They say there’s no such thing as a free lunch, or a free ticket to a smallpox cure, but that just doesn’t stop some people. Which is what makes the history of medical progress so dramatic and, in many cases, so ghastly. If Domenica DiPiazza’s previous post about For the Good of Mankind? The Shameful History of Human Medical Experimentation didn’t send you scrambling to get your hands on a copy, then I’ll wait right here until you’ve taken care of that.

Snuggle up with a blanket (to hide under) and some hot chocolate (to drown your sorrow) and read this book.

All set? Good. And now that you’ve got the book, I assume you’ve blazed through it, straight to the bitter end, and are left thinking, “I must share this with my middle/high school students. How can I turn this fascinating, thought-provoking, gut-wrenching slice of history into a lesson plan?”

That’s where eSource comes in. We’ve created free (yep, I can even repeat it, free) teaching activities in line with those good ol’ Common Core State Standards, designed to spark conversations and critical thinking among your students. You can download a CCSS-aligned research project / classroom debate that encourages students to dig deeper into the material. You can also find a classroom discussion / writing activity that focuses on point of view and the double-edged sword of Henrietta Lacks’s legacy. 

We want you to check it out.

To download free resources for any Lerner book or series, find the book on our website. (If you haven’t registered with us, please do so at the upper right corner of the page. On future visits, you’ll need to sign in to download files.) Then look in the right-hand column of the page for the eSource logo. Just under the Font Lens, you’ll see the downloadable eSource files. Click on an individual file or on “download all.”