As we look ahead to the 2017–2018 school year, teachers across the U.S. should be preparing to answer questions about last weekend’s events in Charlottesville, VA, and to lead and moderate difficult conversations in the classroom about racism, systemic bias, and bigotry.

“With so many recent events of hatred and bigotry, it’s important for educators to say something and to acknowledge and to prepare themselves the best they can for students’ questions,” said Monita K. Bell, senior editor at Teaching Tolerance.

“Young people are not immune; they see it too. To go into class and not be prepared to have those discussions is a huge disservice to students,” she added.

A new Twitter hashtag, #CharlottesvilleCurriculum, is making those conversations much easier.

Started by Melinda D. Anderson, a contributing writer to The Atlantic, the hashtag seeks to “crowdsource resources that would help [educators] begin to explore the historical underpinnings of white supremacy and use the materials to help bring context and clarity to Saturday’s events in Virginia—so they could carry that back to their classrooms and schools.”

Since its inception yesterday, the hashtag has been buzzing with resources—including books, videos, webinars, articles, activities, historical documents, syllabi, and more—that are helping educators to teach the historical contexts and contemporary manifestations of social inequality, racial injustice, and discrimination.

As part of ILA’s efforts to help educators confront social issues in the classroom, we’ve compiled some of the most helpful resources that we’ve seen circulating on #CharlottesvilleCurriculum.

ILA’s picks

• The archived recording of ILA’s live social justice panel, Disrupting a Destructive Cycle: How Literacy Drives Social Change, moderated by Nikole Hannah-Jones, an investigative reporter covering racial injustice for The New York Times Magazine,   and the corresponding Education Talk Radio segment with Monita K. Bell, senior editor at Teaching Tolerance
• This article by The Washington Post, which collects and summarizes some of the best #CharlottesvilleCurriculum teaching materials spreading on Twitter
• Teaching Tolerance’s School Climate resources: Free tools, protocols, and practical advice for promoting a culture of tolerance
• Colorín Colorado's Creating a Welcoming Environment for ELLs and Immigrant Students: Strategies and Resources includes lesson plans on Charlottesville, race, civil rights, and immigration, as well as applicable booklists for children and teens.
• The Moment, a section on Teaching Tolerance’s homepage that is currently dedicated to helping educators “contextualize the event for students and to learn about the alt-right movement and white supremacy at large” through resources such as:
  • The Alt-Right on Campus: What Students Need to Know: The college student’s guide to preparing for the presence of alt-right groups on campus
  • Hate in the Hallways: How educators can understand and respond to hateful graffiti and other defamatory behavior
  • Let’s Talk!: A webinar on facilitating conversations about race, racism, and other difficult topics with students
• The Charlottesville Syllabus: A resource created by the Graduate Student Coalition for Liberation to help educate readers about the long history of white supremacy in Charlottesville
• Facing History and Ourselves: Evidence-based social studies curriculum that helps students examine historical incidents of racism, prejudice, and antisemitism
• The Critical Media Project: Shares media artifacts that explore the politics of identity
• The Equal Justice Initiative’s public education materials on the history of racial terror in the U.S.
• The Wabash Center’s blog series on teaching religion and politics in higher education classrooms

Alina O’Donnell is the editor of Literacy Daily.