Curricula
The Sophia Foundation plans to create curriculum material to support the classroom use of these biographies. We do not, however, want to overload the books with so much ancillary material that the focus of the program is lost. Each book will be able to stand alone, should a teacher choose to assign it as a single reading. However, the series will be most valuable if teachers assign several of the biographies or offer students a group of biographies to form a curriculum unit.
The curriculum package for Women Who Lead will offer teaching materials in a variety of formats, so that teachers can choose the one that is most convenient for them.
1. Website materials: The full curriculum package will appear on the Women Who Lead website, from which teachers can download all the basic components, whether for a single lesson or a month-long unit. These elements will include unit objectives, lesson objectives, suggestions for activities, background information for teachers, and tie-ins to other areas of the curriculum. Teachers can also download and reprint worksheets such as guided reading and writing exercises, role-playing guidelines, additional primary sources, and maps. Because many of these worksheets will result in students' written or oral presentations, they can also be used for evaluation, if the teacher wishes.
2. Teachers who prefer to use pre-printed materials will have the option of ordering curriculum support materials as soft-bound books including the same materials as are found on the website. These orders will be made by email from a catalogue on the website or on an order form that accompanies the books.
3. At a later stage, we hope to develop a CD-ROM that would include the curriculum package as well as additional multi-media materials such as music and visual arts from the various historical periods, guided links to useful websites, and film clips from dramatizations about the various women leaders.
Through the website, we will offer an opportunity for both teachers and students to communicate about these women leaders, women's roles in history, and their own thoughts about leadership in a new century. We expect that the teaching suggestions we can offer will expand rapidly, as teachers communicate with us and with one another about strategies that they have found practical, helpful, and exciting in their classrooms.
