Grounded in Facing History’s student-centered pedagogical approach, these resources will help educators establish a brave, inclusive, and reflective classroom community as they explore this challenging topic. The resources are organized thematically and will lead you to lesson plans, teaching strategies, videos, and webinars based on what you want to learn and what you want to introduce to your students.

The resources in this toolkit are modular and flexible. They include professional learning for educators grounded in four core priorities of trauma-informed instruction, daily classroom routines for creating continuity and helping students feel safe and emotionally secure, and classroom activities that foster trust and a sense of belonging in the classroom for the school year ahead.

Taking the time in the first few weeks of school to nurture community, build relationships, and attend to students’ social-emotional needs lays the foundation for students to engage with the content, take risks, and support one another all year.

This modular ELA collection for grades 7–12 invites students to explore the complicated world of belonging and the tangible and intangible borders that shape it.

This collection includes:
- Introductory lessons
- Multimodal text sets
- Unit Planning Guide for developing a unit on a book of your choice

Diverse stories and counter-stories introduce students to a variety of perspectives on the collection’s themes of borders and belonging. Some perspectives may resonate with a student’s own experience of belonging, while others may challenge and expand their thinking. Along the way, students consider their own agency to cultivate a sense of belonging for themselves and others, and develop their capacity to participate fully in conversations across difference.

This modular ELA collection for grades 6–12 invites students to explore the complexity of identity and develop a sense of agency as they reflect on what it means to grow up in the world today.

The collection includes:
- Back to School Toolkit
- Introductory lesson
- Multi-genre text sets
- Unit Guide for teaching Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming
- Unit Planning Guide for developing a unit on a book of your choice
- Book Club Guide
- Whole School Read Planning Guide

The resources in this collection help you diversify the range of stories that students read and combine reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills with ethical and empathic reflection.

Facing History & Ourselves uses lessons of history to challenge teachers and their students to stand up to bigotry and hate. Facing History has thousands of research-based resources and professional learning events to support Social Studies and English Language Arts education.

Together, we can encourage students in the classroom to be upstanders outside of the classroom. We help educators prepare students to participate in civic life—to use their intellect, empathy, ethics, and choice to stand up to bigotry and hate in their own lives, communities, and schools. Our approach helps students understand that history is made by the decisions they make every day.

There are as many ways to integrate Facing History into your curriculum as there are classrooms. You can start independently with our artifacts and lesson plans or our self-paced courses. Or, connect with peers in an expert-led professional learning event.

We invite you to explore how Facing History can support you in your teaching journey.

This guide includes a flexible collection of activities, readings, lessons, and strategies that teachers can use to develop a civic action experience that meets their classroom’s specific curriculum objectives, grade level, and available time.

Resources support these essential practices:
Civic education begins in learner-centered classrooms that value students’ identities.
Civic education must confront bias and develop a sense of the common good.
Civic education must engage with the complexities of history.
Civic education must introduce current events and controversial issues.

This guide also contains sample projects and assignments that illustrate how teachers can structure their unit to meet the growing requirement for civic action projects in a way that leads to meaningful and long-lasting experiences for students.

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This 13-lesson unit, adapted from our Reconstruction Era book, is designed to fit within approximately three weeks. In this unit, students investigate the challenges of creating a just democracy in a time of deep division.

Unit Essential Question: What can we learn from the history of Reconstruction as we work to strengthen democracy today?

This unit consists of 23 lessons and an assessment designed to lead middle or high school students through an examination of the catastrophic period in the twentieth century when Nazi Germany murdered six million Jews and millions of other civilians, in the midst of the most destructive war in human history.

Unit Essential Question: What does learning about the choices people made during the Weimar Republic, the rise of the Nazi Party, and the Holocaust teach us about the power and impact of our choices today?

Responsibly teaching To Kill a Mockingbird involves setting Harper Lee’s fictional story in its historical context, centering Black voices that are missing from the text, and examining the story and its messages with a critical lens. See Facing History's key principles behind our approach to the novel.

This guide includes student handouts, close reading exercises, and connection questions that will push students to build a complex understanding of the historical realities, social dynamics, and big moral questions at the heart of To Kill a Mockingbird. Following Facing History’s scope and sequence, students will consider the identities of the characters, and the social dynamics of the community of Maycomb, supplementing their understanding with deep historical exploration. They will consider challenging questions about the individual choices that determine the outcome of Tom Robinson’s trial and the importance of civic participation in building a more just society.

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This guide interweaves a literary analysis of Elie Wiesel’s powerful and poignant memoir with an exploration of the relevant historical context surrounding his experience during the Holocaust.

Throughout the guide, students will revisit the central questions:
- How is our identity shaped and reshaped by the circumstances we encounter?
- How do tragedy and trauma influence an individual’s identity and choices?

Using this framework to explore the memoir, students will build literacy and historical-analysis skills, while also fostering critical social-emotional competencies like empathy and perspective-taking.

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Our teaching strategies can be easily adapted for your classroom context and are designed to nurture student’s individual strengths and learning styles. Whether you want to encourage group participation, help students connect emotionally with a subject, or spark more engagement through classroom activities, you'll find plenty of ideas in our library of proven instructional strategies.

This curated set of US history lesson plans, units, and C3-style inquiries is designed to help you incorporate the themes of democracy and freedom into your US history course.

These resources introduce voices not often included in textbooks, examine historic and ongoing injustices, and explore the lived experiences of many Americans. Primary sources throughout the collection highlight the work of those in our country who have demanded greater freedom and expanded civil and human rights.

Collection Essential Question: What do democracy and freedom mean in US history and in our society today?