Haynes, Religion in American History. It lives up to its subtitle, “What to
Teach and How.”
The American Social History Project’s Who Built America? (New York:
Pantheon, 1989), also available in a gripping video version on CD-ROM for
Apple equipment, from Voyager (1-800-446-2001), makes labor history come
alive. How Schools Are Teaching About Labor, published periodically by the
AFL-CIO (815 16th St. NW, Washington, D.C., 20006), supplies lesson plans
and classroom materials. Labor’s Heritage, a quarterly from the AFL-CIO
(10000 New Hampshire Ave., Silver Spring, MD, 20903), has produced
teachers’ guides and posters on teaching history and using local sources.
Power in Our Hands, by Bill Bigelow and Norman Diamond (New York:
Monthly Review Press, 1988), contains interesting exercises to get students to
think about social class.
On the federal government, Jonathan Kwitny’s Endless Enemies (New York:
Congdon and Weed, 1984) wins my nod for teachers, because he condemns our
counterproductive repression of popular movements abroad from a
nevertheless patriotic perspective. Lonnie Bunch and Michelle K. Smith
explore ways citizens have obliged governments to act in Protest and
Patriotism (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Office of Elementary and
Secondary Education [A&I Building, Room 1163, MRC 402, Washington,
D.C., 20560], n.d.). The Center for Social Studies Education
(teachvietnam.net) puts out an extensive kit for teaching high school students
about the Vietnam War. Brooke Workman, Teaching the Sixties, published in
1992 by the National Council of Teachers of English (ncte.org), is somewhat
diffuse and affable but offers ways for students to learn about that turbulent
decade. The 1960s are also emphasized in Teaching Tolerance 1, no. 1,
available to teachers without charge from the Southern Poverty Law Center,
400 Washington Ave., Montgomery, AL, 36104, which also distributes the
Civil Rights Teaching Kit. Finally, a novel by Marge Piercy, Woman on the
Edge of Time (New York: Fawcett Crest, 1977), provides a fun way to get
students to think about progress and the future.
In addition to these mostly print recommendations, ever-changing websites
provide crucial information. Of course students will use the Web, but
remember two rules: first, they must not stop there. Books still exist, along
with the census, old-timers to be interviewed, etc. Second, students should
annotate every source, Web or not, with a sentence telling why it is credible
(for the use made of it). Thousands of primary sources are available at the
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(Ron)
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