The deadline to apply for the 2014 CF has passed... please plan to apply for the 2015 CF.  TSJ Curriculum Fair 2014 Is Back! 1. Exhibit Curriculum, or 2. Have a Resource Table, or 3. Present a Workshop! Applications Available Below!

Do you want to exhibit your curriculum at the TSJ CF? Click here to apply. What does it mean to "exhibit" curriculum at the CF? Each teacher/exhibitor gets a table at the Fair to set up her/his materials. Many teachers exhibit curriculum by bringing a tri-fold board (like those science fair boards) and bring lesson or unit plans, student work, assignments, artifacts, video, whatever, to share their curriculum ideas. Many bring their students along who sit at the table and explain the work with their teachers. The CF is set up so that we can browse the "exhibits," talk with each other, and share lessons. Do you want to present a workshop? Click here to apply. What are the workshops? Although the main focus of the CF is person-to-person contact through the exhibitors at their tables, we also have a limited number of workshops. These range from curricular innovations about social justice pedagogy to, for example, using multicultural children's literature to organizing for educational justice. These provide more in-depth, interactive ways for teachers and students to share what they've been learning and doing in their classrooms, and for activists/organizers to create dialogue and spaces for learning and for all of us to bring democracy to education and Chicago. These are our schools! Do you want to have a resource table? Click here What's the difference between an "exhibit" and a "resource table?" Exhibitors are usually teachers who have taught a lesson, unit, or project, or who have some developed ideas to teach. We really encourage classroom teachers who are doing this work. Resource tables are usually for organizations that produce curriculum and resources for teachers and want to share them w/ others.

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Our friends at the Education for Liberation Network just announced the publication of the 2010-2011 edition of Planning to Change the World: A Plan Book for Social Justice Teachers. This unique resource is packed with all new social justice anniversaries and birthdays as well as lots of new resources, quotes and essential questions for students.

Pre-order your copy from Rethinking Schools for a discount price today! Or learn more by visiting www.justiceplanbook.com.
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Project NIA, the Chicago Freedom School and Teachers for Social Justice have partnered along with other volunteers to develop a curriculum guide in order to contribute to the ongoing efforts by young people and their adult allies to analyze the root causes of youth violence and to create local solutions.

At a time when frustration is running high and many are expressing a sense of powerlessness in the face of pervasive violence, this curriculum guide is an offering intended to make a positive contribution to the dialogue about violence in the lives of young people.


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This exhibit will present material on a student action-research project around the Olympics created for a History course. It's geared towards helping students understanding social and economic systems, events, trends, individuals and movements shaping the history of Illinois, the United States and other nations.

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DESCRIPTION: Even though students may live in a city, where the people they encounter each day come from all over, they might still be unfamiliar with any neighborhood outside their own. This lesson seeks to open the door to the exploration of Chicago neighborhoods and the unfamiliar through the use of mapping in abstract art. Students will explore the idea of creating artwork from the lines, shapes, and design of neighborhood maps. Students will select two neighborhood cutouts at random in addition to their own neighborhood, to trace and create an abstract design, exploring different techniques with oil pastels. They will utilize the elements and principles of line, shape, balance, and pattern in their composition. In the end, students’ compositions will connect the three different cutout neighborhood shapes into one cohesive design, allowing them to contemplate how these different shapes and neighborhoods exist in the same space. 

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The contemporary artist Robert Gober gives subversive meaning to wallpaper in an installation at the AIC.

Using juxtaposition and repetition, he turns the racist history that makes up America’s cultural background into a visual background. My lesson invites high school students to consider how to make their American cultural background visible by using Gober’s wallpaper form to juxtapose and repeat images from the mainstream news media after editing them.

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Preview: The bag of items represents the stomach contents of a dying, 28-foot female sperm whale found on a beach in North Carolina in December, 1992. Veterinarians concluded that none but the smallest pieces of plastic could have passed through the whale’s intestinal tract, and that the garbage was a large contributing factor to, if not the entire reason for, the whale’s death. It is assumed that sperm whales either mistake plastic for food, or, perhaps more likely, go after squid that are hiding in and around the garbage and accidentally swallow the plastic as well. Finding plastic in whales is uncommon, but this is not an isolated incident. Most whales who die do so off shore and are not found by people.

Level: Grade 4 and up
Time: 15-45 minutes
Relevant subjects: Science, Language Arts, and Social Studies

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 A discussion of the importance of Rainforests and how we can analyze their health.

Writer: Pamela Krausz, Institute for Humane Education
Grades: 6 through 8
Areas: Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies

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This activity inspires students to think about their own areas of bigotry and to identify how we develop our attitudes about others, and it empowers them to take action to reduce bigotry in their own lives and in society.

Curriculum Writers: Amy Morley, Kristina Hulvershorn, M. Ed., Institute for Humane Education

Grades: 9 & up
Time: 90 minutes
Relevant Subjects: Social Studies and Language Arts

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From the Institute for Humane Education and The Power and Promise of Humane Education.

Curriculum Writers: Amy Morley, Kristina Hulvershorn, M. Ed., Institute for Humane Education
Level: 5 and up
Time: 45-60 minutes



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A visual arts lesson plan that allows students to explore their connection to their local community. For very young students to begin to foster a sense of community engagement and social justice, an important first step is recognizing one’s connection and relationship with the immediate community around them.

Using collage artist Bryan Collier’s book Uptown as a starting point, students will study the way that Collier integrates painting, photographic images, and other mixed media into collages that emphasize and celebrate the local cultural heritage of the neighborhood of Harlem. In similar process, students will choose a personally meaningful image from a wide selection of photos of places of interest from around their own local community, create a collage, and write a memory about their community. The exhibit will provide an explanation of the lesson, student work, and guidelines for how educators in other disciplines could use a similar process in their classroom.

Curriculum Writer: Annie S.
Level: Early Elementary
Area: Visual Art

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The content focuses on the conflict surrounding labor unions from the perspectives of: the government, management, pro-union laborers, and anti-union laborers.

It should be noted that this was classwork for a college social studies methods class and taught to college-level peers.  The lesson would need to be adapted for younger students.  

Writers: Stephanie D., Gina C., and Sarah W.
Level: Elementary
Area: Social Studies

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“What Young People Should Know Before Joining the Military” is a unit designed for a 10th grade US History class. The historical component revolves around imperialism and the Spanish-American War. A contemporary connection is made through a look at imperialism and the Iraq War. The final project for the unit consists of group presentations on what CPS students should know about the military before they consider joining. The presentations were videotaped and then edited and compiled to make a 15-minute video that was posted on YouTube.

Writer: J. Cyriac M.
Level Grade 10
Area: U. S. History

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Class-produced Videos:

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What is hate? Introducing the word HATE:

To begin our study about standing up against hate, the students and I brainstormed words and situations that we associated with the word HATE. We created a web on large chart paper that still hangs in the back of the room. From this discussion, my students mentioned ideas around gang fights in their communities, violence on the street and bullying in school. We talked about how hate can escalate into violence and how people get involved in violent acts that are fueled with hate.

The next day, the students were broken into groups to define vocabulary around hate and intolerance. The students created their own definitions and then created posters to depict the meanings. These posters to posted around the classroom for reference throughout the entire unit. Vocabulary used: Intolerance, discrimination, prejudice, axis powers, allied powers, genocide, segregation, and holocaust.
Day by day: How 5th graders began to understand how hate can escalate…

Compiled by Alissa L. and Liav S.

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Unit Description: This unit will be based off the Teachers College Writing Unit for Realistic Fiction and Reading Unit for Character Study. Students will explore their own identities. They will have multiple opportunities to embrace those identities, which promotes positive self-esteem. They will also learn how those identities can be the source of tension in various situations. Students will write Realistic Fiction pieces with characters that share similar identities to them. They will feature a situation where a particular identity is the cause of conflict.

Compiled by Alissa L. and Liav S., Brooklyn

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Most teachers spend some portion of the school year, especially early in the year, doing community building activities. Many of these activities are centered on getting to know each other. We believe firmly in “going deeper.” This includes developing students’ sense of self-love, acceptance and understanding of classmates, and strengthening listening skills in order to promote comfortable, safe learning spaces.

Compiled by: Liav S., Brooklyn
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Sample activities include:


CHAIN OF STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES – Students use sentence strips. On one side of the sentence strip the student writes one of his/her strengths (academic or personal). On the other side of the sentence strip the student writes one of his/her weaknesses. Students share these in a circle. As they share, students use a stapler to create a link in the paper chain. After each person shares, the class watches as the chain grows. The teacher explains how each person has strengths AND weaknesses. Teacher guides students to notice how flimsy a single strip of paper is compared to the chain. Teacher emphasizes that this year students do not have to feel alone when working on their weakness but rather that they have a support network. Our students frequently discuss their strengths and weaknesses openly and freely ask for help from their classmates. Our classroom environment is noticeably stronger because of these discussions around strengths and weaknesses.


STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES READ ALOUDS – Thank you, Mr. Falker by Patrica Palacco, “Raymond’s Run” by Toni Cade Bambara, found in the book of short stories called America Street, and Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick are valuable texts that support the students’ acceptance of their own and others’ strengths and weaknesses.


WEB OF COMMONALITIES – Sitting in a circle on the rug, one student starts by saying something about him/herself. Student then passes a ball of yarn to another person who shares that commonality. Students see how these commonalties make a web. They see how interconnected they are as well as how strong and intricate the community is with each and every commonality. The students really enjoy this activity! Later a bulletin board was created to visually show the activity and commonalities. Students, teachers, administrators, and parents loved looking at the bulletin board and began to see the values we are emphasizing in our classrooms.


CLASS BILL OF RIGHTS – New York State begins 5th grade Social Studies with studying local, state, and federal government. Students review concepts government, democracy, basic rights, values, and documents through creating their own Class Bill of Rights. Students also review the Bill of Rights and the NYC Dept. of Education’s Student Bill of Rights. Most classrooms create some sort of classroom rules. Our goals were to connect classroom rules to the mandated Social Studies curriculum AND establish strong communities.

IALAC – Lesson taken from Open Minds to Equality by Nancy Schniedewind and Ellen Davidson. Students learn what it means to feel “lovable and capable.” Students create a paper IALAC and slowly rip it apart while reading about a boy’s bad day. After ripping the paper IALAC, students are asked to put it back together. They call out “but I can’t!” or “it won’t work!” Explain to students that once somebody’s IALAC can be broken it takes a lot of tape, and love, to repair it. Reference students’ IALACs and characters’ IALACs throughout the year. An “IALAC” feels tangible to students whereas discussing self-worth and self-confidence is abstract. Students use this term throughout the year at school and home. They feel comfortable saying that their IALAC feels “low” or “broken.”

WRITING ABOUT OUR IALACS – Our mandated literacy curriculum (the Reading and Writing Project from Teacher’s College at Columbia University) requires that students begin the year by writing Personal Narratives. We viewed this Personal Narrative Unit as an opportunity to build our community and accomplish our academic goals. Students had to feel safe to share these stories to partnerships and have others read them. Going through the Writing Process with an important, personal story was motivating for students. This also emphasized that authors write with purpose and often reveal themselves in their writing.

ACTIVE LISTENING – During the first week of school, students created a Class Bill of Rights. The students chose to include “actively listen” as one of their agreements. A few weeks into the school year it became evident that students did not have a clear, or common, vision of what it meant to “actively listen.” These words had no meaning to them and therefore were not following the rule they had created.

Calling out is a common issue during classroom lessons. In order to bring the students’ attention to this issue, try this activity from ___________. Begin by having the students stand in a circle. Present them with the challenge of counting to 10. There is no set order of who speaks and if there are two or more people who speak at once, the class starts again at one. Students are excited with the challenge, and start the game strong! Their concentration is clear! Then, students quickly begin to get stuck around 2 or 3. Stop the students to discuss why this is happening. Students explain that their classmates are “getting too excited,” “want to speak REALLY badly,” “forgot the rules,” or “feel the rules are too easy and don’t want to follow them” to name a few. Teacher then explains how these same things are happening in the classroom during lessons. Students are forgetting the rules or feel they were too easy and therefore don’t have to follow them. Students see this connection and it serves as a review of classroom rules and expectations. Play this game during transitions moments throughout the year and the students rise to the challenge! Once they get to 10, push them toward higher numbers!

Students also participated in a simulation activity demonstrating the significance of “not listening.” Lesson taken from http://www.experiential-learning-games.com/listeninggames.html. Students then worked in pairs to describe Active Listening, its importance, and the danger of “not listening.” As a class, we constantly discuss how listening often seems so easy and effortless but it is actually quite difficult and is a skill that needs to be developed. Students were exceptionally responsive to our activities and constantly refer to it. Students enthusiastically decided to embark on a journey of developing this skill and wanted to start an Active Listening Campaign at our school. Students have discussed ideas such as an Active Listening art installation for other students to walk by in the hallway, offering Active Listening workshops to other classes, and creating public service announcements.

“I CAUGHT YOU” JAR – Students fill out strips of paper where they can compliment a classmate on something wonderful they saw them doing. Students write things like “thank you for playing with me at recess” or “you made my IALAC feel big by explaining the math problem to me.” Once a week, the teacher pulls out three slips to read aloud to the class. Once the jar is full, all the slips are handed out to the recipients even if they have not been read. Our students look forward to this each week. They really enjoy complimenting each other and building up their classmates’ IALACs.

COMMUNITY MEETINGS – Students participate in weekly Community Meetings. This is a forum for students to bring issues to the community that are negatively impacting the classroom culture (i.e. bullying, classroom jobs not being fulfilled, teasing, stealing). The teacher or students may act as facilitators and must help resolve the issue. These serve as means to deliberately practice Active Listening and participate in democratic problem solving.

Also shared by Liav:

Children’s Books We LOVE!

· Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick
· America Street: A Multicultural Anthology of Stories by Anne Mazer
· Thank You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco
· Keep Your Ear on the Ball by Genevieve Petrillo and Lea Lyon
· Crow Boy by Taro Yashima
· Leon’s Story by Leon Walter Tillage and Susan L. Roth
· Iqbal by Francesco D’Adamo
· Fire From the Rock by Sharon Drape
· A Taste of Colored Water by by Matt Faulkner
· Esperanza Rising
· Harvesting Hope
· Si Se Puede! Yes We Can! Janitor Strike in L.A. by Diana Cohn
· The Butterfly by Patricia Polacco
· Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
· Luba, the Angel at Bergen Belsen by Luba Tryszynska-Frederick
· I Never Saw Another Butterfly by Hana Volavkova
· Anne Frank: Behind the Diary by Rian Verhoeven, Ruud Van der Rol, Tony Langham, and Plym Peters
· The Cats in Krasinski Square by Karen Hesse
· Letters to Rifka
· Hip Hop Speaks to Children

Teacher Resources we LOVE!

Books:
Rethinking Columbus
Open Minds to Equality
Global Exchange Fair Trade Cocoa Unit and Chocolate Book

Newspaper: 
IndyKids

Movies:
Paperclips
Newsies
Hairspray

Websites:
www.brainpop.com
www.globalexchange.org
http://www.usingtheirwords.org/
http://2009bookclubblog.blogspot.com/

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Movement is a powerful means of expression, and many artists have made
attempts to capture the feel of motion in their artwork. To get students to begin to
think about movement in their daily lives, specifically on their way to school (the
kinds of transportation used, the kinds of things they see in motion on their way,
and even the path they take through their neighborhood), and in preparation to
be thinking about puppet performance later in the semester, students will be
asked to engage themselves in studying various kinds of motion through
performing and line drawings to better their understanding of how to create the
illusion of movement, and how movement is involved in their own lives and in the
arts.

Curriculum Writer: Joshua R.

Level: Early Elementary

Area :Visual Art

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DESCRIPTION: This project was inspired by poetry and the illustrations from the book, “A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams” by Jen Bryant and Melissa Sweet. The book is about the story of William Carlos and how he became a poet. Melissa took words from the poetry and created her illustrations. The purpose of this lesson is to give students skills for visually interpreting the worlds of others through poetry.

Curriculum Writer: Luthando M.
GRADE LEVEL: Secondary school

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