It’s back-to-school time and Choices has some great activities and materials to help kick off the year! If you’re looking for an activity to begin a course or unit, the free Values and Public Policy Teaching with the News lesson provides students with opportunities to identify and prioritize their values and analyze how they inform perspectives on public policy. It’s a way for students to consider what happens when values come into conflict and begin to understand the views of others and how values influence decision-making. And as the elections approach, you may want to have students think about how candidates talk about core values such as freedom, security, and democracy.
The Name Five Game is another great activity. The exercise helps students think about the ways that history has often been taught and how we don’t always hear all voices equally. Kellie Carter Jackson of Wellesley College explains the game and its importance in this Choices video.
The free Resource Guide: Disability History and Studies can help to inform your teaching of disability history and the incorporation of the ideas and methods of disability studies into social studies classrooms. It addresses questions about accessibility and anti-ableism while teaching any subject.
Choices’ award-winning unit on the Vietnam War provides sources and perspectives not included in any other curriculum on the Vietnam War. It can be used in a variety of courses, e.g., U.S. History, World History, and Asian Studies. The student readings provide important insights into Vietnam’s history from the First Indochina War to the aftermath of the U.S. war in Vietnam and its legacies. The unit’s seven lessons help students to develop skills in geography, primary source and data set analysis, and historical narrative.
