For nearly 50 years, the National Council for the Social Studies has presented the Carter G. Woodson Book Award to texts that accurately and sensitively depict the experience of one or more historically marginalized racial/ethnic groups in the United States. The award originated in 1974, named to honor distinguished scholar Dr. Carter Godwin Woodson, the Harvard-trained historian whose scholarship and dedication to making Black History known and visible led to the eventual creation of Black History Month. Texts must be non-fiction, published and set in the United States, written for…

Children’s literature can play a powerful role in young children’s lives to learn, inspire and transform. The images and words convey a compelling story and message that has the potential to leave lasting impressions. In recent years, there’s been an explosion of children’s books that go beyond social and emotional learning. Books for young children about historical topics like enslavement, the Holocaust, Japanese-American internment, voting rights, segregation, and genocide are presenting them with both sensitivity and insight. When it comes to current event topics there are many excellent…

Brianne Pitts

Using Material Culture to Teach Inclusive U.S. History; Empower Students to be Keepers of their own History Through Artifacts “Archives are the factories and laboratories of the historian. . . they are the warehouses from which we acquire the materials to build the history we write.” But what of the histories not captured in traditional archives? Historian Tiya Miles calls this the “conundrum of the archives–the way that written records have favored those with the means to document their lives. Such archives have skewed toward power, meaning white and male, and have largely…