Middle and High School People’s History Working Group Meeting

January 9, 2021

Tif Ani led the group in a Civil Rights Movement quiz using Kahoot and then everyone shared stories about how they engaged with students around the events of Jan. 6 (the Capitol and Georgia). Next, participants selected from two small group presentations:

• My Blood Unit Template by Nicole Clark, middle school social studies teacher at Two Rivers Public Charter School and a faculty member of the Two Rivers Learning Institute focusing on race and equity. The “Blood Unit” includes themes of art, journalism, and justice. Students use sources gathered through journalism to identify the injustices that people with sickle cell disease endure. Then they create art (poetry and poster) to not only bring awareness to the disease, but also the injustices experiences as a result of the lack of awareness about the disease.

• Out My Window by Nancy Shia by Nancy Mirabal, associate professor at the University of Maryland and project director for Out My Window. Mirabal introduced the site and facilitated a dialogue about using it in the classroom. She noted that “Out My Window is both material and metaphor. Not all of the photos have been taken out of Nancy Shia’s window, but the window as metaphor and opening. In a time of continuous and uncritical visuality, a period marked by social media that demands our constant attention and gaze, Shia’s photos ask that we see with intention.”