform our thinking when we first launched Reading While White. I'd remembered the above words perfectly, but had conveniently managed to forget the following:

I have these very deep feelings that white people who want to join black organizations are really just taking the escapist way to salve their consciences. By visibly hovering near us, they are 'proving' that they are 'with us' ... generally whites' very presence subtly renders the black organization automatically less effective... I know that every time that whites join a black organization, you watch, pretty soon... a black may be up front with a title, but the whites, because of their money, are the real controllers.

What can we White people do, to be and do better? It's possible to get stuck in guilt, when we reflect on how we can aid and abet racism despite our best intentions. It's also tempting, while reflecting on this, to outright disengage from anti-racist efforts; and at times, we White people do need to step back, since our very presence can (as Malcolm X reminds us) automatically render BIPOC-led efforts less effective. And we should definitely remove ourselves when we're told that we're actively harming BIPOC activists.

White activists won't, however, help matters by completely and permanently disengaging from the movement. We also won't help by self-flagellating-especially publicly, which puts a lot of pressure on the injured people to provide forgiveness and absolution. There is no perfect science to knowing when to step up and step back, but we have a responsibility to keep trying to show up when it's helpful to the movement, and to step back when it's not.

The study I cited above from Gorski and Erakat suggests that White activists can improve by "policing one another around concerns related to credit- and spotlight-grabbing behaviors (such as coopting the ideas of activists of color) so activists of color do not need to expend energy doing so." We must hold each other accountable to this, and we must fight the kneejerk defensiveness that so often comes when anyone-fellow White people included-try to hold us accountable. Inviting others to give us direct feedback (and sharing how they can do that easily) is a good first step here, and in that spirit, please always feel free to email us, readingwhilewhite@gmail.com. We must remember, also, that asking fellow White people to hold us accountable should not be an excuse to ignore or dismiss BIPOC people when they do choose to expend energy to hold us accountable, feedback to which we are not entitled but for which we should be grateful.

We can also correct ourselves and each other when we start to subtly usurp and take control of BIPOC-led organizations, as Malcolm X warns is our default. Making finances, funding, and decision-making processes in organizations transparent, and making transparency the norm, can help; we also must listen and act when BIPOC people voice concerns about White leadership or processes. Patterns of BIPOC leaving organizations are almost always a signal that something is rotten in the White culture of that organization, and when we notice such patterns, we must self-examine and ask for help and education from our White friends and community. And above all, when we're made aware that we're impeding anti-racist efforts, we must remove ourselves, and commit to change and accountability, before we continue to inflict harm on BIPOC activists and weaken the movement overall.

Gorski and Erakat also advise White activists to "prioritize movement goals over their needs for recognition and validation." Putting this into practice is easier said than done. Many White people are drawn to anti-racist work entirely for ego- or profit-based reasons; maybe a few are drawn to the work for entirely pure reasons and don't care about recognition at all. But most of us fall somewhere in between (I include myself in that group). I need to learn, and practice, checking my ego (and letting others check my ego). We White people need to help each other actually do that work of prioritizing movement goals over egos-and this involves having very clear goals, as well as people we trust to hold us accountable.
(A quick N.B.: This language-"prioritize movement goals over your need for recognition and validation"-should never be used as an excuse to give men credit for the work of women and nonbinary people, to give cisgender or heterosexual people credit for LGBTQIA+ work, to give nondisabled people credit for disabled work, or to justify oppression of any other intersecting identity.)

We must also work on doing the flipside of all this. In addition to giving full credit to BIPOC people for BIPOC ideas and work, we need to work to take responsibility for White-owned and White-originated mistakes, harm, and damage. This means making apologies that don't ring hollow, taking action to correct the damage we've done, and working to prevent similar mistakes in the future. This means we openly and eagerly educate fellow White people about our own mistakes, rather than covering them up from each other in an effort to be the best White person in the group.

Dr. Jiménez told us, three years ago, that one of the most useful things we can do at Reading While White is to pass the mic. We have to do a better job of passing that mic, and talk internally often about how we can do better (we're always open to criticism and suggestions on this subject, as well). Our White readers can also play a role in this, by making sure that you hear what our BIPOC colleagues have to say when we do pass the mic. Read our kindred spirits, and read them before you read us. We make it a point to link to BIPOC articles, essays, and blog posts as often as we can-click through those and read them. If it means you have to stop reading us so you can read them, please read them. Like them more than you like us on social media. Amplify them more than you amplify us. And when they call upon you to take action, listen to them. Don't wait for us to say "don't promote books with anthropomorphic monkeys"-believe Edi Campbell when she says it herself.

I'm sorry to Dr. Jiménez-I shouldn't have erased your work. All of us at RWW are grateful that Dr. Jiménez encouraged us to acknowledge and examine that act; it's given us a chance to reflect and learn. And in the spirit of this work, we hope that these reflections are useful to you, too.

-Allie Jane Bruce

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A note about the following: I wrote this post several months ago. It was originally scheduled to publish Thursday March 12; we decided not to post it then because the night before, COVID-19 news swept the nation and all attention was focused there.

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essaypop is an interactive writing platform that allows students to compose great essays on any device and in any subject.

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Teaching High School English One Daring Adventure at a Time

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If you're anything like me, you're running on empty by May! This has been one of the most challenging years of my 25+ teaching career and I'm exhausted... but we've still got 7 weeks to go!! Here are some activities to help you make it to summer break.
1. GO OUTSIDE
Take advantage of good weather if you can and allow your students to use the outdoors as writing inspiration for a poem, to practice using figurative language techniques to describe the environment, and simply for a change of scenery. I sometimes use the bleachers at the sports field as my classroom and it works well.
2. END of YEAR ONE-PAGER

Ask students to create a one-pager that represents their school year. This is a great way for students to show their learning and allow them to be creative at the same time! I ask them to include ideas around the following big ideas.

- What did you learn? How did you improve in certain aspects of school?

- What successes did you have at school? With a hobby? A sport?

- What are you looking forward to next school year?

What were the most significant news stories of the year in your school? Community? World?

Looking for a print-and-go bundle of activities for the end of the year?! I've got you covered with this set of resources that you get started with tomorrow! It includes 18 different activities - some are quick, and some are more involved, but you can pick and choose the ones that will work best for you and your students! Check it out HERE!

4. END OF YEAR COUNTDOWN / REVIEW ACTIVITY

Grab this FREE print-and-go review activity! It's an easy activity that students can use to review a specific topic or they can use to review their school year - the choice is yours! This could easily be used as a jumping-off point for a longer writing piece. Comes in a print & digital version!
5. CHECK OUT MY NEWEST END OF THE YEAR ACTIVITY!
It's the end of the year and I'm exhausted! The students are over it all and it can be a frustrating time of the year for everyone. Here are some quick and easy activities to help your students focus during the last few days of school.

Check out some of the resources that the ladies of the Secondary English Coffee Shop use to make it to the end of the year! Collectively we represent over a 150 years of teaching experience!!

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Creative Ways to Bring Nonfiction into Middle School ELA

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A great blog of secondary English teachers helping you find great ideas to enhance your classroom!

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Free ELA resources for PreK-12. Lessons, quizzes, worksheets, and more on grammar, phonics, literature, writing, and reading. Visit elafree.com now!

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Created by EL Education, on behalf of Public Consulting Group, Inc. © Public Consulting Group, Inc., with a perpetual license granted to EL Education, Inc.

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Free audiobooks during summer

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SYNC is a free summer audiobook program for teens 13+. AudiobookSYNC gives participants two thematically paired audiobooks each week.

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On June 14, 2016, two days after the Pulse Shooting, where 49 members of my LGBTQ community were murdered, I uploaded "An open letter to the world on June 14, 2016".
Our country is struggling. Make no mistake, marginalized people are asking for an awakening from you.
I reread the letter, edited a bit, but I think it still stands. I'm sending it out there, again asking you to be brave.
I usually write about graphic novels. Today I am writing about living in this world as a cis-gendered, Latina-lesbian, with two sons and a wonderful, patient wife who keeps marrying me because the laws change but our commitment does not.

Last weekend I attended the Children's Literature Association's (ChLA) annual conference in Columbus, Ohio. I presented research, talked about graphic novels, heard important ideas about books and reading. I also took part in a panel organized by Dr. Katharine Slater, supported by the ChLA board and the ChLA Diversity committee, and focused on the needs of minority scholars.

I did not want to be part of the panel. Sitting in front of a room mostly filled, with so many women of color, with so few White allies. My reluctance to participate was born from a lifetime of being called out, threatened, and assaulted for existing - for being a person in the world.

Dr. Sarah Park Dahlen began the panel by addressing the fact that we, as women of color, were taking a chance by representing ourselves, as ourselves, to the academy. I sat next to Dr. Marilisa Jimenez Garcia, and Dr. Ebony Elizabeth Thomas and heard their stories, and shared my own. Unfortunately, our stories are not unique. The women in the audience spoke of regularly being ostracized, criticized and summarily dismissed, both personally and professionally. I left the room feeling drained. Later that afternoon I heard Dr. Park say the words I know to be true, "We are not the problem. Racism is the problem."

More Than Racism Alone

That night I enjoyed the company of friends at the ChLA awards ceremony filled with congratulations, hotel conference food, and laughter. Later we had what can only be described as the first annual ChLA Prom Night. In one corner of the room I danced with gay men, lesbians, and straight allies I had come to know and appreciate. We clustered together and celebrated the end of a long day with silliness and joy. At one point a gay male colleague confided, "I used to go dancing all the time. I miss it." And I knew what he meant.

The next day, Sunday June 13, 2016, I stood at an airport charging station with my phone before I got on an airplane to return home. I looked up and saw the news. I knew what it meant, even when the news anchors didn't say it; Mass shooting ... Pride week ... a nightclub called The Pulse ... Orlando, FL. We were, once again, hunted for living in the world.

It was not a coincidence that a coward (whom I will not name) with an assault riffle killed and wounded more than 100 LGBTQ people on Latin Dance Night in Orlando during Pride week. It was a planned attack by a rage-fueled man with a million excuses and the tacit approval of a nation. Make no mistake about the importance of the everyday aggressions against my communities; racism, homophobia, and misogyny work hand in hand to destroy the person I am in the world. They signal an open pathway to hate turned to action. As we danced and laughed and drank on that very same Saturday night, we were part of the same LGBTQ community who takes refuge in music, community, and joy, who celebrate ourselves and each other in the world.

More than One Man

I returned home on Sunday feeling wounded. On Monday I picked up my 13 year-old son from middle school. He got in the car and asked if I knew about what happened in Orlando.

"I do. What do you think about it?" I asked.

"Maybe Trump is right. Maybe we do need to keep them out." He said, quietly, as we drove down sun dappled New England streets. I found myself defending Muslims and trying to tell him it was a single man who destroyed that night. I ran through the list of non-Muslims who had bombed buildings, and opened fire in public places, killing and wounding so many out of hate. I explained it had more to do with guns and hate, rather than faith. As we drove, I defended a religion with a long and lively history of damning, imprisoning, and killing LGBTQ people to my son because I want him to be better than that.

But if I was honest with him I would say I know religion is a problem. The Catholic Church, along with the vast majority of organized Protestant religions, damns me to hell for the person I am in the world. The Church of Latter Day Saints goes one step further, damning me and my children, for the person I am in the world. The majority of Muslim countries have laws against me, and a history of condoning killing me in horrific ways, for the person I am in the world. So, it was one man, but he was not alone.

Be Brave Enough

White, cis-gendered, straight people (any combination, really) often ask, "But what can I do?" They ask me in private, in classes, in conversation, and they asked at the ChLA panel. My answer is the same.
You can be brave.
Brave enough to say, "That is not ok" out loud and in public. When faculty members say, "but she sounds so white" after meeting an African American job candidate, you can respond, "that is not appropriate". You can refrain from putting the burden of racism on the one non-White student in your class. You can be brave enough to defend my right to marry, to raise children and have all the rights you have had for so long. You can be brave enough to shut down the "all lives matter" defense of racism. Call out the "what about men?" misogyny. Shut down the "she was drunk and wearing that" rape culture. You can listen, without excuse or argument, when we say that words matter, actions hurt, we are mistreated and misjudged everyday single day for being ourselves in the world.

You can stop using intention as an excuse. For yourself and for others.

And let me be clear, you will need to be brave to stand with us because you will be uncomfortable. Your actions will cause tension, you will not be appreciated by aggressors for standing up and speaking out. You might shake, feel queasy, or doubt your decision to step out of your privileged, safe space. There will most likely be pushback, accusations and suspicion. It will never be easy, just as living in a world designed for you is never easy for me.

And, you should do all of this without expecting a letter, a gold star of appreciation, or a special high five. You should do all this without claiming special status. Without claiming any more than you already have. You should do this because it is the right thing to do.

I am tired.

I am haunted.

I am hunted.

You can choose to be brave enough to defend who you are not.

Sincerely,

Laura Maria Jiménez, a person in the world, every day.

Names of Orlando Pulse Victims, in Alphabetical order

Stanley Almodovar III, 23 years old

Amanda L. Alvear, 25 years old

Oscar A. Aracena Montero, 26 years old

Rodolfo Ayala Ayala, 33 years old

Antonio Davon Brown, 29 years old

Darryl Roman Burt II, 29 years old

Angel Candelario-Padro, 28 years old

Juan Chavez Martinez, 25 years old

Luis Daniel Conde, 39 years old

Cory James Connell, 21 years old

Tevin Eugene Crosby, 25 years old

Deonka Deidra Drayton, 32 years old

Simón Adrian Carrillo Fernández, 31 years old

Leroy Valentin Fernandez, 25 years old

Mercedez Marisol Flores, 26 years old

Peter Ommy Gonzalez Cruz, 22 years old

Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22 years old

Paul Terrell Henry, 41 years old

Frank Hernandez, 27 years old

Miguel Angel Honorato, 30 years old

Javier Jorge Reyes, 40 years old

Jason Benjamin Josaphat, 19 years old

Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, 30 years old

Anthony Luis Laureano Disla, 25 years old

Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21 years old

Christopher Andrew Leinonen, 32 years old

Gilberto R. Silva Menendez, 25 years old

Brenda Marquez McCool, 49 years old

Akyra Monet Murray, 18 years old

Kimberly Jean Morris, 37 years old

Geraldo A. Ortiz Jimenez, 25 years old

Luis Omar Ocasio Capo, 20 years old

Joel Rayon Paniagua, 32 years old

Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36 years old

Enrique L. Rios, Jr., 25 years old

Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, 35 years old

Xavier Emmanuel Serrano-Rosado, 35 years old

Jean Carlos Nieves Rodríguez, 27 years old

Yilmary Rodríguez Solivan, 24 years old

Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz, 24 years old

Shane Evan Tomlinson, 33 years old

Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34 years old

Jonathan A. Camuy Vega, 24 years old

Martin Benitez Torres, 33 years old

Luis Sergio Vielma, 22 years old

Juan Pablo Rivera Velázquez, 37 years old

Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37 years old

Franky Jimmy DeJesus Velázquez, 50 years old

Jerald Arthur Wright, 31 years old

Posted in Tagged Representation, Social Justice |LGBTQ |

Here is a book that just sort of arrived on my doorstep ... ok, well not my doorstep as much as the pile o' books that gathers in the area under

the mailboxes near my office at Boston university School of Education, waiting for me to come and collect them. I enjoy the sight and allowing the books to pile up because it feels like christmas when I do rip into them.

Spill Zone by Scott Westerfeld and Alex Puvilland, colors by Hilary Sycamore was one of the books in my latest stack. I can't tell you if I ordered it or if it was sent to me by the fine people at FirstSecond publishing but in any case, I'm happy it made it's way to me.

The cover (seen here) is oddly creepy-ish and tough. I want to stay with this idea of creepy-ish and toughness existing simultaneously. Creepy elements include the red-eyed wolf with it's open maw hovering behind the girl, as if it will chase her at any moment. The malevolent intent of the wolf seems clear and barely contained. The small but highly saturated areas of red - the wolf's eyes, mouth, as well as what appears to be the spill in the bottom quarter of the cover - frame the image of the girl on the motocross bike.

If you want to read a complete and mind-blowing treatise of how illustrators can use these kinds of colors, hues, and shapes to effect readers' meaning making, pick up Molly Bang's Picture This (1991, Chronicle Books).

Back to the cover. The other creepy element is the doll on the back of the bike. For an instant, I thought it was a child riding without a helmet, or possible without a neck. But after looking at it for a while (horror mixed with curiosity) the visible pupil-less eye, tiny nose, and disheveled hair reminded me of a Raggedy Ann doll. Which was sort of still weird.

Then there is the girl, or more exactly, the young woman. She's sitting astride a motocross motorcycle wearing full crash pads, holding a camera and looking right at me. Daring me. Daring me to what, I am not sure. But, this is a woman who does not suffer fools.

Let's get some important stuff clear. This books is about a young woman, Addison, who is raising her younger sister, Lexa, alone. They are survivors of some sort of horrendous toxic spill or alien invasion, or opening of a portal into an unwelcome world. The Zone is off limits with the National Guard manning barricades to keep people out and the things that exist in the Zone in. Lexa no longer speaks as a result of the spill and so Addison ventures into the Zone to take pictures of what is left. She sells the pictures to take care of herself and Lexa.

The Zone is alive and weird. Deeply off. Familiar objects made strange by a distortion, ill suited colors, and Addison's wary, warning narrative. She's seen all this before. She hates it. She's drawn to it. She is captured by it and repulsed by her own fascination.

The book passes the Bechdel Test ... lots of female characters talking to each other about many things not related to men. As a matter of fact women drive the plot by breathing life into the structure of the book and acting to move the story forward. Westerfeld, a noted White male, does what many White male writers attempt and fail. He creates a strong female protagonist and allows her to be a wholly complex, imperfect, active agent in her life and the life of those around her. In addition, he creates minor characters who gave me the sense that they existed before these pages and will continue to exist after I closed the book. There are Whites, Blacks, Asians, men and women all living in a fragile and suspect world.

The end of Spill Zone is frustrating to me, as a reader. Like many dystopia novels it is part of a series. The end of this first book is a cliff hanger that leaves me wondering and worried for Lexa and Addison, And possibly, the world.

The book should come with the following directions - Pick it up, read it. Put it down, walk away. Return and repeat.

Posted in Bechdel Test, Graphic novels, Middle grade fiction, Reviews, YA literature |

I don't think of myself as a sentimental reader although there is a good chance that I am. I am always more clear about other people's motives than I am about my own. I can clearly see when my friend is making a HUGE mistake or when my kids are being so prideful that it is going to come back and bite them in the butt. That kind of clarity is nearly impossible for me to glean from my own psyche.

That sense of veiled motived, self delusion, and search for clarity is what this book brings with a gentle beauty that I found ... almost painful to read.

Thi Bui, according to the book jacket, was a child when she and her family immigrated from Vietnam to America. She now teaches and lives in Berkley, CA with her husband, son and her mother. In between those two lines of text lay a story of immigration that spans continents, wars, and generations.

Before talking directly about The Best We Could Do I want to take a moment and talk about the graphic novel as a form. There are some in my field of study who don't like the term. Some consider the term an unnecessary separator that takes away from the legitimacy of comics. Like using the work film instead of movie in order to show how sophisticated you are. The term may have started that way. It may have been meant as a way to distance authors from comic books. I don't doubt any of that, but for me a graphic novels is a long form comic narrative that stands alone and apart - whole unto itself. With publishers discovering the marketplace, and readership growing I worry that graphic novels are being overtaken in the by comic book arcs and series. But, then, I see books like this and I don't have to worry much anymore. As long as there are memoirs to be told, graphic novels will continue to be written and read.

The Best We Could Do opens with Thi Bui in labor in New York. There is a bravery to this opening that I cannot overstate - think about it. The first time I meet the protagonist she is grunting, afraid, and vulnerable. She is being told what to do and how to do it by the hospital staff and trying to hold onto her adulthood, she wants to be in control of what happens to her body and to her baby. This is the perfect metaphor for the rest of the book - people trying desperately to be controlling agents in their own lives - even as fate, family, and politics pushes them in a different and often violent directions.

Like many families, there is a hidden history to this immigration story. Thi Bui uses a charcoal or heavy pencil to create the paneling throughout the book. This provides an uneven edge that signals a fragility or messiness of the world she is inviting me to witness. In addition, she uses text boxes to offset her internal narrative. This design choice (seen here on pp. 36-37) provides me with the expository text I need to better understand a story that is incredibly foreign to me. I am not any sort of Asian and although I grew up in Long Beach during the 70s and 80s and knew my fair share of Vietnamese, Cambodian and Thai kids, I learned nothing about the history of the region.

The watercolor wash - a dark orange that reminds me of the stucco houses in Los Angeles - provides an important depth to the images. Sometimes, as seen on page 36, in the larger panel, Thi Bui uses brushwork to echo and highlight an image. Sometimes color is used as an independent and layered image that illustrates a memory (p. 37, pn. 1). And there are times when the color distinguishes background objects like buildings, and creates a white space to focus attention on characters (p. 37, pn. 2). The depth of hue achieved with a single color is astonishing.

Thi Bui's light pen work (perhaps done with a brush?) on the characters faces is deceptively simplistic. There isn't much detail and yet emotions and personalities are clear. Her father's cloudy disposition, her mother's emotional reticence, and Thi Bui's own openness is clear. According to Scott McCloud (see Understanding Comics) the lack of highly defined details on character faces may be what allows me to connect with the characters.

This is a journey book covering some of the historical background that lead to the Vietnam War, and the aftermath for one family. It is at times violet, scary, and merciless in showing the history of this family. From starvation to war to the escape and assimilation this is not an easy story to read and experience but it is worthwhile. I would place this in the hands of any high school student or adult. It is, simply put, a sublime example of a graphic novel memoir. The Best We Could Do uses one family's story to provide a glimpse into a history sorely absent from the American narrative.

Posted in Graphic novels, Representation, Reviews, Social Justice |

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On June 14, 2016, two days after the Pulse Shooting, where 49 members of my LGBTQ community were murdered, I uploaded "An open letter to the world on June 14, 2016". Our country is struggling. Make no mistake, marginalized people are asking for an awakening from you.

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For young people

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Here's my latest version of places for young writers to submit (updated May 2020). A PDF version is always available on my For Writers page. Please feel free to share widely, and email me any suggestions or corrections.

Contests

The Amazon First Novel Award includes a Youth Author Award category. Teens between the ages of 13 and 17 can submit a short story. thewalrus.ca/amazonfirstnovelaward

The CNIB Braille Creative Writing Contest accepts original poems and stories by Canadian students up to grade 12. www.cnib.ca

The Eden Mills Student Poetry Contest is an annual youth poetry contest run by Eden Mills Writers' Festival, which is held annually in early September. edenmillswritersfestival.ca

Indigenous Arts & Stories showcases writing by Aboriginal Canadians between the ages of 6 and 29. www.our-story.ca

The Hamilton Public Library has the annual Power of the Pen Creative Writing Contest for ages 12 to 18 who are residents of Southern Ontario. Check the Teen Page at www.hpl.ca.

The League of Canadian Poets lists prizes and offers resources for young poets. poets.ca/resources

The River of Words Annual Poetry Contest is designed to help youth explore the natural and cultural history of the place they live. The contest is open to any writers aged 5 to 19. Older students must have not yet completed high school. www.stmarys-ca.edu/center-for-environmental-literacy/rules-and-guidelines

The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards recognize student achievement in the visual arts and creative writing. Sign up to receive email updates about annual deadlines. www.artandwriting.org

Publications

The Cyberkids website at www.cyberkids.com accepts work for online publication.

Hanging Loose Press is dedicated to supporting new and young writers. They have special guidelines for high school student submissions. www.hangingloosepress.com

INKspire publishes articles by youth aged 14 to 29 on the arts, social issues, science, and technology. INKspire hopes to provide opportunities for young writers, journalists, and artists to showcase their talents. inkspire.org

is an online journal that publishes the poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction writing of high schoolers across the globe. www.trouvaillereview.org

Young Adult Review Network (YARN) is an literary journal that publishes outstanding original short fiction, poetry, and essays for young-adult readers. They seek to discover new teen writers and publish them alongside established writers of the YA genre. yareview.net

Links of Interest

National Novel Writing Month, a yearly program that occurs over the month of November. Writers are encouraged to produce a 50,000-word novel to be submitted by the last day of month. Includes areas to post excerpts and share your word count in-progress, as well as community forums and pep talks. Free to register. Includes a NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program with special resources for writers 17 and under. www.nanowrimo.org

Online Writing Communities

Wattpad is an online writing community that calls itself the world's largest community for discovering and sharing stories, and connecting readers and writers through storytelling. (Not aimed specifically at youth, but many young people are active members.) www.wattpad.com

Young Writers Online is a community of young writers, both new and experienced, dedicated to improving their writing. Members have access to a Community Forum for general, literary, and off-topic discussion; the Writing Forum, for submitting writing and critiquing work posted by other members; plus a chat room, contests, exercises, and more. Membership is free. www.youngwriters.co.uk

Toronto Events

Sophie's Studio Workshops are creative workshops at Toronto Public Libraries to promote writing for children aged 8 to 12. Children work with a published author over four weeks on creative writing skills. www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/programs-and-classes/featured/sophies-studio.jsp

Toronto Public Library Young Voices Workshops are regularly held at library branches throughout the city. They include programs and classes for teen writers and visual artists to improve skills, meet mentors and learn more about creative expression. www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/teens/young-voices.jsp

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Here's my latest version of places for young writers to submit (updated May 2020). A PDF version is always available on my For Writers page. Please feel free to share widely, and email me any suggestions or corrections. Contests The Amazon First Novel Award includes a Youth Author Award category.

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Title I schools

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First Book Marketplace: Affordable Books for Educators

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Gimkit is a game show for the classroom that requires knowledge, collaboration, and strategy to win. Get started for free!

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ILA NEWS

ILA News | November 9, 2023
Submitted students' perspectives on diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice for a chance to be included in the 2024 AERA Annual Meeting.

Research Advisory | Oct 2, 2023
Additional resources, including webinars, available now.

Digital Events | Sept 19, 2023
Free ILA Webinar About Dyslexia
Registration is now open for a new, free ILA Webinar: Dyslexia: What We Know and What We Want to Know.

Free New Resources for JAAL
First set of the new JAAL Literacy Insights available for download.

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Discover new books for teens and fans of young adult literature, connect with your favorite authors, and read books for free at RivetedLit.com.

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Looking for fun and educational resources, activities, discussion guides, teacher guides and more to share with children of all ages?

From fiction to non-fiction, STEM books to graphic novels, book publishers have created a wealth of content to support educators, librarians, booksellers, parents, and caregivers. Compiled here are links to various publisher's websites where you can find these free resources.

Check back often as we continue to update with new resources!

ABRAMS

Andrews McMeel

Arbordale Publishing

Archie Comics

BIRDHOUSE Kids Media

Looking to add health lessons to your new role as a home educator? Use these engaging printable activities in a bundle available for free to learn Body Science vocabulary and to practice using it.

Bloomsbury

Boyds Mills & Kane

Fun and free activities, as well as videos of authors and illustrators talking about their books.

Bushel & Peck Books

Candlewick

Activities, discussion guides, educational materials, videos, and more for books and characters like Waldo, Judy Moody, and Timmy Failure.

Catalyst Press

Incorporating African history and stories into your child's reading with these resources/activities including, read-alouds from Catalyst authors, activity sheets, coloring pages, and more.

Charlesbridge

Downloadable activity kits, educator guides, coloring pages, and more!

Child's Play

Activities for parents and teachers.

Cinco Puntos

Publisher of authentic voices in multicultural children's literature with bilingual children's books and traditional folktales from various cultures. Teachers' guides prepared with the help of outstanding educators for many of their titles.

City of Light

Educator guides, activity kits and discussion guides.

Clavis Publishing

Fun content, activities, and videos to keep your children entertained and engaged!

Creston Books

All Creston books have curriculum guides and activity pages. Click on each title to find resources you can use. Start with these three ...

Crimson Dragon Publishing

Activity packs for home or classroom use.

Del Alma Publications

Supplemental materials for educators from a publisher of quality and culturally relevant material for children, young adults, and educators of bilingual, bicultural, educational settings.

Disney Books

Looking for resources and tools to help your students and patrons while your schools and libraries are closed? Find a number of free digital resources available to use and share.

DK

If you're finding yourself working remotely, homeschooling with your kids, or teaching your students online rather than in the classroom, DK is here for you.

Epic!

All educators registered on Epic (free) can provide their students remote access for free through the end of the school year. This will provide students with anywhere, anytime access to the full Epic library on all devices and allow teachers to stay connected by assigning books / collections and monitoring student progress. To take advantage of this offer a family must receive the invitation from a teacher.

Eifrig Publishing

All Eifrig children's books are now available as free (or pay what you want) ebooks.

Fabled Films

Familius

Flyaway Books

Resources and activities that invite children, educators, parents, and booksellers to further engage with their favorite picture books. Everything from original music to printable activity sheets to thematic guides for educators and parents, with much more to come.

Greystone Books

Curriculum guides full of at-home activities for books Birdsong by Julie Flett and Can You Hear the Trees Talking? by Peter Wohlleben.

Groundwood Books

A wise selection of resources for teachers and librarians.

HarperCollins

Literature, art, music, and activities help create conversation, get imaginations running wild, lift spirits, and bring people together from all over the world. Use these resources to inspire and excite.

Holiday House

Holiday House is pleased to offer free downloadable items. All may be reproduced at no charge. Check back often.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

IDW Publishing & Top Shelf Productions

Publisher of works of literary sophistication, visionary artistry, and personal resonance in the comics medium, providing resources for their critically acclaimed graphic novels.

Inkyard

Discussion guide for Dear Haiti, Love Alaine by Maika and Maritza Moulite.

The Innovation Press

Just Us Books

Resources and guidelines to support at-home and remote learning from a premier publisher of black-interest books for children.

Kane Miller

Bring favorite books to life with coloring pages, word games, crossword puzzles and more!

Lion Hudson

A range of resources to keep your family occupied over Holy Week and Easter, including: Activities, Bible stories, Gentle tales, Science exploration, Health and wellbeing.

Little Bee Books

Downloadable activities including previews, puzzles, coloring, crafts, creative exercises, educator materials, and more.

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Keep kids engaged and entertained with these fun and educational activities!

Lonely Planet

Get kids excited about the world around them with these fun, quirky and educational activities. Get Creative with drawing, designing and crafting activities, or get Quizzical with our puzzles and trivia.

Loyola Press

Macmillan

Magination Press

Articles written and vetted by psychologists about mindfulness and anxiety.

Mango & Marigold Press

Virtual story times and coloring pages for kids at home.

MVP Kids

Succeed as your child's best mentor with activities and crafts, tips and tricks, and more.

National Geographic

Hear the NatGeo podcast about some of the greatest stories ever told. Stories of gods and goddesses, monsters, and heroes! Enjoy this kid-friendly retelling of classic ancient Greek myths for the whole family.

Nomad Press

A large collection of free resources perfect for 2nd-9th grade which model critical and creative thinking to promote the development of problem-solving skills as readers discover patterns and connections through intellectual inquiry.

Novel Effect

As you navigate remote learning and school closures, stay up-to-date with these Remote Learning Resources and free Educator Resources, including online read aloud activities and worksheets.

Orca Book Publishers

Page Street Publishing

Papercutz Graphic Novels

Access to some graphic novel titles for free!

Peachtree Publishing Company Inc.

Find free, downloadable teacher's guides, discussion guides, and activities along with a variety of author and illustrator videos at this remote learning resources hub.

Penguin Young Readers

Your destination for FREE resources, author visits, and more!

Penny Candy

Lesson plans, activities, and discussion guides for many books. These plans can easily be adapted to homeschooling during social distancing.

Pina Publishing

Pop Culture Classroom

Resources created to help parents and educators navigate learning at home, including videos resources, blog entries, digital workshops, and more.

Quarto Kids

Free downloadables including coloring sheets, word searches, interviews, and more!

Quirk Books

In need of activities to pass the time? If you have little ones, middle graders, or teens, check this roundup of activity kits and parent/educator guides.

Random House Children's Books

If you are putting together plans for teaching remotely or homeschooling your children and are looking for resources, click below for discussion guides, activities, and more available for free to download.

Red Chair Press

Download free activity pages for select Red Chair Press products. Extend the fun, enhance the learning!

Star Bright Books

This independent publisher is offering four books per week in pdf format for readers to enjoy!

Scholastic

Science Naturally

Products that explore and demystify STEM topics in entertaining and enlightening ways. Providing the resources parents, educators, and librarians need to extend and expand the content and use our books as effective learning tools. All the resources are available at no charge.

Shout Mouse Press

Nonprofit publisher of #OwnVoices children's and young adult titles by marginalized youth. Educators from elementary school through university are using these books in their classroom to educate and engage.

Simon & Schuster

A one-stop shop for parents and educators looking to incorporate books and interactive storytelling into their at-home school day, featuring new video series, downloadable activities, curriculum guides, and more!

Soho Press

Reading Group Choices partners with publishers, independent bookstores, public libraries, and authors to develop resources to enhance the shared reading group experience.

Sourcebooks

Hub for Librarians and Educators! Peruse Common Core-aligned educator guides, activity kits, and discussion guides.

Story Monsters

Story Monsters at Home for authors and publishers to contribute their own free or next to free activities, book downloads, and more to help engage students and supplement distance learning plans.

Sweet Cherry Publishing

A range of activity packs to accompany our titles which can be used in elementary schools and other learning environments as well as to support independent bookshops. These resources are available to download for free.

Tanglewood

Resources including teacher's guides, engaging activities, Common Core, and more!

Thompson Mill Press

Free Teacher's Guides for each of our titles of the award-winning Kobee Manatee Children's Educational Picture Book series.

Tilbury House

Together with educators who are specialists in their fields, Tilbury House has developed imaginative, user-friendly Classroom Connection Guides for many of their books. These free guides offer activities and discussion points along with links to additional information and resources.

TOON Books

Resources kids can use on their own and more hands-on activities for families. And perhaps best of all, some are designed for pure fun. After all, kids do love all things comics!

Tor Teen & Starscape

Web of Life Children's Books

Learn about volcanos by building a geyser, discover the gopher tortoise's role as a keystone species by cutting and pasting animals into the tortoise's burrow, or celebrate the world's fastest animal by creating a peregrine falcon paper doll!

West Margin Press

West Margin Press works to create a better understanding of our world through purposeful content, engaging design, and authentic experiences.

Workman Publishing

WunderMill

Guides to inspire and engage a new generation of young stewards of our natural world!

Yali Books

Download free printable activity sheets, gather up your crayons and pencils, and have fun!

Zonderkidz

Free resources and downloads for families to enrich their time together at home, including activity kits, curriculum guides, and more. Popular picture books like Fiona the Hippo (Richard Cowdrey), Love is Kind (Laura Sassi) and One Big Heart (Linsey Davis) all have supplemental materials that parents and caregivers can use to encourage the minds of children and keep little ones busy.

PUBLISHERS: if you wish to share your resources for those at home, please email shaina.birkhead@cbcbooks.org.

Every Child a Reader

Make your stay at home more fun! Free resources to download including reading challenges, National Ambassador programs, coloring pages, bookmarks, and Creator Corner videos by some of your favorite writers and illustrators.

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Looking for fun and educational resources, activities, discussion guides, teacher guides and more to share with children of all ages? From fiction to non-fiction, STEM books to graphic novels, book publishers have created a wealth of content to support educators, librarians, booksellers, parents, and caregivers.

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Listenwise | Listening Comprehension Matters

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Listening comprehension matters | Listenwise

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Explore the best podcast lessons for grade-level rigor. Curriculum aligned lessons with literacy & language supports, great for English Learners. Free sign up!

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Video Maker | Make Videos and Animations Online | Powtoon

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Make videos in minutes with Powtoon. Use our library of styles, characters, backgrounds and video, or upload your own! Free. Easy. Awesome. Sign up today!

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Teen Ink, a national teen magazine, book series, and website devoted entirely to teenage writing, art, photos and forums. Students must be age 13-19 to participate, register and/or submit work. Distributed through classrooms by English teachers, Creative Writing teachers, Journalism teachers and art teachers around the country

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We also love comics at Storyboard That. Our storyboard or comic creator is perfect for the classic 1, 3, or 6 cell comic strip with our drag and drop features. You can make your own comic strip just like you might remember from the Sunday funnies.

Comics have been around for a long time. Storytelling with pictures can be seen throughout history. Evidence points to ancient Rome with the example of Trajan's Column, Hieroglyphs in Egypt, and other examples of side-by-side pictures seen throughout ancient times. Translations of the Bible were depicted with pictures instead of words due to illiteracy!

The history of comics is very different based on what country you want to focus on. One thing that boosted the rise in comics is the advent of the printing press. After images could be added easily, mass media allowed comics to flourish with the ability to have regular spacing between words, speech bubbles, and then finally publishing of weekly comics. Many say Ally Sloper's Half Holiday as the first comic published with a recurring character.

From there, comic strips and comic books entered the mass media market with classics including Adventures of Tintin, The Dandy, and The Beano.

Today, comics are now super simple to create even if you are not an artist!

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Comic Strip Maker | Create Comic Books & Graphic Novels

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We also love comics at Storyboard That. Our storyboard or comic creator is perfect for the classic 1, 3, or 6 cell comic strip with our drag and drop features. You can make your own comic strip just like you might remember from the Sunday funnies. Comics have been around for a long time.

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"I believe in the power of Facing History."

-Durias D., Facing History Alum

"I went to a Facing History workshop and it opened my eyes."

-Tareeq R., Educator

Facing History & Ourselves
uses lessons of history
to challenge teachers
and their students
to stand up to bigotry and hate.

Facing History & Ourselves is more than our name. It is an active and continuous process that calls on each of us to connect the choices of the past to those we face today. To build a more just and equitable future, we must face our history in all its complexity, Are you ready to face history with us?

Learn how you can experience Facing History

Facing History has thousands of research-based resources and professional learning events to support Social Studies and English Language Arts education.

Not in the United States?

Sign Up

And hopefully, they will always remember what happened to us and make sure that it won't happen again.

Sonia Weitz, Holocaust survivor and poet

Sign up to download the PDF version of our textbook, Holocaust and Human Behavior.

Facing History students are 94% more likely than their peers to report that their class motivated them to learn.

92% of Facing History teachers agree that Facing History helps their students stand up for what they believe even when others disagree.

91% of elective teachers agree or strongly agree that their Facing History course promoted their students' abilities to ground reading, writing, and speaking in evidence from text.

Demand for our work is greater than ever. Make a 100% tax-deductible donation today and you'll help us reach even more teachers and students around the world, giving them the tools to stand up to bigotry and hate.

Gift Amount

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Facing History & Ourselves uses lessons of history to challenge teachers and their students to stand up to bigotry and hate.

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For Remote or In-Person Classrooms

Factile is a free learning platform that lets teachers create engaging jeopardy-style quiz games for the remote or in-person classroom

Assess students' understanding of new topics or review the latest concepts using our simple, user-friendly gameboard template. Create and share your games with students, or search our database of already-created games. Use Factile with Google Classroom to easily assign games and flashcards to your class.
Play Demo Game

Four Team Review Games
Play in classroom or remote with Buzzer Mode

Two Individual Study Games
Self-paced learning in classroom or remote

Buzzer Mode

Buzzer Mode

Turn phones, tablets or computers into buzzer buttons for an engaging multi-player gameshow experience

"Factile is fun and exciting. Students enjoy the competition, the team-building, the camaradarie, the positive reinforcement, or all of the above. The standard, free version is very workable and click-driven, although I am sure the premium version contains greater functionality that may appeal to some folks. Your students will enjoy it as much as you enjoy watching them learn"

Bruce DuBoff AASL Best Websites for Teaching and Learning Committee Member

See more reviews

Are you looking to make your Factile game even more engaging? Let students BUZZ IN via their laptops, phones or tablets! Remote or In-Classroom.

Send a link to your participants and they can play at any time on their own

Create custom games

Share games

Play the many public games

Multi-language support
(English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic)

...and much more

Buzzer Mode for Remote or in-classroom

Flashcards, Choice and Memory Games

Add Images, Videos and Equations

Print Answer Keys and Quizzes

Unlimited Games and 100 Teams

Double Jeopardy and Daily Double

Interactive Choice

Quiz-Bowl

...and much more

Home/School features

Add up to 3 Images in Question/Answer

Multi-Member Teams up to 3 Players Per Team

Question Bank Up to 3

...and much more

Home/School Plus Features

Private games

Customize with your Logo

Remote View Gameboard Screen Sharing

Question Bank Up to 10

Multimember Teams for Buzzer Mode

Verification of Training Completion

...and much more

* All amounts are in USD.

What are you waiting for?

Sign up now to create your free game!

Get Started

For Remote or In-Person Classrooms

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Classroom Jeopardy Review Game | Buzzer Mode | Factile

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Create your own Jeopardy template online without PowerPoint, or browse the pre-made templates to play Jeopardy-style classroom games or quizzes in minutes.

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A state-of-the-art reading experience.

Whether you're reading for class or for fun, Sora's ebook reader makes it easy.

Powerful tools

Add bookmarks, make notes and highlights, define words, and more.

Fixed-layout support

Comic books, graphic novels, picture books, and textbooks as they're meant to be read.

Read-alongs

Select titles have professional narration so you can follow along with the text.

Reading settings for everyone

Adjust the font type (including dyslexic font), font size, and lighting in most books.

Synced progress

Your place, bookmarks, notes, and highlights sync between devices, so you can pick up right where you left off.

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Sora, by OverDrive - The student reading app from OverDrive Education.

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Whether you're reading for class or for fun, Sora's ebook reader makes it easy. Add bookmarks, make notes and highlights, define words, and more. Comic books, graphic novels, picture books, and textbooks as they're meant to be read. Select titles have professional narration so you can follow along with the text.

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About Us

Lee & Low Books is the largest multicultural children's book publisher in the country. We are also one of the few minority-owned publishing companies in the United States.

Founded in 1991, we have always been family-owned and independent, which means we publish what we want and aren't afraid to take risks. Our books have won major awards including the Coretta Scott King Award, the Pura Belpré Award, the NAACP Image Award, and many more.

Lee & Low Books is committed to publishing diverse books that are about everyone, for everyone. We are dedicated to cultural authenticity, and we make a special effort to work with new authors and illustrators of color.

We publish multicultural children's books for every age, including leveled books for beginning readers, picture books, early chapter books, middle grade, and young adult books. We also publish a wide selection of bilingual and Spanish language books.

Visit our testimonials page to see some of the people and organizations who support our work!

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Lee & Low Books is the largest multicultural children's book publisher in the United States. We are your diversity source.

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Multicultural and Social Justice Books - Social Justice Books

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Curated Booklists Carefully selected multicultural and social justice books for children, young adults, and educators on 90+ topics. Reviews of Children's Literature Critical reviews of children's and young adult books from a variety of vetted sources, consolidated here for easy access. Articles & News Articles about selecting children's literature and news about Kid Lit.

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How can we help?

I want help with behaviors , learning , and everyday skills

We are Understood.
We are the lifelong guide for those who learn and think differently. In the past year, we've helped more than 20 million people discover their potentials, take control of their lives, and stay on positive paths.

We support the 1 in 5 Americans who learn and think differently.

Learn more

We believe difference is our greatest strength.

Learn more

When we shape the world for difference, we all thrive.

Learn more

Discover what's possible when you're understood.

We'll email you our most helpful stories and resources.

We just launched our "Be the Reason" stigma campaign. Learn more here.

Helpful guidance from Understood

Essential resource spotlight

Are you wondering why your child is struggling?

We're here to help if you're feeling overwhelmed. Take N.O.T.E. (Notice. Observe. Talk. Engage.) is a simple step-by-step tool that can help you figure out if the struggles you're seeing might be signs of a learning and thinking difference.

"I have a hard time focusing, mostly in school. When I do my homework, I kind of feel stressed out because it feels like so much even though it's not too much."

Emperor Kaioyus, Grade 4

Copyright © Understood for All, Inc.

Understood is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) charitable organization (tax identification number 83-2365235). Donations are tax-deductible as allowed by law. Understood does not provide medical or other professional advice. The health and medical related resources on this website are provided solely for informational and educational purposes and are not a substitute for a professional diagnosis or for medical or professional advice.

Use of this website is subject to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Copyright © 2014-2023 Understood For All Inc.

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Understood - For Learning and Thinking Differences

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Understood.org is the resource that helps the 70 million people with learning and thinking differences anticipate the challenges, barriers, or opportunities in life and confidently reach their potential.

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The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST. The UDL Guidelines can be used by educators, curriculum developers, researchers, parents, and anyone else who wants to implement the UDL framework in a learning environment. These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.

Coming soon! UDL Guidelines 3.0

The UDL Guidelines are a living, dynamic tool that is continuously developed based on new research and feedback from practitioners. In 2020, CAST launched our most recent effort to update the UDL Guidelines, with a specific focus on equity. There has been a strong call from the field-both practitioners and researchers alike-to more fully develop the Guidelines to address critical barriers rooted in biases and systems of oppression. The current update aims to respond to this call and to work toward fulfilling the promise of the Guidelines as a tool to guide the design of learning environments that more fully honor and value every learner.

Since our launch in 2020, we have been committed to a community-driven, inclusive, and transparent updating process. As part of this effort, we are:

Collaborating with an Advisory Board, a UDL Guidelines Collaborative, and a Young Adult Advisory Board to guide our work

Conducting focus groups with a diversity of participants to learn from their perspectives, lived experiences, and feedback

Reviewing the research on the UDL Guidelines research pages to understand the balance of different research fields, methodological approaches, epistemological approaches, and author positionalities

Conducting literature reviews of equity-oriented research that connect to and extend the Guidelines, such as disability studies and critical pedagogy studies

We are excited to share this next iteration of the UDL Guidelines in 2024. If you are interested in receiving our UDL Guidelines 3.0 newsletter to stay updated on our progress and to share your ideas and perspectives, please complete this brief form.

Review the Summary

Explore the Full Draft

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The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST.

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This is a collection of reviews of great books for kids, ideas of ways to use them in the classroom and collections of books and activities about particular subjects, curriculum areas, themes and professional topics.

The Current Issue of the Newsletter is out!!

This issue features an Annotated List of Books Featuring Friendship for Grades Preschool through Ninth.
Subscribe to our Free Email Newsletter.

Children's Books:

Subjects in Children's Books:

Continued Below

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Professional Resources:

Free Newsletter
A children's literature electronic newsletter available by e-mail or on this web site. The newsletters contain new book reviews, author studies, featured books in depth, classroom themes, and the latest news about the web site.Sign Up or Read Back Issues.

Getting Around Our Site:

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Privacy Statement:
Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Site does not collect and store information about individual web site visitors. If you sign-up for our email newsletter we need your email address and you may also give us your name but will not share that email address or name with any other company nor use it ourselves for anything other than newsletter mailings, ever.
In addition, Google's Double Click may serve ads on this website. In doing so, one of their ad servers will place or read a unique ad-serving cookie on your computer and will use non-personal information about your browser and your activity at this site to serve ads on this and other sites. The ad-serving cookie is a persistent cookie. Pleaseclick here for more information or to opt-out of the Double Click ad-serving cookie.

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This is a collection of reviews of great books for kids, ideas of ways to use them in the classroom and collections of books and activities about particular subjects, curriculum areas, themes and professional topics. This issue features an Annotated List of Books Featuring Friendship for Grades Preschool through Ninth.

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Best Practices

Online Tutorials

Tools for Teaching with Primary Sources

Indiana Memory Collection Lesson Plans

Here are some resources to assist educators in using Indiana Memory in the classroom. Resources include best practice articles and professional development modules, online tools and lesson plans. We encourage educators to share any tools or lesson plans.

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Here are some resources to assist educators in using Indiana Memory in the classroom. Resources include best practice articles and professional development modules, online tools and lesson plans. We encourage educators to share any tools or lesson plans.

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free for "Indiana Resident"??

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TeachingBooks | Author & Book Resources to Support Reading Education

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TeachingBooks strives to enrich everyone's experience reading children's and young adult books with our original and curated literary resources.

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Adoption and usage

Simple, effective, and surprisingly easy to use

With nearly 30 million users in 80% of US schools, the numbers speak for themselves: students, families, and educators love using Remind.

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Remind | Communication Platform for Education

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Remind is a communication platform that reaches students and families where they are and supports learning wherever it happens. Millions of educators, students, and parents use Remind to connect with the people and resources that help them teach and learn.

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ELA Standards Vertical Articulations English/Language Arts Standards

Indiana Content Area Literacy Standards ELA Standards Correlation Guides

K-5 Classroom Online Support Tools Journalism, Mass Media, and Student Publications

Educator Resources Parent Resources Literacy Content Connectors

In April of 2014, the Indiana State Board of Education approved the adoption of new standards for English/Language Arts. These new standards have been validated as college and career ready by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education, the Indiana Department of Education, and the Indiana Center for Education and Career Innovation. This means that students who successfully master these English/Language Arts objectives for what they should know and be able to do by the time they graduate from high school will be ready to go directly into the workplace or a postsecondary educational opportunity without the need of remediation.

Instruction in English (literature, composition and speech) and language arts (reading, writing, speaking, listening and viewing) provides vital content for lifelong learning and problem solving in our increasingly complex technological world. English/Language Arts (ELA) instruction engages students in the essential thinking skills and processes used across subject areas.

English/Language Arts Standards Vertical Articulations

The Vertical Articulation documents illustrate the significant connections between the standards across grade levels. Administrators and teachers are strongly encouraged to use these documents to facilitate cross-grade level discussions.

English/Language Arts Standards

This document specifically lists the standards for the isolated grade or grade band; the standards are broken into key areas identified for the standard (e.g. Reading: Literature section for grades 6-12: Key Ideas and Textual Support, Structural Elements and Organization, and Synthesis and Connection of Ideas.)

Indiana Content Area Literacy Standards

The standards provide guidance to content area teachers in grades 6-12 (e.g., History/Social Studies teachers, Science teachers, Career and Technical Education teachers, etc.) on expectations for integrating reading and writing skills into their daily instruction.

English/Language Arts Standards Correlation Guides

This document provides guidance and illustrates the correlations between the Indiana Academic Standards (2014) and the previous standards; Indiana Academic Standards (2006) and Indiana Common Core State Standards (2010). Teachers are encouraged to use this document as an instructional support tool.

Classroom Online Support Tools

Journalism, Mass Media, and Student Publications

Educators Resources

Parent Resources

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ELA Standards Vertical Articulations English/Language Arts Standards Indiana Content Area Literacy Standards ELA Standards Correlation Guides K-5 Classroom Online Support Tools Journalism, Mass Media, and Student Publications Educator Resources Parent Resources Literacy Content Connectors In April of 2014, the Indiana State Board of Education approved the adoption of new standards for English/Language Arts.

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Google Workspace for Education

Unlock the full potential of Google Workspace by using tools together.

Google Docs, Sheets & Slides

Create, collaborate, and edit with others in Docs, Sheets, Forms, Slides, and more.

Google Meet

Enable teachers, students, and admins to work together from anywhere.

Admin Console

Set policies, control access, monitor data, and quickly respond to threats.

Create new assignments

Create assignments, quizzes, and lesson content for your students.

Simplify classroom management

Easily switch between Stream, Classwork, People, and Grades—even when you are offline.

Track student grades

Monitor progress and gain visibility with a holistic view of student achievement.

Devices for everyone

Choose powerfully simple devices for everyone in your school.

Automatic updates

Keep your devices secure with updates that happen in the background.

Accessibility built-in

Customize learning experiences with select-to-speak, Chromevox, and more.

Centralized Admin Console

Monitor your institution's domain with full visibility and control.

Use Google tools together to drive educational impact

Workspace for Education

Support learning with Google Workspace for Education’s simple, secure, and flexible tools

Help your institution collaborate easily, streamline instruction, and keep the learning environment safer with tools designed for students and teachers.

Google Workspace for Education

Unlock the full potential of Google Workspace by using tools together.

Google Docs, Sheets & Slides

Create, collaborate, and edit with others in Docs, Sheets, Forms, Slides, and more.

Google Meet

Enable teachers, students, and admins to work together from anywhere.

Admin Console

Set policies, control access, monitor data, and quickly respond to threats.

Learn more about Google Workspace for Education

Classroom

Manage, measure, and enhance learning with Google Classroom

Provide an easy way for educators to connect with their students and manage their classes with an all-in-one place for teaching and learning.

Create new assignments

Create assignments, quizzes, and lesson content for your students.

Simplify classroom management

Easily switch between Stream, Classwork, People, and Grades—even when you are offline.

Track student grades

Monitor progress and gain visibility with a holistic view of student achievement.

Learn more about Classroom

Chromebook

Manage your education ecosystem with Chromebook

Equip your school with versatile, intuitive, and secure devices designed for next-generation teaching and learning.

Devices for everyone

Choose powerfully simple devices for everyone in your school.

Automatic updates

Keep your devices secure with updates that happen in the background.

Accessibility built-in

Customize learning experiences with select-to-speak, Chromevox, and more.

Centralized Admin Console

Monitor your institution's domain with full visibility and control.

Learn more about Chromebooks

Equip your school with tools for success

Education Leaders

IT Admins

Educators

Education Leaders

DELL LATITUDE 7410 CHROMEBOOK ENTERPRISE

DELL LATITUDE 7410 CHROMEBOOK ENTERPRISE

Getting started is simple

Choose a product to learn more

What's happening in education

Grab a front row seat for our online product launch event

Learn more

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Google for Education - Online Resources for Teachers & Students | Google for Education

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Power education and advance learning in the classroom with Google for Education’s flexible learning tools and resources for teachers and students.

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Discovery Education | Your Daily Learning Platform

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Discovery Education inspires educators to go beyond traditional learning with award-winning digital content and professional development. Learn more today!

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Blog — Jennifer Serravallo Author & Consulting

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Read full transcripts of the To the Classroom Podcast as well as blogs authored by Jennifer Serravallo and members of her consulting team.

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Make animated videos in minutes. With the help of simpleshow's AI-powered animation maker you can create explainer videos quickly and easily.

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"Our son Aaron was fortunate to have participated. It was an event that was memorable for all the right reasons. First and foremost, it made reading exciting for Aaron, who continues to be a voracious reader to this day. Kitty was relaxed with the children, interested in what they were saying, and respectful as she took their comments seriously. Aaron's reaction to Kitty's interview was 'Kitty was like a regular person.'

As a family of readers, we were thrilled with Kitty's Book Club, and with her!"

- Diane L. Gale, Irvine, CA - December 2021

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Book Club for Kids is a free podcast where kids discuss middle grade novels with host Kitty Felde.

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Peergrade - engaging student peer review

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Peergrade is an online platform to facilitate peer feedback sessions with students

Get started

The teacher sets up an assignment

You start by setting up your assignment. You pick a feedback rubric from our library or create your own, select an assignment template and you're ready to get started.

Students submit their work

Students submit their work to your assignment. They can submit anything - text, files, videos, links and even Google docs!

Students review each other

Your students give each other anonymous feedback through your rubric.

Students engage with their feedback

Students receive feedback from their peers, they react, discuss and engage with their feedback.

The teacher has a complete overview

You get the complete overview of everything that is happening in the assignment.

Built on academic research

Peergrade is not just a tool that can provide you with insights into your students' performance and save you time. It also creates a much better learning experience for your students. Don't believe us? There's a bunch of studies that actually proves that it can increase learning up to 30%!

Used by thousands of schools and universities

Get Started

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Peergrade - engaging student peer review

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Learn by giving feedback! Peergrade is a free online platform to facilitate peer feedback sessions with students.

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Newseum ED is provided as a free educational resource and contains copyrighted material. Registration is required for full access. Signing up is simple and free.

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Book Creator - Love Learning - Book Creator app

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Teachers love it. Students love it. Book Creator is the simplest, most inclusive way to create content in the classroom.

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Coggle is online software for creating and sharing mindmaps and flowcharts. It works online in your browser: there's nothing to download or install. Log in to start diagramming!

Whether you're taking notes, brainstorming, planning, or doing something awesomely creative, it is super simple to visualise your ideas with Coggle. Share with as many friends or colleagues as you like. Changes you make will show up instantly in their browser, wherever they are in the world

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The clear way to share complex information. Coggle is a collaborative mind-mapping tool that helps you make sense of complex things. Create unlimited mind maps and easily share them with friends and colleagues.

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Insert instructional content into any web page

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Structure writing

Use notes and attachments to quickly create a structure for an article or a writing assignment, then create a document outline and continue editing in your favourite writing tool

Create storyboards

Use a frictionless planning canvas to capture and organise your thoughts, and then put them into a powerful storyboard to turn a hierarchy of ideas into a sequence of slides.

Post to social media

MindMup Atlas automatically adds images and contextual information to ensure that your maps show up nicely on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Pinterest.

Plan and manage projects

Add measurements to map nodes to automatically calculate cost, completion and other important factors. Manage project progress easily with icons and priorities.

Collaborate easily

Maps saved to MindMup Cloud support concurrent editing for teams and classrooms, enabling you to instantly see updates made to your map by other users.

Attach documents

Add longer text, videos and spreadsheets to your maps. MindMup for Google Drive also allows you to link to other project documents on Google Drive easily.

Add images

Quickly add images and icons to your maps to provide context and illustrations.

Administer easily

Administrators can easily control sharing settings for the entire organisation. MindMup also integrates with Office365 and Google authentication for easy account management.

MindMup Cloud

Free users can create public maps up to 100 KB and save them up to six months. No account or registration needed.

Gold users can create private maps, share and edit concurrently.
Create a new map Open an existing map

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Free online mind mapping. The most productive online mind map canvas on the Web. Supports Freemind mindmap import/export. Easy mindmapping software.

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Are you a teacher looking to sign into Planboard or Chalk Gold?

Streamline Classrooms with A Set of Digital Lesson Plans

Create lessons with a modern and intuitive editor. Add files, photos, and videos to bring your lessons to life. Build lesson templates to cut prep time and get right to instruction.

Integrate with Schoology Learning and Google Classroom

Share lesson plans using the Schoology Learning and Google Classroom integrations.Attach your lesson plan to an announcement, assignment, question, or as material for your class.

Join over 500,000 Teachers Worldwide to Plan for the Future

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Chalk Gold and Planboard will provide you powerful features that enhance lesson planning and grading workflow.

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Nearpod: Foster a love of learning in every student

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Create active learning experiences students can’t wait to be a part of.

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ThinkCERCA | Personalized Close Reading & Argumentative Writing Lessons

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The CERCA Framework is a scaffolded approach to literacy that helps students develop their critical thinking skills. ThinkCERCA's expert-designed lessons walk students through the process of analyzing content-rich texts and multimedia to construct cohesive argumentative, informational, or narrative writings.

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Why Khan Academy works

Personalized learning

Students practice at their own pace, first filling in gaps in their understanding and then accelerating their learning.

Trusted content

Created by experts, Khan Academy's library of trusted, standards-aligned practice and lessons covers math K-12 through early college, grammar, science, history, AP®, SAT®, and more. It's all free for learners and teachers.

Tools to empower teachers

With Khan Academy, teachers can identify gaps in their students' understanding, tailor instruction, and meet the needs of every student.

DISTRICTS

Khan Academy boosts
student learning

In a recent study, students were over twice as likely to meet grade-level standards with Khan Academy. Districts across the country are partnering with us to ensure all their students succeed.

TEACHERS

"I'm finally able to truly differentiate my classroom. This has been priceless for my students' engagement."

DUSTIN FAUTH / 4th grade teacher / Falmouth, MA

We empower teachers to support their entire classroom. 90% of US teachers who have used Khan Academy have found us effective.

LEARNERS AND STUDENTS

You can learn anything.

Build a deep, rock-solid understanding in math, grammar, science, history, SAT®, AP®, and more.

"I come from a poor family. At home it's one room, just a room we live in. When I was a child, I used to fear mathematics. But now, I am in love with mathematics because of Khan Academy."

TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Every child deserves the chance to learn.

Across the globe, 617 million children are missing basic math and reading skills. We're a nonprofit delivering the education they need, and we need your help. You can change the course of a child's life.

Key supporters

Supporters of our COVID-19 response

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Khan Academy | Free Online Courses, Lessons & Practice

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Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

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like Goodreads but for kids. Unsure how free

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Excite, encourage and engage kids to read! Check out Biblionasium, where young readers connect & share book lists and good reads with friends, teachers & parents. Look up the reading level difficulty of thousands of books and find the right fit books. A powerful teacher tool and valued parent resource.

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wordle Is a website that combines vocabulary for all types of clouds in both Thai and Thai languages

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HOME - wordle Is a website that combines vocabulary for all types of clouds in both Thai and Thai languages

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Wordle is a wizard. "word cloud" from text as typed by the user The prominence of the cloud depends on the words that appear frequently in the original text. which can customize the characters according to the desired style, such as fonts, layout styles and font color Images created through Wordle can be used in...

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ReadTheory | Reading Comprehension Exercises

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Reading comprehension exercises — online, free, & adaptive. Fits K-12, ESL and adult students. Easily track progress for the entire class.

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Fakebook - create a fictional social medial profile

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Create a spoof social media profile for a person, theme, place or object being studied

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Host interactive online meetings | Poll Everywhere

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Formative assessment has never been faster.

Plickers is the free card activity your students will love.

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Used by K-12 teachers in over 100 countries

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Formative assessment has never been faster. Plickers is the free card activity your students will love. Join millions and play in your next lesson. Sign up for free Used by K-12 teachers in over 100 countries

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public domain only

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Project Gutenberg is a library of free eBooks.

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TED-Ed celebrates the ideas of teachers and students around the world. Discover hundreds of animated lessons, create customized lessons, and share your big ideas.

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Kahoot! | Learning games | Make learning awesome!

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Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform that brings engagement and fun to 1+ billion players every year at school, at work, and at home.

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Review student understanding at the class, individual student, or question-level.

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New name. Same commitment to helping every student find a way.

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Quizizz is now Wayground | Teacher AI and Resources

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Find standards-aligned resources that engage every student. Wayground (formerly Quizizz) helps teachers differentiate instruction with AI and track student progress.

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5 free

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By Wayne Au

Interrogating the recent Supreme Court decision ending affirmative action in college admissions, Au dismantles conservative arguments that pit Asian Americans against other people of color.

By Sohyun An

Four Asian American middle school students connect and grow during the pandemic through a virtual book club focused on Asian American history and literature.

Recent issues

Rethinking Schools is the country's leading grassroots magazine for social and racial justice in education.

News from Rethinking Schools

Get the free Teaching for Black Lives Starter Pack when you sign up today for email updates from Rethinking Schools.

About Rethinking Schools

Rethinking Schools began in 1986, when a group of Milwaukee education activists - teachers, teacher educators, and community members - met to talk about how they could bring more critical voices into the conversation about public schools and libraries. These founding Rethinking Schools editors saw a school curriculum that was conservative, dumbed-down, and dominated by corporate-produced textbooks. Inappropriate standardized testing was rampant. Racial bias infected every level of schooling.

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Rethinking Schools is a nonprofit publisher and advocacy organization dedicated to sustaining and strengthening public education through social justice teaching and education activism.

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Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)

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Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)

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Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)

The CCBC is a unique and vital gathering place for books, ideas, and expertise in the field of children's and young adult literature. The CCBC is a noncirculating examination, study, and research library for Wisconsin school and public librarians, teachers, early childhood care providers, university students, and others interested in children's and young adult literature. The CCBC is part of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education, and receives additional support from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. More about the CCBC.

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The Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) is a unique and vital gathering place for books, ideas, and expertise in the field of children's and young adult literature.

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The Library of Congress offers classroom materials and professional development to help teachers effectively use primary sources from the Library's vast digital collections in their teaching.

Getting Started with Primary Sources

Explore short videos on using resources and teaching strategies for using primary sources in the classroom.

Teaching with the Library of Congress Blog

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About This Program | Teachers | Programs | Library of Congress

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The Library of Congress offers classroom materials and professional development to help teachers effectively use primary sources from the Library's vast digital collections in their teaching. Getting Started with Primary Sources Explore short videos on using resources and teaching strategies for using primary sources in the classroom.

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Inspire Literacy and Learning for All Students through Traditional, Virtual or Hybrid Instruction

At Scholastic, we believe that the development of robust literacy skills is at the very heart of empowering children to thrive in school and in life. That's why we create literacy solutions that support the whole child-in the classroom, at home, and in the community.
For 100 years, we've partnered with districts and schools to inspire lifelong readers and learners. During these unprecedented times, we are prepared to support you in your instruction - whether that occurs in-person, virtually, or in a hybrid or blended learning model. From transformative, research-based literacy instruction, to expert professional development, and groundbreaking family & community engagement, we are with you every step of the way on the path to literacy.

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GRADES K-6

High-quality leveled texts and instruction to help all students become strategic and independent readers who love to read.

GRADE PRE-K-6

Age-appropriate texts and innovative teaching materials to engage striving readers 6-24 months below grade level. Developed with literacy expert Adria Klein, Ph.D.

GRADES PRE-K-12

Create a rich literacy environment with contemporary favorites, treasured classics, and culturally responsive and bilingual titles.

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Literacy Programs | Grades PreK-12 | Scholastic Education

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Inspire Literacy and Learning for All Students through Traditional, Virtual or Hybrid Instruction At Scholastic, we believe that the development of robust literacy skills is at the very heart of empowering children to thrive in school and in life.

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Jennifer Gonzalez
(The One in Charge)

Excellent teaching is an art. It's also a science. We can study and practice it in hundreds of ways, and this is what I obsess about here. When I was full-time in the trenches, I was too busy teaching to fully develop my craft, keep up with research, play around with new tools, or find PD that really hit the spot. Now I have made it my full-time job to do this for you: I dig through all of it, weed out the crap, and show you the best stuff so you can crush it in the classroom.

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Welcome! To get started, take a look at some of what the Cult has to offer: Latest Post [custom_gallery gallery="7″ width="500″ height="300″] Strategies for the Classroom [custom_gallery gallery="9″ width="120″ height="180″ target="no"] Technology [custom_gallery gallery="8″ width="120″ height="180″ target="no"] Teacher Soul [custom_gallery gallery="11″ width="120″ height="180″ target="no"] Books [custom_gallery gallery="10″ width="120″ height="180″ target="no"] Learn More About Us [custom_gallery gallery="5″ width="120″ height="180″ title="never" target="no"] ...

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American Indians in Children's Literature

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American Indians in Children's Literature

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American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL)

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Designed to help readers develop a critical eye about representations of American Indians in children's and young adult books

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Disability in Kidlit - Reviews, articles, and more about the portrayal of disabilities in children's fiction

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Despite some reservations, our reviewer would recommend this contemporary novel about young Bat - and the reviewer's ten-year-old goddaughter agrees.

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This is their website, but you’ll find much on Twitter’s #disripttexts

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A 501(c)(3) nonprofit, WNDB aims to create a world where every reader can find themselves in the pages of a book. To reach this goal, we've created programs to mentor diverse writers and illustrators, support diverse publishing professionals, and provide books to classrooms nationwide.

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What your reading curriculum is missing

Any reading curriculum or series will tell you comprehension skills to teach -but what you really need to know is to teach those skills so that students can actually read and comprehend independently.

That's where The Comprehension Playbook comes in. Providing a full year of lesson ideas and a week-by-week roadmap for implementation, this indispensable resource is the new how-to guide for teaching reading comprehension in any grade level.

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Professional Development for Educators | Smekens Education

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Smekens Education Solutions offers top-tier PD courses, empowering K-12 teachers with engaging, strategy-packed training to strengthen readers and writers.

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Open Author helps you build and publish Open Educational Resources for you and for the benefit of educators and learners everywhere.

Learn more about creating OER

Groups provides a flexible environment to organize, create, share, and discuss resources with others in your network. Collaborate with group members, tag and add resources to shared folders, create your own collections, all within a public or private group.

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Projects, districts, states, and initiatives make use of Hubs to bring groups of educators together to create, organize, and share OER collections that meet their common goals. Explore Hubs

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Microsites are custom, flexible sites that include all the features available on OER Commons. Microsites allow your users to search resource collections using a custom taxonomy at a unique URL. Contact Us

Our award-winning OER Professional Learning programs support instructors and curriculum specialists to gain the necessary skills required to find, adapt, and evaluate high quality open materials.

In-person and virtual OER workshops help focus instructors to develop a "commons" mindset, to experience the benefits of open processes using the platform's tools, collaborative features, and workflows. This can include using Open Author for creating, remixing, and publishing shared curriculum.

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OER Commons is a dynamic digital library and network. Explore open education resources and join our network of educators dedicated to curriculum improvement.

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The New York State Education Department discontinued support for the EngageNY.org website on July 7, 2022. The NYSED encourages educators to download any EngageNY content they wish to use in the future from our archive sites below.

All ELA and mathematics curriculum files will be available at the links below, and will remain free and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA) license.

Archived EngageNY Curriculum Files:

Grades 3-8 ELA and Mathematics Test Materials:
Questions regarding this change may be directed to the EngageNY Help Desk.

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The New York State Education Department discontinued support for the EngageNY.org website on July 7, 2022. The NYSED encourages educators to download any EngageNY content they wish to use in the future from our archive sites below.

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Easily create beautiful interactive video lessons for your students you can integrate right into your LMS. Track students' progress with hassle-free analytics as you flip your classroom!