Sarah Cooper

Welcome!

Thanks for visiting! This is a place to find my writing, both education pieces and personal essays. I teach history and do academic administration at an independent school just north of Los Angeles. I’ve also written two books about history teaching, Creating Citizens (Routledge, 2018) and Making History Mine (Stenhouse, 2009), and write regularly for MiddleWeb’s Future of History blog. In my free time, I like to run, cook, play piano, listen to Broadway musicals, search for good bakeries and spend time with my husband and two sons. I’ve also taught English and love young adult fiction. @sarahjcooper01

“Time to Plant Tears,” Well-Schooled

June 8, 2021June 17, 2021 Sarah Cooper

Lately, the world has been opening up here in our corner of Los Angeles, and I’ve been crying, a lot. Tears have arrived at strange times, in public and private, and more than they did for the entire pandemic year before that. It has taken me a while to figure out why…. Continue reading

“Weekly Newspaper Articles as Primary Sources,” Education Week

March 14, 2021June 17, 2021 Sarah Cooper

With judicious use of fascinating primary sources, history for middle schoolers can burst off the page.

We as teachers can synthesize or “layer” primary sources to to make the sum richer than its part, remember how hard it can be for students to grapple with unfamiliar documents… Continue reading

“Seeking Sprawl,” Well-Schooled

February 16, 2021February 17, 2021 Sarah Cooper

Lately I’ve come back to the same image when I fantasize about having every student back in the classroom, particularly the 8^th graders I love so much. They are maskless. They need no sanitation. And, most of all, they sprawl. These middle schoolers lean shoulder to shoulder… Continue reading

“Rocking the Constitution in Grade 8 History Class,” MiddleWeb

January 7, 2021 Sarah Cooper

In a school year when the Constitution has exploded into the news more than ever, my eighth graders and I have carefully discussed political articles as they’ve appeared. Yet I’ve also wanted to infuse life into this founding document beyond current events. Last year I spiced up… Continue reading

“Post-Election Teaching Strategies: Inform Rather than Persuade,” Education Week

November 19, 2020December 21, 2020 Sarah Cooper

In the days following the election, though, “harder” won for me, and I nearly gave up talking about it. Sure, we had a great couple of classes in that liminal, fizzy, who-knows period before the election was called… Continue reading

‘The Selected Works of Audre Lorde,’ Bookclique

November 18, 2020December 21, 2020 Sarah Cooper

The obvious yet startling element of Audre Lorde’s prose, poems and cancer journals is that her words inspire still-needed revolution even now. In “The Uses of Anger” (1981), for instance, Lorde argued that we were “working in a context of opposition and threat”… Continue reading

“The Optimism of ‘Annie’ as an Antidote to the Disillusionment of the 1970s,” Journal of Popular Culture

November 8, 2020June 17, 2021 Sarah Cooper

To watch a video of the cast of Annie singing at the 1977 Tony Awards is to be caught up in the simplicity and buoyancy of a smash hit from four decades ago. The performance begins with the orphans singing… Continue reading

“The Day After: How Do We Teach Now?” MiddleWeb

November 4, 2020December 21, 2020 Sarah Cooper

When looking back at the MiddleWeb article I wrote the day after the election in 2016, I’m struck by how shocked my students and I were. In 2020, I’m feeling not so much shock as the need to shore up my teaching and once again dig into difficult topics… Continue reading