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

“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 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

“The Ups and Downs of Zoom Breakout Rooms,” MiddleWeb

September 17, 2020October 3, 2020 Sarah Cooper

Sending my students into Zoom breakout rooms last spring to work on projects or discuss their opinions seemed easy – an extension of sitting in class and talking in pairs or small groups. After two weeks of online teaching with new students this fall, though, I’m rethinking how I use this appealing online tool… Continue reading

“Afterlife” by Julia Alvarez, Bookclique

August 21, 2020October 3, 2020 Sarah Cooper

Afterlife crept up on me. It’s brief, small to hold, a quick 256 pages. While reading it, I thought it was about one woman’s loss of her husband. Only afterward did I realize that this novel also explores the daily losses we feel when we strive to live up to our ideals for ourselves and those we love… Continue reading

“The Roles of Memorization in Teaching and Learning,” Education Week Teacher

July 29, 2020August 8, 2020 Sarah Cooper

As a social studies teacher, I am forever tormented by this question. If we spend a day unpacking the Emancipation Proclamation—worthwhile in so many ways, not least to appreciate Abraham Lincoln’s legal and linguistic brilliance—how many details of the Battle of Antietam, of Gettysburg, of the New York City draft riots go undiscussed? Pretty much every day’s lesson plan offers a similarly wrenching example… Continue reading