Cultural Products as Historical Narrative is the second of three sessions in the Stories That Connect: Using Film and Primary Sources to Build Belonging professional development webinar series. View all sessions.
This webinar includes a live musical performance!
Date: September 22, 2026 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time/7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time
Location: Online (Zoom link will be sent to participants once they register)
Subjects: Art, Art History, English Language Arts, History, Music, Social Studies
Great For: Professional Learning, Teaching with Primary Sources, Oral History
Themes/Focus Areas: Active Listening Handouts, Civil Rights, Fashion as History, Music as History, Protest Art and Songs, Transcontinental Railroad, U.S. History, World War II
Grade Level: Grades 4-12, Professional Development
REGISTER HERE!
This webinar series is funded by a grant from the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources program. Content created and featured in partnership with the TPS program does not indicate an endorsement by the Library of Congress.
About This Webinar
This webinar will focus on the power and importance of Cultural Products and what they offer to compliment historical narratives and primary source learning with emphasis on:
- My Music with Rhiannon Giddens, which brings US history alive to explore the development of the Transcontinental Railroad during western expansion in the United States.
- The Bomber Boys: Flight Jacket Art, forthcoming materials that use this beautiful photographic history book highlighting various individuals served in World War II. This resource brings to life bomber jackets, oral history, and letters as important cultural products for historical learning.
- Rebel Hearts, which brings to life the power of art as a form of political protest and engagement
- Summer of Soul, highlighting the Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969 with opportunities for education regarding the civil rights movement, Black History, and more.
Mazz Swift and the Silkroad Project
We are pleased to announce that violinist Mazz Swift will be joining this free teacher webinar. During the webinar, Swift will be performing LIVE! She will also discuss her work as a creative artist engaging with historical songs.
Mazz Swift was featured in Episode Three of My Music with Rhiannon Giddens Season Two. Our learning materials for this episode focus on:
- Neurodiversity and Learning Styles
- Creative and Artistic Community
- Creative and Artistic Growth
- Improvisation in Music
- History of the American Transcontinental Railroad and Black Americans
- History through Music
- Music Lessons
Learn more about Mazz Swift in this Silkroad Ensemble artist profile: Spotlight: Mazz Swift.
This learning guide contains background context about the Transcontinental Railroad, a Pre-viewing Activity, and Active Viewing Recommendations.
Additionally, it also includes glossaries / lists of useful terms, discussion questions, related resources, and extended learning activates. The extended learning activities can include our supplementary Music Listening Handout and Song Analysis Handout.
Episode running time: 25 minutes
Subjects: History, Music, Music History, Social Studies, U.S. History
Lesson Grades: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
We hope you’ll join us at this upcoming free teacher webinar!
REGISTER HERE!
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The American Railroad Instructional Guide brings accurate historical information regarding the development of the Transcontinental Railroad. The guide address the impact of the railroad’s progress on individuals and groups vital to the success of this national endeavor. The lessons also present realistic experiences, many of which have been overlooked and misrepresented.
The American Railroad Unit is standard-based, with an emphasis on ELA and Social Science for middle school students. The Enduring Understanding – Students understand that progress has varying impacts on the people and cultures it touches – is the foundation that unifies each lesson. Each lesson, then, is designed to be integral to the unit outcome and relies upon the previous lesson(s), ensuring clarity of the day’s learning and the instructional journey.
Each lesson relies on key reading, critical thinking, processing, collaboration, communication, creativity, and reflection. Every lesson contains a student handout and a teacher key.
The American Railroad Student Guide features printable student handouts for all 11 lessons. Each lesson includes a Share Out, a Daily Learning Target, a detailed Reading Process, and Discussion Questions. They also include related primary sources, terms to know, worksheets and activities.
About The Bomber Boys: Flight Jacket Art
Our forthcoming teaching materials for this beautiful book offer a new way to engage students as they learn about World War II. Materials emphasize the A-2 Jacket as a Historical Document, handouts regarding material culture, object analysis as well as learning materials regarding folk art, symbology, oral history and more.
We will preview these materials in the webinar. Don’t miss out when they become available. Sign up for our newsletter!
About Rebel Hearts
Rebel Hearts tells the remarkable story of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. In 1960s Los Angeles, they bravely stood up to the patriarchy of the Catholic Church, fighting for equality, their livelihoods, and their own freedom against an all-powerful Cardinal who sought to keep them in their place.
Our Curriculum Guide for this film features three lesson plans:
- Lesson One: The Context of Change
- Lesson Two: Change Comes to the Immaculate Heart of Mary Sisters
- Lesson Three: The Power of Corita Kent’s (Sister Mary Corita’s) Calligraphic Art
In the webinar, we will focus on Corita Kent’s art to inspire learners.
About Summer of Soul
In Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson presents a powerful and transporting documentary — part music film, part historical record created around an epic event that celebrated Black history, culture and fashion. Over the course of 6 weeks in the summer of 1969, just 100 miles south of Woodstock, The Harlem Cultural Festival was filmed in Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park). The footage was largely forgotten–until now. Summer of Soul shines a light on the importance of history to our spiritual well-being.
Our Curriculum Guide for this film features six lessons, including our very popular lesson that allows students to create their own music festival!
This film is a strong example of music as a powerful primary source.
If you haven’t registered for this free teaching webinar, you can do so now! REGISTER HERE!
As educators and communities seek to highlight Black history during the month of February, we want to highlight our free curriculum guides and discussion guides for powerful films for your classroom. These films tell important stories of Black joy, Black history, Black resilience, Black achievement and much more. Teaching with film for Black History Month, or at any time of the year, engages students and brings important stories that shape our world to light.
Among our most popular resources are our curriculum guides for Hidden Figures, Just Mercy, and Summer of Soul. All three of these films, and the free core-based lesson plans we’ve created to accompany them, are award-winning films that tell important true stories of Black History in the U.S. Our Hidden Figures curriculum guide features 8 lesson plans with lessons about U.S. History and Civil Rights as well as STEM lessons to engage students with math and science learning.
Further, for Just Mercy, in addition to four lessons, which highlight U.S. History, Civil Rights, U.S. Government and Civics, we offer an independent student learning packet that can be used in hybrid learning settings. Additionally, many educators pair this film and our resources with their teaching of To Kill A Mockingbird.
Finally, for Summer of Soul, which tells the powerful story of the Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969, we created a six lesson core-based curriculum guide. Lesson 3 in that guide, entitled 1969: A Unique Year was named Share My Lesson’s #1 partner resource of 2022.
All of these resources are completely free to download. Simply visit our library, click on the film and follow instructions to add these free resources to your cart. You click here to browse our library of free resources: https://journeysinfilm.org/library/.
Black History Lessons
Update June 2026! Tough Old Broads follows three trailblazing women broke barriers in their time and continue to pursue their passions to this day, including Sharon Farmer, the first woman to serve as Chief White House Photographer.
Sharon Farmer started taking photos in the early 70s during the campus riots and civil rights protests at Ohio State University. She ended up as the first woman and first person of color to serve as the Chief Official White House Photographer for Bill Clinton. Sharon continues to fight for social justice — photographing the realities she encounters as a Black woman in America.
In addition to introducing viewers to Sharon Farmer and other inspirational Tough Old Broad role models, the film presents a great springboard for conversations about reducing inequalities, Black History, and social-emotional learning (SEL) about following your dreams.
Learn more about teaching Black Histroy with Tough Old Broads and get this Discussion Guide.
Expanding the Canon with Film for Black History Month
Looking for individual lessons for teaching Black history? Check out our brand new Black History Lessons collection, with classroom-ready individual lessons for teaching US Black History and Global Black History. This collects all of our Black History teaching resources in one convenient place. Check it out to stay up to date with our newest releases for teaching Black History across the curriculum.
We’ve added a new Disney feature film to our Black History collection: Chevalier, based on the true life story of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, a renowned fencer, violinist, and the first Black classical music composer in France who took the court of Marie Anoinette by storm. Our Chevalier Discussion Guide provides a springboard for engaging discussions about Race and Identity, Women and Patriarchy, and also Bologne’s legacy and the French Revolution. You can also check out this blog post on Share My Lesson, Teaching about Joseph Bologne and Amplifying Hidden Histories.
We also encourage you to explore the discussion guides we created for LA92 and American Inside Out with Katie Couric. LA92 is a National Geographic documentary about the uprising that took place in Los Angeles in 1992 after footage of police brutality against Rodney King rocked the nation. American Inside Out with Katie Couric is National Geographic’s documentary companion piece to their magazine’s race issue.
Furthermore, we encourage educators to include resources and stories during Black History Month that highlight Black experiences from around the world. Thus, in our library, we have a free curriculum guide for Beat the Drum. This narrative film (appropriate for high school students) is about a young South African boy who is orphaned because of AIDS. He journeys from his rural village to the city to find his uncle. It becomes a journey of self-discovery. Our curriculum guide for this film features important lessons about South African, Epidemics/Pandemics and more.
Additionally, Disney’s narrative film Queen of Katwe, featuring Lupito Nyong’o, tells the true life story of Phiona Mutesi, a 9 year-old chess prodigy from Kampala, Nigeria. Our discussion guide for this film helps students dive into Phiona’s story and connect with her inspiring life journey.
Finally, another of our most popular educational resources is our free curriculum guide for The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. This is a powerful narrative film that tells the true life story of William Kamkwambe. William saw a need in his village in Malawi and used education and innovation to meet that need. Our rich six lesson curriculum guide for this film features powerful STEM lessons with hands-on activities, Environmental Science lessons, ELA lessons, World History and much more.
Thus, no matter what subject area you teach, our library has something for you and all of our resources are free!
Free Webinars for Teaching with Film for Black History Month
Through Share My Lesson, you can watch, on demand, our webinars for many of the curriculum guides we’ve featured in this blog. Here is a list, with links to all of the relevant free webinars available through Share My Lesson.
Written by Jennifer Fischer
Updates by SJ Evans
As a new year begins, we’re excited to share our newest film guides with you!
Our Latest Teaching Resources for Acclaimed Contemporary Films
To start a new year, we’re recapping our ten newest film guides. These acclaimed documentaries and hit feature films shed new light on history, current events, and the important figures and issues of our time. Our free teaching resources can help you put the rapidly-shifting news landscape into context for your students and lead productive discussions on sensitive and sometimes difficult topics.
Chevalier (For Grades 11-12)
Inspired by the incredible true story of France’s first Black classical composer Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges. Our Chevalier Discussion Guide sheds new light on the realities of 18th century France and can ignite student interest and engagement in learning more about the French Revolution.
Crip Camp (For High School)
Crip Camp shares with insight, humor, and joy the experiences of a group of disabled teenagers and their journey to adulthood and activism. Our Crip Camp Curriculum Guide and Discussion Guide delve into this rich and powerful story of disability activism, culture, and history.
Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down (For Grades 8-12)
This compelling documentary tells the extraordinary story of former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords: her relentless fight to recover following an assassination attempt in 2011. We’ve created a “Gabby Giffords Discussion Guide and a Learning Guide.” También están disponibles en español.
Navalny (For High School)
Navalny unfolds with the pace of a political thriller. This Oscar-winning documentary follows Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in his quest to identify the men who poisoned him in a failed assassination attempt. We offer a Discussion Guide and a flexible Learning Guide that features six key learning sections which cover 9 subjects across the curriculum.
Rebel Hearts (For High School)
This heart-grabbing documentary chronicles the bold acts of faith, defiance and activism of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart that turned the Church upside-down. From marching in Selma in 1965 to the Women’s March in 2018, they challenged the notion of what a nun and a woman were supposed to be. Our Rebel Hearts Curriculum Guide includes a hands-on arts lesson based on the pop art of Sister Mary Corita.
Schindler’s List Special 30th Anniversary Guide (For High School)
In 2023, we launched a new improved Schindler’s List Curriculum Guide with a brand new antisemitism lesson to teach with this powerful & inspiring Academy Award-winner.
Summer of Soul (For Grades 7-12)
Summer of Soul is a powerful and transporting documentary—part music film, part historical record—about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, an epic event that celebrated Black history, culture and fashion. Our Summer of Soul Curriculum Guide provides an engaging introduction to major events in Black history—with an award-winning soundtrack.
Unzipped: An Autopsy of American Inequality (For High School)
This intimate documentary explores the frontline of America’s heated battles over gentrification, lack of affordable housing, and homelessness. UNZIPPED explodes stereotypes and humanizes the lived experiences of people caught in the cross-fire of America’s growing housing divide. Our Unzipped Learning Guide also explores actionable solutions.
Youth v Gov (For Grades 7-12)
This compelling climate court case documentary follows 21 courageous youth activists who file a ground-breaking lawsuit against the U.S. government for their right to a safe climate. Our Youth v Gov Curriculum Guide and Discussion Guide provide context to discuss breaking climate litigation news. Redirect your students’ climate anxiety into action-oriented optimism with these powerful teaching tools.
