Diana Bautista, & Dr. Kendall McClellan
A collection of lesson plans based on 1800’s California for grades 7-12 in the History and English subjects for diversity awareness months and to center Indigenous, Californio, and immigrant experiences. Lesson plans follow California Common Core State Standards English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects (2013). The central motivation is using the culturally-responsive teaching approach to better connect with students and create classroom content to not only engage students but to empower them by valuing cultural knowledge. When considering student-centered teaching, California has a rich and dense history that allows for curriculum to be created that is culturally relevant to the individuals that are presently in classrooms. Teachers who focus on early California history or literature in public 7-12 classrooms can decenter colonial history as the ‘focal point’ and instead focus on what would be more impactful, relevant, and culturally responsive. Lesson plans contain sources from the 1800’s with a focus on exploring Californio perspectives found in surviving newspapers, journals, poems, narratives, and legal documents.