What Does It Mean “To Kill a Mockingbird”?
Facing History shares a list of key components for a reflective classroom and provides educators with a number of resources to guide them in building their own.
![Gregory Peck (left) and Brock Peters in a pivotal scene from the 1962 film "To Kill a Mockingbird."](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-04/atticus_and_tom_robinson_in_court.gif?h=fa747474&itok=gA60t0Vr)
Identity and Storytelling Assessment Ideas
Create a culminating experience for your students that helps them draw new connections between the concepts and ideas presented in this text set, themselves, and the world today.
Why Identity Matters
Students reflect on how aspects of their identities are more visible or felt in certain situations and read an informational text to help them consider the interplay between individual identity and social identity.
Latinx vs. Hispanic: A History of Terms
Learn about the history and debate surrounding how we describe Latinx and Hispanic peoples, and consider the relationship between language and identity.
![A dictionary page open to the definition of "Latino".](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-05/LatinoDefinitionDictionaryPage.jpeg?h=8e4088dc&itok=YtALYqsm)
Telling Our Histories
Students connect themes from the film to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's concept of “single stories," and then consider what it would take to tell more equitable and accurate narratives.
![View of people on a city street.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/2016_TellingOurHistories_card_FH2173875.jpg?h=ac1fc4d9&itok=2zsh7JUC)
Watching Who Will Write Our History
Students view the film, analyze a primary source from the Oyneg Shabes archive, and consider why it matters who tells the stories of the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.
![A man rolling up a scroll.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/2022_ScreenShot2022-06-10at10.11.31AM_FH2174132.jpg?h=ae1281eb&itok=llfRTLHU)
The Power of Native Language Revitalization
Learn about the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project, one of many grassroots efforts dedicated to healing the lasting wounds inflicted by residential schools and cultural genocide of Native peoples.
![Still of jessie baird from We Still Live Here - Âs Nutayuneân (Makepeace Productions, 2011).](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-05/still_jessie_baird_we_stil_live_here_as_nutayunean_makepeace_productions_2011.jpeg?h=7843b95a&itok=hO0bfEUt)
7 Must-See Films on Native American History and Life
The seven documentaries series listed below cover wide-ranging subject matter including Native American peoples’ roles within and perspectives about the film medium, the women’s rights movement, K-12 education, political leadership, literary arts, musical performance, and language protection efforts.
![A portion of the Without a Whisper documentary film poster.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-05/without_whisper_film_poster.jpeg?h=e2256408&itok=3Pm57673)
Learning from GLSEN
Learn about the history behind Gay-Straight alliance student groups and GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network.
![LGBTQ pride flag on chalkboard.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-05/LGBTQPrideFlagChalkboard_iStock-929777058%20%281%29.jpeg?h=8e4088dc&itok=R2ov_E-w)
5 New YA Books on Native American Lives
Members of our staff are exploring these five new books published written by a group of Indigenous authors across North America for readers ages 12 and up and we invite you to explore them alongside us. These texts address themes including Indigenous youth navigating adolescent identity, community, and resistance.
Contracting and Re-Contracting in the New Year
Elizabeth Carroll, New England Program Director at Facing History, explores the value of contracting and re-contracting in January each year.
![Photo of students smiling in class with a teacher](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-04/students_smiling_class_teacher_photo.png?h=a6c55029&itok=m-jGZ2IZ)
bell hooks Taught Us to Transgress
Like many people of my generation who cut their teeth on the critical insights of bell hooks, news of her passing in December unleashed a wave of reflection for me about the ways she’s impacted me as a person and public scholar. Beyond the many moments of resonance I experienced while reading her writings over the years, her impact on me is most powerfully encapsulated in an experience I had in 2008 when I met her.
![bell hooks standing on stage and speaking while holding a microphone.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-08/bellhooks.jpeg?itok=jpRETw0k)