It seems each month is dedicated to a worthy cause such as breast cancer awareness and Black History. I believe it’s important to celebrate these causes, but how can we do this in school? One way is to celebrate all school year with interactive bulletin boards.
Women’s History: An Interactive Bulletin Board
March is a time when people celebrate women’s history. Even though I celebrate women’s history year-round, I always plan something special in March.
With Women’s History Month approaching, I’ve been thinking about innovative ways I can infuse women’s experiences into my curriculum above and beyond what I already do throughout the year. After all, exposure to women’s contributions to human history is vital to a young girl’s positive sense of self as well as her perspective on life’s options.
Myra Pollack Sadker hit the nail on the head when she said, “Each time a girl opens a book and reads a womanless history, she learns she is worth less.”
Experimenting with Student Knowledge
At the beginning of each school year, I conduct a little experiment in my history classes. I give my students two minutes to list as many historical figures as they can in the allotted time. I do the same for people of color and for women.
The Results
Every year the results are the same. Students can easily list dozens of white male historical figures–mostly presidents, founding fathers, inventors and the like. Most African American figures students recall are from the modern Civil Rights era. Native Americans included on student lists are almost always from the past. When I ask students to share their lists of women, the most common women listed are Betsy Ross, Pocahontas, Rosa Parks, and more recently, Hillary Clinton.
The Impact
This “experiment” is simple, yet powerful. My students remember it. Often, halfway through the year, my students ask me to conduct the experiment again. They feel confident they could do better and they want to show off their new-found knowledge! I often submit and we conduct our experiment again and true to student expectations, their lists grow in length–especially for marginalized groups.
I can’t take complete credit for my students’ progress. My commitment to infusing the stories of marginalized groups spans back to college when a professor introduced me to the works of Howard Zinn and James Loewen. Since then, I’ve been dedicated to the cause of including everyone’s story in the teaching and learning of history. The works of Zinn and Loewen influence my lessons all year long.
Why use interactive bulletin boards
In recent years I’ve been focusing on not only sharing women’s contributions via lecture and assigned readings but visually with posters and interactive bulletin board displays in and out of the classroom.
My motivation behind this is if young girls SEE women making a positive difference in the world AND hear about women making positive contributions, eventually it’s going to stick– women can and do make a difference in the world
How to make an interactive bulletin board
My favorite visual display centering on women’s history is an interactive bulletin board containing 30 QR quotes linking to bios of influential women in history.
I hang this bulletin board in a “high-traffic” area of our high school so it gets noticed. Last year I thought it would be fun to use the bulletin board as part of a school-wide contest and offer prizes to students who could correctly identify all thirty women included in the bulletin board. (Pictured here is Lexi who was the first student to correctly identify all 30 women! She won a gift card to our local bookstore!)
My most recent classroom visual display is a “Black Women’s History” poster display and stations activity. I decided to focus my energies on women of color because women of color are largely invisible in our history texts (with the exception of a few women such as Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks).
My goal this year is to learn more about the contributions of women of color in U.S. history. It is exciting for me as a teacher to share my knowledge with students. Even more exciting is when I can spark interest in my students to learn more about these women!
The story of Diane Nash is one such example. After sharing an excerpt from “Eyes on the Prize” and discussing Ms. Nash’s story in class, several students eagerly shared with me that they were doing some research outside of class. They wanted to learn more about Ms. Nash and her leadership in SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee)!
How to use interactive bulletin boards
I’ve created stations with activities to use with several of my other poster sets and interactive bulletin boards as well. My students LOVE stations as they offer opportunities to work with peers AND move around the classroom!
Other ways I incorporate my poster sets and interactive bulletin boards into my lessons include bell-ringers, exit tickets, and extra credit opportunities for my early-finishers!
Beyond March: Interactive Bulletin Boards Year Round!
There are several ways to use interactive bulletin boards in your classroom (or in the hallways). Using these bulletin boards helps your students understand more about the world around them, especially social issues.
If you’re looking for some ideas to make your first interactive bulletin board, look no further than my TpT store where you will find interative bulletin boards for:
- Black History Month
- LGBTQ Awareness
- Mental Health Awareness
- Why History Matters
I would love to hear how other educators infuse women’s stories into the curriculum? How do you incorporate women of color? Do you use interactive bulletin boards in your classroom?
About me:
Lea Hansen lives with her husband, two children, and dog in the gorgeous Driftless Region of Southwest Wisconsin. She has been happily teaching middle and high school social studies for 18 years. She is passionate about Social Studies and strongly committed to providing engaging, creative, and meaningful lessons to the students she serves.
Visit my blog Room 167 for more classroom ideas and resources.
Visit my TpT Store “Alt-Ed Toolbox” store to find more of my Women’s History resources and interactive bulletin boards.
Follow me on Pinterest for LOTS of teaching ideas and resources for all things Social Studies.
One Comment
I am LOVING this idea fro my 8th graders. I was wondering if you have a goto where you get all the QR codes set up or do you make them yourself?
If you make them all yourself, do you have a template to follow so I could make my own.
Absolutely LOVE this!!!