Honoring the American Woman

March Is Women's History Month!

from EducationWorld.com

The first International Women's Day was held on March 19, 1911. Organized by Klara Zetkin, a German socialist, the day featured strikes and marches in support of the rights of women workers worldwide. In the United States, International Women's Day continued to be celebrated annually throughout the 1910s and 1920s. Its popularity waned, however, over the next several decades, reviving only slightly with the rise of the women's movement during the 1960s.

During the 1970s, historians began to question why history books largely ignored women's contributions to society. In 1978, the Education Task Force of the Sonoma County (California) Commission on the Status of Women, recognizing that concern, persuaded a local school district to hold a Women's History Week to promote the teaching of women's history. The group scheduled the event for the week of March 8 in an effort to connect the week to International Women's Day. The week's activities were so popular that other schools soon began planning special Women's History Week programs as well. In 1981, responding to the growing popularity of the event, Congress passed a resolution making Women's History Week a national celebration. In 1987, Congress declared the entire month of March National Women's History Month.

The National Women's History Project has chosen Women Pioneering the Future as the theme for National Women's History Month 2003. That theme is intended to highlight the lives of American women and showcase their accomplishments. The lessons below will help you achieve that goal with your students.

Lesson Plans & Activity Ideas

1. They Also Serve
   Explore with students the roles women played during World War II; then students design a recruiting poster telling women of the ways in which they can serve their country today.
    
2. Who Did That?
   Not all remarkable women lived in the past. Can your students identify the accomplishments of today's remarkable women?
    
3. This Is My Life
   What will your students' lives be like in the future? Encourage them to create a time line of their lives that extends 50 years into the future.
    
4. Every Day of the Month
   Pose a question about women's history for each weekday of the month.
    
5. Women's Words of Wisdom
   Create a bulletin board of inspiring quotes by famous women.
    
6. Women of the Century WebQuest
   Grades 5-12 celebrate Women's History Month by using print and online resources to create an Encyclopedia of Notable Women.
    
7. Bring Women's History to Life in the Classroom!
   Educate and inspire tomorrow's men and women with activities relating to important women of the past and present!
    

More Resources

• Social Studies School Service Women's History Index
  Find books, essays, links, online activities, and other resources to use during Women's History Month.
• Women's History Hotlist
  The Franklin Institute Online provides this list of links to resources about women.
• American Women's History: A Research Guide
  This Middle Tennessee State University Library resource provides citations to print and Internet reference sources and primary source collections about women's history.
• Internet Women's History Sourcebook
  This section of the Internet History Sourcebook provides online documents about the history of women from human beginnings to the present.
• Women's History Month
  The History Channel offers profiles and biographies of famous women, as well as resources about women's suffrage.
• American Women's History
  This site offers links to women's resources by state and region.
• Women's History
  The Library of Congress provides this introduction to its collection of primary resources related to woman's history.

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