Take Action! Lesson Plans for a Multicultural Classroomis for all teachers striving to meet the needs of students in today's diverse K-12 classrooms. Take Action!offers 27 practical step-by-step multicultural lesson plans organized around seven microcultures: culture and identity, race and ethnicity, abilities and disabilities, religion, socioeconomics and class, language, and gender and sexuality. Each chapter includes three lesson plans at three different grade levels (elementary, middle, and secondary). Each lesson plan is presented with an accessible and predictable format, outlines the content areas addressed, provides a recipe-stype list of materials for all the activities in the lesson plan and action projects, and so much more. Connections to national professional standards and benchmarks for K-12 education as outlined by the Mid-continent Research for Education Learning are also included in every lesson plan. FEATURES Lesson Plan Video - theTake Action! DVD, located in the front of the book, provides readers with 9 video clips of Standards Matrix - A"Lesson Preparation for the Teacher"section provides activities every teacher should do prior to working on any of the lessons that follow. This section includes: One Teacherrs"s Reflection. These are stories written by teachers who reflect on specific incidents related to the chapter topic. These stories come from their own classroom and are meant to stimulate thinking about the connection between theory and practice. Teacher Action Project.These teacher action projects are meant to inspire deeper, more global connections between the teacher and the chapter topic. Teachers might be prompted to visit other classrooms, other schools, or other communities. The projects are meant to expose teachers to the chapter topics in a more visceral way than if the preparation had only been through reading. Suggested Readings and Resources. This section provides the teacher with further reading materials, websites and references extending the action projects by providing teachers with more tools for developing further lessons and projects for their own students. FULL LESSON PLANS Three complete lesson plans in each chapter provide novice and experienced teachers withstep-by-steplesson plans. Presenting a predictable and accessible format, each lesson plan includes the following information: Grade levels:Lessons are divided among three categories: Elementary (K-5), Middle School (6-8), and High School (9-12) lessons, with one example of each level provided for each topic/chapter. Though teachers should feel comfortable adapting the lessons to work in their own school context. Content areas addressed:A list of subject or content areas that are touched upon in the lesson and/or action project. Topic: A brief description of the main topic or topics to be addressed in the lesson. Rationale for Using This Lesson:This section seeks to answer the "why bother?" question when deciding what curriculum to include in oners"s class. It provides a sense of the importance of the topic of the lesson. Background Information:Provides the teacher, and the students, with some necessary information about the main topic(s) in the lesson. Goals/Aims:Gives the teacher a sens