History · Grade 9

Ethnic Studies SEL activities

18 ready to use activities that teach Ethnic Studies content and build one Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) skill, about 20 minutes each.

Identity and Belonging

• The Stories I Carry Self-awareness · Week 1Students create an identity map of the names, languages, places, and traditions they choose to share and name the historian identity they bring to the course.
• The Meaning of a Name Social awareness · Week 2Exploring how names carry family history and culture and practicing pronouncing and honoring classmates' names with care.
• Many Ways to Belong Self-management · Week 3Examining how people hold several identities at once and practicing calm responses when someone makes an assumption about who you are.
• First Peoples of the Desert Social awareness · Week 4Learning Cahuilla history and present day tribal sovereignty through sources created by Cahuilla people, and practicing listening to a community describe itself in its own words.
• Stereotypes and the Single Story Self-awareness · Week 5Analyzing how stereotypes form in media and older textbooks and noticing the quick judgments our own minds make about people we do not know.
• Bridges Across Difference Relationship skills · Week 6Using a structured listening protocol to discuss W. E. B. Du Bois's idea of double consciousness and differing views on identity and practicing curiosity rather than trying to win.

Histories and Movements in California

• Chinese Workers and Exclusion Social awareness · Week 7Studying Chinese workers who built the transcontinental railroad and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 through primary sources, and honoring the persistence of communities who challenged exclusion in court.
• Japanese American Incarceration Self-management · Week 8Examining Executive Order 9066, the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, and the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, and reflecting on how people endured injustice and how a nation later apologized.
• Mendez Before Brown Responsible decision-making · Week 9Studying how Mexican American families in Mendez v. Westminster used the courts in 1946 and 1947 to challenge school segregation in California, and identifying lawful, principled ways to address unfairness.
• Voices of the Bracero Program Social awareness · Week 10Comparing government records with bracero oral histories from 1942 to 1964 and listening for experiences that official documents leave out.
• Farmworkers Stronger Together Relationship skills · Week 11Studying how Larry Itliong, Dolores Huerta, and their fellow organizers brought Filipino and Mexican American farmworkers together in the 1965 Delano grape strike, reading growers' perspectives as well, and practicing collaboration across differences.
• Black Californians Building Community Self-awareness · Week 12Exploring the life of Biddy Mason, who won her freedom in a Los Angeles court in 1856 and became a landowner and philanthropist, and naming the goals that motivate students.

Power, Equity, and Community Action

• Laws That Shaped Neighborhoods Responsible decision-making · Week 13Examining how practices like redlining and California's alien land laws shaped where families could live and own land, while comparing historians' interpretations of their lasting effects.
• Many Views on Fairness Responsible decision-making · Week 14Reading thoughtful writers who disagree about how best to achieve fairness in schools and communities, and practicing summarizing each view so well that its holders would agree.
• Repairing Harm Relationship skills · Week 15Examining how governments and communities have tried to repair past harms, such as the redress payments of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, and practicing the steps of a sincere apology.
• Students Who Changed What Colleges Teach Self-management · Week 16Tracing how student activists at San Francisco State in 1968 and 1969 pushed for the first College of Ethnic Studies and how its supporters and critics debated it.
• Taking Action in Our Community Responsible decision-making · Week 17Researching a local issue from several community perspectives and planning a respectful, lawful action that invites people with different views to the table.
• Gratitude for Those Who Came Before Relationship skills · Week 18Students write thank you notes to an ancestor, elder, or mentor and to a classmate whose story widened their understanding.

RoseThread Connect activities are drafted with the help of AI and shaped by educators. Students never have to share anything personal. Our five SEL skills are informed by CASEL's SEL Framework; RoseThread Learning is not affiliated with or endorsed by CASEL.