Resources for Civic Education in Massachusetts

This collection includes: 

• Resources aligned with Massachusetts standards for Grade 8
• Resources aligned with Massachusetts standards for US History
• Resources aligned with Massachusetts standards for US History II
• Resources aligned with Massachusetts standards for World History II

1. Book: Choices in Little Rock + Writing Supplement
   Investigates the choices made by the Little Rock Nine and others in the community during efforts to desegregate Central High School in 1957.
2. Unit: 10 Questions for Young Changemakers
   Provides students the opportunity to reflect on their own and other students' civic participation, while also offering strategies as they transfer the knowledge gained from their unit of study into tangible opportunities to take action.
3. Unit: Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Movement
   Explores important lessons about the power of ordinary citizens to shape democracy. Includes 14-part series, study guide, and lessons.
4. Unit: Facing Ferguson: News Literacy in a Digital Age
   Lessons feature video interviews with journalists and scholars and analysis of news coverage and social media. 
5. Mini-Unit: Memphis 1968
   Examines the visions and strategies of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,  Malcolm X, and Stokely Carmichael and ask students how they can create a more just world.
6. Guide: Teaching Farewell to Manzanar
   Supports the teaching of Jeanne Wakatsuki’s memoir about the forced relocation of Japanese Americans.
7. Guide: Teaching Warriors Don't Cry
   Explores Melba Patillo Bates’s powerful memoir about the desegregation of Central High School.

1. Book: Choices in Little Rock + Writing Supplement
   Investigates the choices made by the Little Rock Nine and others in the community during efforts to desegregate Central High School in 1957.
2. Unit: Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Movement
   Explores important lessons about the power of ordinary citizens to shape democracy. Includes 14-part series, study guide, and lessons.
3. Collection: The Reconstruction Era (selected primary sources)
   Examines  the pivotal era when a nation divided by slavery and war was challenged to rebuild.
4. Video: Human Rights, Civil Rights, and the Cold War
   Dr. Carol Anderson discusses human rights discussions during World War II and links between the Cold War, the creation of the UDHR, and politics of race in the US.

1. Mini-Lesson: Where Do We Get Our News, and Why Does it Matter?
   Invites students to assess their news consumption by encouraging them to consider their relationship to and perception of the news.
2. Lesson: The Challenge of Confirmation Bias
   Defines confirmation bias and examines why people sometimes maintain their beliefs in the face of information that contradicts their understanding.
3. Unit: Facing Ferguson: News Literacy in a Digital Age
   Lessons feature video interviews with journalists and scholars and analysis of news coverage and social media.

1. Collection: The Reconstruction Era and the Fragility of Democracy and Writing Strategies Supplement
   Examines the pivotal era when a nation divided by slavery and war was challenged to rebuild.
2. Video: The Origins of Lynching Culture in the US
   Dr. Paula Giddings from Smith College discusses the history and origins of lynching.
3. Video: Understanding Jim Crow
   Dr. David Cunningham from Brandeis University explores systems of racial separation and institutionalized segregation known as Jim Crow.

1. Guide: Becoming American: The Chinese Experience
   Explores themes of identity and belonging in the context of the ways the first arrivals from China in the 1840s, their descendants, and recent immigrants have “become American.”
2. Lesson: Lesson 9: "Equality for All?" from The Reconstruction Era
   Examines the limits to the transformation of American democracy during the Radical Reconstruction era.
3. Mini-Lesson: The Legacies of Chinese Exclusion
   Explores why the anti-immigration law of 1882 matters today and how Chinese exclusion has shaped enduring attitudes about difference, citizenship, and American identity.

1. Chapter: Holocaust and Human Behavior, Chapter 3
   Focuses on how WWI shaped and was shaped by ideas of “we” and “they,” and highlights aspects of the war that influenced the history of Nazi Germany.

1. Mini-Lesson: The Legacies of Chinese Exclusion
   Explores why the anti-immigration law of 1882 matters today and how Chinese exclusion shaped enduring attitudes about difference, citizenship, and American identity.
2. Book: Race and Membership in American History: The Eugenics Movement
   Focuses on how people used eugenics to justify their prejudices and advocate for programs aimed at solving problems by ridding society of “inferior racial traits.”
3. Guide: Teaching Mockingbird
   Includes first-hand accounts of African American men and women.
4. Video: The Origins of Lynching Culture in the US
   Dr. Paula Giddings from Smith College discusses the history and origins of lynching.
5. Video: Understanding Jim Crow
   Dr. David Cunningham from Brandeis University explores systems of racial separation and institutionalized segregation known as Jim Crow.

1. Video: Americans and the Holocaust
   Explores the motives, pressures and fears that shaped Americans’ responses to Nazism and the humanitarian refugee crisis it provoked.
2. Mini-Lesson: Bearing Witness to Japanese American Incarceration
   Probes some of the complex issues arising from the history of Japanese incarceration during World War II.
3. Collection: The Nanjing Atrocities: Crimes of War
   Examines the war crimes perpetrated by Japanese troops in the Chinese city of Nanjing during World War II.
4. Guide: Teaching Farewell to Manzanar
   Supports the teaching of Jeanne Wakatsuki’s memoir about the forced relocation of Japanese Americans.

1. Guide: Civil Rights Historical Investigations
   Traces the development of the US civil rights movement from the 1950s to the 1970s through three of the movement's major events.
2. Unit: Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Movement 1954-1985
   Explores important lessons about the power of ordinary citizens to shape democracy. Includes 14-part series, study guide, and lessons.
3. Guide: Democracy in Action: Freedom Riders
   Documents the experience of the Freedom Riders, who worked to dismantle the structures of discrimination through nonviolence.
4. Mini-Unit: Memphis 1968
   Examines the visions and strategies of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Stokely Carmichael and ask students how they can create a more just world.

1. Book: Crimes Against Humanity and Civilization: The Genocide of the Armenians
   Focuses on the Armenian Genocide during World War I and its many legacies, including Turkish denial.
2. Collection: The Nanjing Atrocities
   Examines the war crimes perpetrated by Japanese troops in the Chinese city of Nanjing during World War II.
3. Unit: Teaching Holocaust and Human Behavior
   Leads students through an examination of the catastrophic period when Nazi Germany murdered six million Jews and millions of other civilians, in the midst of WWII.
4. Unit: Universal Declaration of Human Rights
   Examines the context in which the UDHR was drafted, including the debates and dilemmas faced by Eleanor Roosevelt and others, and considers its legacies and lasting impact.

1. Collection: Confronting Apartheid
   Confronting Apartheid examines the complicated history and lasting legacy of apartheid in South Africa.
2. Book: Teaching Red Scarf Girl
   Explores themes of conformity, obedience, and prejudice through Ji-li Jiang’s memoir set during the Cultural Revolution in China.

1. Video: Everyone Has a Story
   Arn Chorn-Pond tells his story as a refugee from the Cambodian Genocide.
2. Lesson: The Roots and Impact of Antisemitism
   Looks at how anti-Judaism developed into antisemitism in the 19th century and considers the present-day implications of longstanding patterns of discrimination and violence against Jews.
3. Mini-Lesson: Responding to the Rohingya Crisis
   Places this ongoing crisis in historical context, with footage from a refugee camp and survivor testimony.