Children are surrounded – and targeted – by advertisements: on television, the computer, even on their journeys to and from school. Children need specific strategies for reading and talking about advertisements and their impact. Reading Ads with a Social Justice Lens is a series of 13 multidisciplinary mini-lessons that provide such strategies and build critical literacy. The lessons are designed for students in grades K-5 and include suggestions for simple adaptations. These lessons open up important conversations about the relationship between advertisements and social justice. Children will see that they have the power to decide how media will influence them. They will also engage in social justice projects that address some of the unfair messages they find in advertising.

In his historic March 2008 speech on race, Barack Obama explained some of the barriers to opportunity that created the racial wealth divide. In this lesson, students take a deeper look at the lingering economic effects of slavery, segregation and other forms of institutionalized bias.

People sometimes look the other way when they see an act of discrimination because they do not know how to stop it. This lesson provides students with real-world examples to help them identify peaceful ways to respond.

This activity encourages students to reflect on their individual cultures and histories, their backgrounds, the things they grew up with (some that may have been in their control and others that they had no choice about), and their values. In the end, students will begin to enlarge their perspective and recognize diversity of belief and background.

When people are asked about doing something for social justice, they often say: “I have to find out a little more about it before I take some action.” This lesson will create an awareness that actions are important in the struggle for justice.

In this upper-grades activity, students use basic news reporting skills to explore the impact of environmental racism.

A noose is found hanging from a goalpost on a high school campus.

A swastika, 20 feet in diameter, is burned into the pavement at a junior high school.

A group of white high school students dresses in banana suits for a basketball game and taunts their majority-black rival with racial slurs.

A Sikh student has his turban pulled off and hair cut by fellow students.

Your school has plans and protocols in place to respond to fires, severe weather, medical emergencies, fights and weapons possession. But what about school incidents like those listed above that involve bigotry and hate? Are plans in place to respond to a bias incident or hate crime? Too often these plans are created in the moment during the actual crisis. Bias incidents are far too complex for on-the-fly planning; an early misstep can heighten tension and damage chances for long-term success.

The purpose of this activity is to take a look at one of the most famous hate groups, try to understand why its members believe the way they do and learn what can be done to stop hate groups from returning to their historic levels of power and influence.

A biography with discussion questions about Guatemalan Indigenous rights activist Rigoberta Menchœ is presented by Teaching Tolerance.

This lesson series introduces students to four key figures in LGBTQ history who made incredible contributions to the civil rights movement: James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, Pauli Murray and Bayard Rustin.

In this lesson, students explore the varied work of scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians, and discuss character traits common to all of them. Students meet a diverse group of scientists—inventors, problem-solvers and those who explain the world around us.

In this lesson, students use data to analyze the participation of white, black, Asian and Hispanic men and women in STEM careers as compared with their participation in the general workforce. They then discuss the possible reasons identity groups are unequally represented in STEM careers.

As children use digital media with increasing frequency, advertisers who work with digital platforms continue to understand kids as an ideal target audience. Among other things, this means it is important to help children learn to read online ads sensibly and critically.

This lesson uses the strategies of “student questioning for purposeful learning” (SQPL) and jigsaw grouping to engage students in examining Constitutional issues related to school-based grooming policies.

This lesson has students practice ways to be more understanding and reflect on the effects of empathetic listening.

How did racial hierarchy adapt and persist after Emancipation? Throughout its history, the United States has been structured by a racial caste system. From slavery to Jim Crow to mass incarceration, these forms of racialized social control reinvented themselves to meet the needs of the dominant social class according to the constraints of each era.

Small Moment asks students to demonstrate their narrative skills when writing about personal experiences.

So What? asks students to demonstrate their explanatory and informative skills when writing to gain the understanding of others.

This lesson will engage students in the debate about the efficacy of social media as a tool for social change.

This lesson challenges students to analyze and to reflect on messages presented in songs — and to express their own views about important issues addressed in some songs.