In honor of International Women’s Day, A Day Without A Woman, and Women’s History Month, we’ve gathered some resources that may be helpful in the classroom.
The National Women’s History Museum has a great list of lesson plans and downloadable biographic posters. Notable is the lesson plan “Reforming Their World: Women in the Progressive Era” for secondary students, with a focus on the importance of grassroots movement in creating social change.
It is important that students have an understanding of what “reform” is and how reform comes about in a country. Quite often, reform starts at a local or “grassroots” level and expands to get national attention. Usually, history textbooks focus on the “end-product” or the point at when something received national attention — but there is not always a focus on the energy and effort it took to make a reform movement gain momentum and success (and the millions of people behind it)!
During the Progressive Era a lot of the people who worked at a grassroots (and national) level were women — specifically clubwomen. This lesson will have students examine the number of clubs that were created by women during the Progressive Era and how these clubs were effective in bringing about political and economic changes that broadened democratic input.
There are many more lesson plans at the link!
A game called, we kid you not, Wonderful Women Top Trumps, comes from the British site TES. There’s downloadable content to help middle grade students learn about all sorts of inspiring women–and a new game. We came across this game on a larger resource site from TES, Ideas for International Women’s Day.
And finally, another wonderfully curated list from Edutopia, put together in 2013. It includes resources for discussing gender stereotypes as well as a thorough list of other reading lists. We do love a good list, and this one is worth your time.
.small stones. 