Building a Classroom Community: Creating an Environment for Connection and Learning
This back-to-school resource contains activities and routines to help you create a sense of community, build relationships, and nurture students’ social-emotional needs.
![Students sitting in groups in a classroom](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/London_Classroom_2019_%20FH2117946.jpg?h=56d0ca2e&itok=UGM9knhg)
Teaching Brown Girl Dreaming
Teach a unit on Jacqueline Woodson's coming-of-age memoir in verse that invites students to reflect on their own experiences and identities.
![A girl leans against a wall while reading a book.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-07/iStock-1209693972.jpg?h=7bbcb45e&itok=b5N9XQ_7)
Somewhere There is Still a Sun
Resilience shines throughout a boy's firsthand, present-tense account of life in the Terezin concentration camp during the Holocaust.
![Somewhere There Is Still a Sun Book Cover.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-11/somewhere-there-is-still-a-sun-cover.jpeg?h=ac700f86&itok=udqiCiRM)
Parallel Journeys
Alternating chapters contrast the wartime experiences of two young Germans—Helen Waterford, who was interned in a Nazi concentration camp, and Alfons Heck, a member of the Hitler Youth.
![Parallel Journeys Book Cover.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-11/parallel-journeys-cover.jpeg?h=91d5dbcf&itok=H_NmhUiP)
"You Get Proud by Practicing" Connection Questions
Students use this handout to analyze Laura Hershey's poem, "You Get Proud by Practicing".
![Female students work on a written assignment.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-11/Los_Angeles_Summit_2018_FH287137.jpg?h=56d0ca2e&itok=h61f5-df)
"You Get Proud by Practicing" Connection Questions (en español)
Students use this handout to analyze Laura Hershey's poem, "You Get Proud by Practicing".
This resource is in Spanish.
![Female students work on a written assignment.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-11/Los_Angeles_Summit_2018_FH287137.jpg?h=56d0ca2e&itok=h61f5-df)
Red Scarf Girl
A child's nightmare unfolds in Ji-li Jiang's chronicle of the excesses of Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution in China in the late 1960s.
Curriculum Planning Begins with Self-Reflection
Dr. Kimberly Parker discusses the internal work that teachers need to do during the curriculum development process in order to engage and support students in their learning.
![](/sites/default/files/brightcove/videos/images/posters/image_1391.jpg)
All Souls: A Family Story from Southie
In this memoir, MacDonald details his story of growing up in Southie, Boston's Irish Catholic enclave, and examines the ways the media and law enforcement agencies exploit marginalized working-class communities.
![All Souls book cover](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-08/all_souls_cover.jpg?h=d4399b17&itok=yib58Gi_)
Enrique's Journey
A Honduran boy goes on an unforgettable quest looking for his mother, eleven years after she is forced to leave her starving family to find work in the United States.
![Book cover of Enrique's Journey.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-08/enriques_journey_cover.jpg?h=8762cff3&itok=x-pfnB7C)
Farewell to Manzanar
Uprooted from their home, Seven-year-old Jeanne Wakatsuki and her family were sent to live at Manzanar internment camp with ten thousand other Japanese Americans in 1942.
![Book cover of Farewell to Manzanar](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-08/farewell_manzanar_cover.jpg?h=171c537c&itok=mRsXupf_)