The Yiddish Book Center’s Great Jewish Books Teacher Resources
March 10th, 2016
A new resource from the Yiddish Book Center helps teachers make Jewish literature and culture more accessible for students of nearly all ages. Developed after the Center’s Great Jewish Books Teacher Workshop in 2015, the website www.teachgreatjewishbooks.org is an ever-growing collection of textual, audio, and visual materials designed to support those who teach modern Jewish literature and culture.
The resource kits were created by elementary, middle, and high school teachers, and by college professors, from across the U.S. and Canada. Each kit explores a thought-provoking text or theme and includes primary and secondary sources—poems, photographs, audio recordings, film excerpts, and songs—as well as a guide to using them in the classroom, making it easy for teachers to enrich and expand their curricula.
Visit the Website
The Yiddish Book Center also is accepting applications now through April 15, 2016 for its summer workshop, taking place July 17-22, 2016 in Amherst, Massachusetts. Join other teachers of Jewish secondary and supplementary schools interested in enriching their curricula with materials that reflect the variety and depth of modern Jewish literature and culture. Participants come from a wide range of schools and educational programs around the country and teach literature, history, Jewish studies, theater, film, and other subjects. The Workshop is fully subsidized for participants.
Before this program, I was feeling uninspired and not at all excited about teaching American Literature this coming year. I came away with a million new ideas and ways to present them! I will plan a short story unit, a poetry unit, and a research unit based on what I covered at this program. I will incorporate important Jewish literature into my curricula at every level and I also learned new ways to present multimedia and guide my students to present in a variety of formats.
– Educator after the 2015 Workshop
The Jim Joseph Foundation grant to the Great Jewish Books Teacher Workshop was awarded in 2014 to support workshops in 2015 and 2016, along with follow-up programs.