Do you celebrate International Women’s Day? How about doing a Women’s History Month activity in March? Although both observances began in the U.S., it wasn’t until I went to China that I learned about the first one and then, many years later, about the other.
A few weeks after I arrived in Wuhan, China, to teach English at a university for a year, I and a few other foreign teachers were taken out to dinner. It seemed a little mysterious but I was still getting acclimated to living and working at the university so I thought perhaps I just hadn’t understood what was going on. But it seemed to be something special so I went with the flow.
We were driven in nice cars across the Yangtze River bridge to a hotel. The Foreign Affairs Office people – the Chinese in charge of the foreign teachers who looked after us – directed us to an elevator and we rode up several floors. There were no elevators on campus so this was special in and of itself.
The elevator opened to a large dining room, where we sat down to a delicious banquet. What was the occasion, I wondered?
The Chinese told us it was International Working Women’s Day.
Then I realized all the foreign teachers were women and none of the male teachers had been included. The Chinese explained the purpose was to celebrate and honor the accomplishments of women in the workforce. So they were treating us to a lovely meal.
That was the first time I ever heard of the holiday.
Since then, International Women’s Day, celebrated on March 8th every year, has become well-known in the U.S. It’s noted in schools during Women’s History Month, with many teachers implementing activities with their students that teach about women’s achievements.
Women’s History Month Activity for Middle School Students
To make an engaging and relevant Women’s History Month activity for students, I created a Women in America & Around the World: Biography Task Cards with Activities Bundle. It includes 2 resources designed specifically for middle school classrooms and works well with Multilingual Learners as well as native English-speaking students.
Students develop their writing skills by turning facts on the task cards into 1-paragraph biographies about 168 women born in the U.S. and around the world. Leveled model paragraph guide students in writing their biographies. This task gives student practice in writing complete sentences and using correct capitalization, punctuation, and grammar because the facts are listed only as bullet points.
One resource includes biographies about 100 women born in what it now the United States. African-American, Asian-American, Latina/Hispanic, Native American, White, and Lesbian/Bisexual women are profiled. The other resource includes biographies of 68 women born in African, Asia, Europe, and Australia are included.
The main Women’s History Month activity is a writing task but suggestions for more ways to use the task cards are also included. Simple instructions for doing the following types of activities are included:
* Writing various types of paragraphs
* Categorizing the task cards
* Giving presentations
* Creating posters
* Doing research
* Doing map and timeline activities
* Practicing note-taking
* Playing question-and-answer games
Since Women’s History Month lasts the entire month of March, the ideas in this bundle give you lots of activities to implement with your students. They’ll be inspired by these notable women, who lived from ancient times to the present day, and their accomplishments.
You can buy each resource separately but you save over 35% with this Women’s History Month activity bundle. When reviewing it, Allison said, “Huge time saver for Women’s History Month. Thank you!”
For more Women’s History Month activities, check out this blog post.
Happy Women’s History Month!
