ELA Unit Planning Guide
This guide provides the framework and classroom resources to help you design an English Language Arts unit for middle or high school students centered around a book of your choosing.
![Three educators smile while sitting together working.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2024-03/Facing-History_SJLA_015_edit.jpg?h=c7420dc8&itok=PlL1FQ9c)
School Leaders Institute: Creating an Equitable School Culture and Climate
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Virtual
Join our summer institute for leaders and administrators to discover how to create caring, inclusive school communities, drive better outcomes for students, and connect with other leaders.
![Teachers at a Facing History Chicago event.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2023-12/FHOTeachers2017-33%20%28FH258800%29.jpg?h=c9f93661&itok=OzemYABy)
Teaching Democracy and Freedom: Facing History’s Approach to US History
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Boston, MA
Explore Facing History's new US History Curriculum Collection, which focuses on themes of Democracy and Freedom and provides resources for historical inquiry-based learning while developing students' civic agency. This event will be hosted in-person.
![Teacher gestures toward camera in professional development setting.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2023-03/8-10-17FacH09134.jpg?h=4362216e&itok=g0ZJn89w)
The Complexity of Jewish Identity: A Minority Identity in a Dominant Culture
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Virtual
This webinar will explore new Facing History lessons on how the core narratives of Jewish holidays can frame an exploration of the complexity of Jewish identity.
![An educator gestures to a gallery of images taped to the wall.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2024-05/20240129_201957_0.jpg?h=acf6a066&itok=7SKmsiyG)
California Teachers Collaborative for Holocaust and Genocide Education: Summer Institute
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Los Angeles, CA
Registration for this event is now closed. Join Facing History - and 13 educational organizations - for the second annual California Teachers Collaborative Summer Institute. This three-day institute is for California high school and middle school educators who seek to enhance their teaching of the Holocaust and genocide. This event will occur in person.
![Title photograph that reads California Teacher's Collaborative for Holocaust and Genocide Education Summer Institute. The line below reads "June 23-26, 2024 - USC Los Angeles, CA"](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2024-03/Summer-Institute-24-fnl.jpg?h=ea7ea2c5&itok=WUvA8N9S)
Teach with Facing History ELA Learning Experiences
Each of our learning experiences provides activities and resources to explore a core Facing History concept or theme while building key literacy skills.
![Student work together in class.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-09/Classroom_Discussion_Los_Angeles_SJLA_2018_FH287382.jpg?h=56d0ca2e&itok=--xgunus)
Coming of Age in a Complex World: A Mini-Course for ELA Educators
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Explore hands-on strategies to teach coming-of-age texts and literature, centering students’ identities and lived experiences as young adults.
![A women concentrates at a table while working on a handout](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2023-11/Facing-History_SJLA_165.jpg?h=4362216e&itok=Ow7ferS5)
28 Social-Emotional Learning Activities for the Classroom
Use these simple social-emotional learning activities to incorporate SEL in your lesson plans and classroom routines.
![Two women in discussion.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2024-03/076_Bully_Summit%2C_2012%2C_LA%2C_078.jpg?h=4997dc06&itok=KLLmzTIA)
Teaching Strategies
Use our student-centered teaching strategies to strengthen your students’ literacy skills, nurture critical thinking, and build a respectful and collaborative classroom community.
![An educator walks through instructions for a teaching strategy procedure with students.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-08/Teaching_Strategies_hero.jpeg?h=78a3dfb3&itok=p8BXuMQa)
Gay Life Under Nazi Rule: The Legacy of Paragraph 175
Students watch survivor testimony from the documentary Paragraph 175 and engage in purposeful reflection about the survivors’ important stories.
![Nazi's standing outside of a building](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2024-05/1103.jpg?h=2a25a39c&itok=OZxbHBB3)
Indigenous Resistance, Resilience and Resurgence: The Role of Activism
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Toronto, CA
Experience a holistic day of learning that brings together Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee stories, art, spoken word, connection to land, language rights and activism. This event will be hosted in-person.
![Quote reading "Power presents are and design works that reclaim the word’s primary associations with capitalism, state capitalism, colonialism, and neocolonial. The exhibiting artists and designers use their stirring creative practices to reposition the meaning of power as a strength grounded in respectful relationships, nonbinary worldviews, and emotional intelligence, embedded within practices of decolonization, Indigenization and other meaningful methods that decenter, Eurocentric, Western worldviews"](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2024-05/IMG_1676.jpg?h=1f8cbfdf&itok=QVBDbBIo)