Updated 07-12-2022
Link to the Reform to Equal Rights curriculum web page.
Opening in February, 2023.
New Mini-Units Will Integrate Disability History across K-12 Curriculum
Published on Tue, 07/12/2022
Guest Blog Post: Content Teachers Take Your Seat at the Table
Published on Mon, 05/02/2022
How to empower students by participating in IEP and 504 team meetings
By Laurel Peltier, Collaborative for Educational Services
Emerging America has benefitted at key moments from Laurel's deep experience as a teacher and leader in support of students with disabilities. We are pleased to add her insights on ways that History and Civics teachers can support IEP and 504 teams to the Accessing Inquiry clearinghouse of resources.
How disability activists created change
This lesson has a sharable ready-made album of primary sources with an introduction essay by the author!
Disability, Protest, and the 504
“I Can’t Even Get To The Back of the Bus” – Disability, 504 and the Power of Protest
This lesson investigates why and how people take action to make a difference. Building from an inquiry-based RAN chart, the lesson explores the context of the 1977 protests calling on the Federal Government to actually implement 504 access legislation. Featuring a variety of primary sources, including testimony of activist Ed Roberts.
What is our value? A look at undervalued people
What is our value? The principle that people are paid for their work does not always work as it should; many people who have been historically undervalued have contributed to American society, including many people of color, people with a disability, women, and children. Students view images and text of people whose lives may not have been adequately valued by their contemporaries. Students examine those documents, do further research, and come to their own conclusions about how those individuals should have been and should be valued, and possibly assisted.
Zoom-In Visual Inquiry Activity
Wendy Harris, a teacher at Metro Deaf School in St.
Single Point Rubric
Rubrics are frequently used to communicate expectations and standards to students. Making expectations as clear, simple, and easily understood as possible is a practice of value to all learners.
A streamlined rubric form, using one column to specify the target standard, offers advantages for accessibility–especially fewer words to absorb–over more typical multi-column rubrics. This Single-Point Mastery Rubric is an example.
Disability History Primary Source Set
Disability History: From Almshouses to Civil Rights
UPDATED IN 2020. The following primary source set, created using materials from the Library of Congress, contains an array of sources focused on Disability History in the United States. Disability has been interwoven into America’s history since the country’s inception through letters, images, newspapers, diaries and other primary sources. The set provides a comprehensive look into a wide range of Library of Congress resources.
Question Formulation Technique (QFT)
The Question Formulation Technique (QFT) developed by the Right Question Institute is both a simple, practical teaching technique and a philosophy of learning that empowers ALL learners to discover questions for themselves.
Emerging America Lesson Design Toolkit
Keep at hand all seven items in the Emerging America Lesson Design Toolkit to support strong lesson plan development. You will also need copies of applicable academic standards and, of course, your text set, and any other support materials for the lesson. Refer to each tool to broaden choices for you and for students. The tools help make precise and clear the language in lesson objectives, instructions for assignments, rubrics, graphic organizers, and other handouts.