Teach with Facing History ELA Learning Experiences
Each of our learning experiences provides activities and resources to explore a core Facing History concept or theme while building key literacy skills.
![Student work together in class.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-09/Classroom_Discussion_Los_Angeles_SJLA_2018_FH287382.jpg?h=56d0ca2e&itok=--xgunus)
Teaching Strategies
Use our student-centered teaching strategies to strengthen your students’ literacy skills, nurture critical thinking, and build a respectful and collaborative classroom community.
![An educator walks through instructions for a teaching strategy procedure with students.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-08/Teaching_Strategies_hero.jpeg?h=78a3dfb3&itok=p8BXuMQa)
Expressing Diversity in Jewish Identity: Blending In and Standing Out
This two-day lesson uses the story of Purim as a frame to examine how Jews have preserved and protected their identities and culture in dominant societies by choosing when to blend in and when to stand out.
![A Jewish family pictured in Yemen](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2024-03/GettyImages-607446350.jpg?h=eec5a94e&itok=ZTRvXmoY)
Borders & Belonging
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.
Genocide under the Cover of War
Students learn about the events and choices of the Armenian Genocide and explore the consequences of the genocide from the perspective of survivors.
![Fleeing from death. An Armenian mother on the heights of the Taurus Mountains.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-05/1915_mother_and_child_in_the_desert_Medium_res.jpg?h=fcb26060&itok=ExhdlGru)
A Part and Apart: Inclusion and Exclusion in Our Jewish Communities
Students consider the benefits and challenges of identity labeling and their identity experiences within and outside their Jewish communities.
Gay Life Under Nazi Rule: The Legacy of Paragraph 175
Students watch survivor testimony from the documentary Paragraph 175 and engage in purposeful reflection about the survivors’ important stories.
![Nazi's standing outside of a building](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2024-05/1103.jpg?h=2a25a39c&itok=OZxbHBB3)
The Age of Rights?
World War II brought a new awareness of human rights around the world. After the horrors of the Holocaust came to full light, few people could deny the dangers of racism. The anti-colonial movement was growing stronger around the world, and with the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 by the newly formed United Nations, many turned their attention to the rights of colonized people globally. In Africa, Asia, and the Americas, liberation movements helped bring the plight of millions under European colonialism to public attention.
![Eleanor Roosevelt and United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Lake Success, New York, November 1949.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/24427-2011-001_a.jpg?h=e15b44ae&itok=kmDSMzTQ)
Aggressive Assimilation
Facing the resilience of indigenous traditional education in Canada, Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald, who was also Minister of Indian Affairs, commissioned Nicholas Flood Davin, a journalist, lawyer, and politician, to go to Washington, DC, in 1879 to study how the United States tackled the same issue.
![Portrait of Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-07/1872_PrimeMinisterJohnAMacdonald_FH24268.png?h=0652d3a6&itok=OFUvbJgz)
Being Jewish in the United States
Explore the complexity of Jewish identity with reflections from three teenagers about what being Jewish means to them.
![A woman and a child light a candle as their family gathers during the Passover Seder.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/Ch01_Image04_Medium_res.jpg?h=0429cc9e&itok=d2t6Z_O3)
Being Jewish in the United States (en español)
Explore the complexity of Jewish identity with reflections from three teenagers about what being Jewish means to them. This resource is in Spanish.
![A woman and a child light a candle as their family gathers during the Passover Seder.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/Ch01_Image04_Medium_res.jpg?h=0429cc9e&itok=d2t6Z_O3)