Power of the People FAQ
We can’t believe it, but the curriculum we’ve been working on for the past year is out in the world today! We’ve been reading your comments and watching the orders come in all day and truly, I could cry with the pure joy of having something that we’ve worked so hard on being received so enthusiastically. Thank you, thank you, from the bottoms of our hearts.
We wanted to share some of the frequently asked questions here, in case it helps you decide whether this curriculum will work for you. We’ll add to this post as questions come in, but for now, here are the answers to some of the most-asked questions!
Is this curriculum really for all ages?
Yes! We have taught virtual history classes to a mixed-age community for the past three years, and the students have ranged in age from 4 years old to 70-year-old grandmas who tune in each week to learn the history they weren't taught in school. Many parents have reached out to tell us that they sit with their kids during these classes and have loved learning along with them. While most of the creative activities in this curriculum will be accessible to young learners, you can always simply offer them the Spotlight coloring pages that are included in each lesson to work on while you read the chapter out loud. Students who are ready for a bit more rigor can supplement the creative activities with the Comprehension and Critical Thinking worksheets. Even the youngest kids have impressed and inspired us with their ability to communicate their thoughts about the discussion topics, and they benefit from hearing older students' insights as well. There are some moments in the chapters, videos, and podcasts we recommend that might not be suitable to all learners. We recommend scanning the chapter before the read aloud and skipping sections that you feel will be too much for your learner(s) at this time.
Why is it only 26 weeks?
A standard school year is 36 weeks long, and this curriculum is 26 weeks long. For people on the less-structured end of the schooling spectrum, this might feel just right. For people who need or want the full 36 weeks, this 26-week curriculum allows you to incorporate seasonally-appropriate breaks for other topics. This is what we do in our virtual classroom. For example, we always have special themed classes around holidays like Indigenous Peoples' Day, Thanksgiving, and MLK Day, and we also take breaks to talk about big notable current events, like the war in Ukraine and the ousting of Justin Jones and Justin J. Pearson in Tennessee. Here are links to lessons you can check out to round out your curriculum for the year:
My learner doesn’t enjoy art projects, will they like this curriculum?
We made a 30 minute walkthrough showing the first 13 lessons in detail so you can check out the variety of activities available and determine for yourself if this curriculum will work for your learner(s).
My learner has never taken an American history course. Is this a good introduction, or should we start with a traditional chronological history curriculum first and try Power of the People in a future year?
We think our Power of the People curriculum would be a wonderful way to introduce your learner to American history. It can feel like a slog to move incrementally through a historical timeline, just hitting the high points. Our textbook, rad American History A-Z actually does hit a lot of those same high points (the Indigenous foundations of democracy in ‘G is for Great Law of Peace,’ women’s suffrage with ‘D is for Declaration of Sentiments,’ the Civil War with ‘C is for Combahee River Raid’ etc) but it does so by telling *really* interesting stories that are often left out of mainstream curriculum. Furthermore, our activities were designed to help kids develop the critical thinking skills that are foundational to good and interesting historical study. One of our guiding principles is the three questions: Who writes the stories? Who benefits from the stories? Who is missing from the stories? We want to introduce students to the history that is typically whitewashed or omitted from standard history curriculums. And we want to help students practice their critical thinking skills so that they’ll be able to ask these three questions in their future history studies.
If your first leap into American history is done in a way that introduces you to the perspectives and stories of Indigenous- Black- Mexican- Japanese- Filipino- Afro-Puerto Rican- LGBTQ- immigrant- disabled-Americans, you will go into future curriculums with their voices in your head. You will be able to think about about whether their stories have been included in all your future history studies, and if not, why not?
Is this only for homeschoolers?
No! We intentionally made this curriculum easy to use for someone who has never homeschooled before. With school districts and state legislatures across the country limiting the stories that kids are taught in history class, we are hopeful that there will be a growing movement of public school families who supplement their kids’ history classes with stories of resilience and collective action. We are hopeful that some public school teachers will be able to use these lessons too.
Should I print this thing? How do I do that?
This curriculum is 252 pages long. We recommend not printing the whole thing all in one go and instead just printing the activity pages, worksheets, and coloring pages you’ll need, one week at a time. You will want to keep the PDF version handy for the easy clickable links to the videos and other resources embedded in each lesson. But if you would prefer to have all this stuff in a binder, ready to go, that will work too! When you purchase this curriculum, you will download a zip file with a couple printing options. We recommend using the Student and Teacher Page documents for your binders (they have been formatted to print double-sided), which will each fit nicely into their own 1-inch binder. You can print and assemble the binders yourself or outsource this with a company like HardCopyHQ: https://hardcopyhq.com/product/custom-binder
While we’re talking about binders, Kayla P., one of our wonderful community members, designed and shared a binder spine insert that matches the PotP cover image. The PDF is here if you’d like to add spine inserts to your own binders- they’re available in 1”, 2”, and 3” widths.
Can I have the A-Z cover pages for the individual lessons?
If you bought the full Power of the People curriculum and you’d like to have the full-color version of the cover pages that were created to go with the individual A-Z lessons that make up this set, you can download that 26 page PDF for free here.
How should I use these materials?
Over the past three years, we have settled into a routine that works well for us. We'll share it below, but this is just one way, not the only way. You should use these materials in the way that makes the most sense for you and your learner(s). You can also check out Helen’s YouTube video about our recommended teaching method.
Welcome and feelings check-in (5 min)
Quick introduction of the topic we'll be learning about (reading aloud the headnotes below the title of each lesson plan would work) (1 min)
Introduction of the creative activity/activities for this chapter (read the activity section aloud, or read the instructions at the top of each activity page). When there are multiple activities for a chapter, we give learners the option of selecting the one they're most interested in- if they have time, they can move on to the other activities. (5 min)
Read the chapter out loud while learners work on their creative activity. Some of the chapters in this book contain sections, paragraphs, or lines that we deemed too intense or too adult for our mixed-age crowd (for example, "T is for Triangle Shirtwaist Factory" has some grizzly descriptions of panicked workers jumping from the burning building and "O is for Our Bodies, Our Selves" has a sex-ed paragraph that covered topics we thought would be better introduced by our learners' parents/guardians). We highly recommend reading through the chapters ahead of time (they're all short) and making notes about sections to skip if need be. (20 min)
When the chapter is over, watch a short supplementary video. We have found it helps discussions to show learners footage of the event or story we've learned about, especially for our visual learners. (5 min)
Ask learners if they have any questions or thoughts, discuss them if so, and then introduce the discussion prompt and ask learners to share their thoughts (10-20 min)
Ask learners to share the art or activities they've been working on during class, ask questions about and compliment specific details of their work. (5-20 min, depending on class size)
As you can see, following these steps takes about 1-1.5 hours, depending on class size. For some, this will be enough for their history allotment for the week. If you want or need to extend the learning throughout the week, we have included easy ways for you to do that, with our Comprehension and Critical Thinking handouts, Spotlights, and Ideas for Further Research for each chapter.
That’s all for now, but as I said, we’ll add to this post as questions come in. For now, thank you for being here! We are so grateful to be in community with you.
