Feminist Curricula

Women and Social Movements Lesson Plans
By Women and Social Movements
A large collection of comprehensive lesson plans and document-based question (DBQ) units, mostly focused on early feminism. Subjects include birth control, suffrage and labor rights. This site is well-reviewed by Arnold Pulda in The College Board’s AP Central, Carole Srole in Exchanges: The On-Line Journal of Teaching and Learning in the CSU, and Allison L. Sneider in the Journal of American History.

The Life and Times of Emma Goldman: A Curriculum for Middle and High School Students
By New Directions Curriculum Developers
Based on the primary documents of early feminist Emma Goldman. Topics include immigration, freedom of expression, women’s rights, anti-militarism, and the art and literature of social change.

A Survey of the Women’s Liberation Movement, 1968-1982
by Adam Cooper
A lesson plan exploring the women’s liberation movement through three songs of the era that captured the personal, cultural, and political transformations of women.

Martha Ballard’s Diary
By DoHistory
A lesson plan that combines primary documents (the diary of a midwife kept from 1785-1812), with modern interpretations through the book and film “The Midwife’s Tale.” The website suggests many activities and themes to explore such as diaries as history, domestic life, finance and commerce, geography and surveying, home textile production, law and justice, Maine history, midwifery and birth, midwifery and medicine, religion, and the political and cultural response to rape.

Women’s Rights/History Lesson Plans
By EDSITEment
A large collection of lesson plans on women’s history. Lesson plans directly related to feminism include:

Early feminists overcoming the “domestic ideology” of the times in “Charlotte Perkins Gilman's “The Yellow Wall-paper”—The “New Woman” and “Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-paper”—Writing Women”
-Women’s suffrage in “Cultural Change” “Voting Rights for Women: Pro- and Anti-Suffrage“ and “Women’s Suffrage: Why the West First?“
-Early feminists in “Who Were the Foremothers of Women’s Equality?“
-Early attitudes about feminism “Women’s Equality: Changing Attitudes and Beliefs“

PBS Womens Studies Lesson Plans
By PBS
For grades 6-8 click here
For grades 9-12 click here
A great resource for modern feminist lesson plans and related activities such as analyzing stereotypes of Muslim women and the wearing of headscarves, current women worker’s rights movements, the wage gap, and representations of women in the media.

Ms. in the Classroom
By Ms. Magazine
Offered both online ($15) and in print ($25), students and teachers gain access to recent issues of Ms. Magazine and teachers can implement coordinating lesson plans with the instructor’s guide.

Sweatshop Fashion Show
By Maquila Solidarity Network
An interactive lesson plan that explores the abusive practices of sweatshop labor in clothing production. Students throw a mock fashion show with “announcers and models [who] subvert the familiar sales pitch and brand images with humour and facts to expose the stories of the women who make our clothes and sports shoes.”
View one teacher’s account of using this activity here