Secondary Resources for Supporting Equity and Inclusion in the Classroom

To support equity and inclusion in the classroom, as well as boost students’ critical thinking skills, teachers from all grades and subjects can turn to resources in TpT’s Teach for Justice collection. These are resources that can help any educator be a changemaker by supporting anti-racist and social justice teaching methods in their class. While the Teach for Justice collection includes age-appropriate resources across a range of grades and subjects, in this post, we’re highlighting resources for middle and high school, along with the amazing educators who created them.

Support inclusive learning with resources from these changemaking educators

These six teachers are among the 100 educators who were awarded grants through TpT’s $100k Teach for Justice grant program. Check out their resources for promoting justice, equity, and inclusion, and be sure to browse the full Teach for Justice collection to find more resources for you and your students.

Jasmine from CulturallyResponsiveTeachHER

My teaching style is rooted in anti-racism and psychologically-responsive, trauma-based learning. Therefore, creating materials that allow students to challenge norms and oppression inspired the resources that I have created. Also, allowing the adults that they engage with to challenge their own privileges was another motivator. I hope that these lessons help us all create a world that we can be proud of, in which everyone is equal but, more importantly, free! 

About Jasmine: Jasmine is a middle school ELA teacher whose praxis is rooted in trauma-informed teaching and anti-racism. Paying it forward to students who grew up in neighborhoods like the one she grew up in is what inspired her to become a teacher. She has been blessed for the last four years to teach at a school located in the exact neighborhood she was born and raised in. She is currently a doctoral student at National Louis University conducting research in the Community Psychology program. She imagines a world where Black children, regardless of their backgrounds, are able to achieve their dreams and goals, no matter how big.

Anti Racist Vocabulary Lesson

Grades: 6-8

Diana Crum

I recognize the enormous, untapped potential of the arts to provide anti-racist curricula. Students, by exploring their identities, learning histories, and seeing their peers’ cultures, learn an enormous amount in dance class. Providing content on Teachers Pay Teachers is one small step I can take in my ongoing advocacy for dance education and a decentering of White voices within the school system. [. . .] My Teach for Justice materials demonstrate a project-based approach to learning that decenters Whiteness and opens doors for students to cherish and develop their own voices.

About Diana: Diana has over ten years of working with young people from PreK to 12th grade in New York City schools. Her classes use movement and dance to inspire students’ social and emotional growth, curiosity about the world, and deep engagement. In addition, as Dance Makers in the Schools Program Director, she supports other teaching artists in lesson planning and implementation. She’s taught at colleges, universities and professional studios, and performed throughout the U.S., in Mexico, Germany, France, and Austria. She holds an M.F.A. from Hollins University and a B.A. from Columbia University.

Dancing Where We’re From: Complete Unit

Grades: 4-7

Jasmine from classroom de rollins

My students are what motivated me to create resources for the Teach for Justice Program. I value student voice, and my classroom is a space for students to be exactly who they are. It is a space where their voices are amplified. The resources I created for the program are an embodiment of what it means to teach for social transformation.

About Jasmine: Jasmine has been in the classroom for six years. She spent her first five years at a dual language immersion school, and she has experience teaching 6th-8th grade ELA, Spanish, social studies, and English as a second language. In both undergraduate and graduate school, she studied Spanish and linguistics. She’s certified to teach 4th-9th grade ELA, PreK-12 Spanish, and TESOL.

Social Transformation Unit | Teach for Justice

Grades: 7-10

Cait from Language Arts for Liberation

I have been invested in social justice work for about eight years, and I have learned so much from so many people, as well as through my own experiences and intersections. I want to help other teachers, especially those in positions of privilege, do the work of social justice and begin the practice of learning how to be better allies to marginalized people alongside their students. 

About Cait: Cait has been a teacher for four years. She is certified in ENL, and currently teaches 9th and 12th grade English. She’s from New York, where she resides in the Hudson Valley. She is interested in mental health advocacy and social justice as a practice for teaching as well as in life. She has written for Edutopia, Teach Better, and you can find her on Twitter at @JustTeachingELA. 

Representation Matters – A Teach for Justice Resource

Grades: 7-12

Silver from Classroom Clapback

From day one, I vowed to be a #TeacherforTrayvon. I told myself it wasn’t enough for me to just educate the next lawyer. I wanted to educate the lawyer who would repeal Stand Your Ground. I have committed myself to educate Black youth for the purposes of the liberation of Black people. This conviction has not just fueled me in being an educator, but a social justice educator. In the words of Tupac, “I’m not saying I’m gonna change the world, but I guarantee that I will spark the brain that will change the world.” Education is my activism. 

About Silver: Silver has supported culturally-relevant, social justice education in Detroit for eight years. She taught 5th-8th grade ELA for six years until she transitioned to become a humanities instructional coach for 9th-12th grade ELA and social studies. She began creating lessons on TpT to provide other teachers with resources she wishes she had in her first year of teaching — rigorous and relevant units that celebrate the identities of students of color that are often left out of daily lesson plans. 

Chop it Up: A Look at Food Justice Unit

Grades: 9-12

This is an Online Resource for Google Apps™

Devon from La Libre Language Learning

World language teachers are asking about how to have these conversations every day. [. . .] These teachers want to create empathic global citizens and lead these necessary conversations with their students. [. . .] Teaching social justice through the lens of another culture’s music helped to create a safe space in my class for conversations around race, human rights, and refugee rights. I believe for this exact reason that world language teachers are uniquely qualified to teach for social justice, since we teach lessons about local and global diversity every day. 

About Devon: Working with few resources while teaching high school French and Spanish inspired Devon’s love for curriculum creation. In her five years teaching, she’s seen the powerful shift that happens when students truly use language instead of learning about its features. She believes proficiency-based teaching using comprehensible input (CI) allows for the world language classroom to become a naturally communicative and community-centered environment. She has shared these benefits by creating curriculum for her district and working on the first statewide proficiency-centered curriculum, which focused on Francophone culture and social justice. She now uses that experience to share resources and professional development with teachers around the world. 

Social Justice French Black M Song | Distance Learning

Grades: 9-12

This is an Online Resource for Google Apps™

As you work to build anti-racism and social justice in your teaching practices, the resources in the Teach for Justice collection and the educators who created them are here to support and guide you. Their resources can help you be a changemaking educator who empowers students to build a more inclusive, equitable, and just future. These are only eight of the many resources in the collection, so be sure to browse full collection for more.