About Free online workshops

What are Online workshops?

New this year, we’re launching two FREE online workshops as part of our Stop the Hate program. This anti-bias learning tool teaches history, literacy, and the arts. Teachers can choose to offer their classrooms either a songwriting or essay writing workshop at zero cost for middle and high schools, or home school groups of ten or more, within Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Mahoning, Medina, Portage, Stark, Summit, Trumbull, and Wayne counties.

These totally free workshops provide:

  • Teachers with ready-made online lessons plans taught by qualified instructors
  • Students with access to important history about Holocaust and Civil Rights
  • Schools with money for future anti-bias education plans

How does a teacher or school participate?

Teachers choose either a songwriting workshop with Roots of American Music or a essay writing workshop with Lake Erie Ink. After completing a contract with the Maltz Museum, teachers and workshop leaders will be connected directly to identify the best dates and times to do the workshop.

  • Youth Sing Out songwriting workshop

  • Youth Speak Out essay writing workshop

Step One: Take the Stop the Hate Digital Tour

Teachers will assign the Stop the Hate Digital Tour (there are activities that can be utilized or ignored) followed by Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s Power of Music in Protest online experience.

Step Two: Work with a Teaching Artist

A teaching artist from Roots of American Music meets with your classroom online, classes may be divided into groups with more than one teaching artist depending on size, and over the course of four sessions works with students to:

  • reflect on the museum tours they’ve taken
  • discuss discrimination they’ve witnessed or experienced in their own lives
  • pen their own original songs as a way to use their voice as an advocate for change
  • receive encouraging feedback on their accomplishments

Step Three: Upload your Class Song for Judging

The teaching artist records the song and uploads the lyrics to a confidential portal. In March, all entries will be judged by a cohort of volunteer readers from across the country. All entries will be anonymous to the readers. Each entry will be read and scored three times. The top two entries in middle school and top two entries in high school will be named and announced publicly on a Stop the Hate Award website in May.

Step Four: See Who Wins the Awards

All participating schools receive money: 
Every Northeast Ohio school within the 12 country radius that participates in a workshop package or uses Stop the Hate learning progression in their classroom is eligible to receive anti-bias education grant money from a pool of $30,000 that will be split evenly. 

Winners in middle and high school categories receive anti-bias education grants:
1st place in both categories receives $3,500 and an invitation to perform at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
2nd place in both categories receives $2,000

Everyone who participates receives recognition:
Participating students & schools receive congratulatory upstander certificates that can be printed.

Teacher of the Year to be named:
New this year, the Museum will present a $1,000 cash prize to the Stop the Hate Youth Sing Out Teacher of the Year for personal commitment to anti-bias education.

Why we love these workshops!

For over a decade Roots of American Music has been working with us to deliver anti-bias education through the lens of arts enrichment in a program called Youth Sing Out. After a tour to the Maltz Museum, teaching artists previously would visit the classroom and work with students to pen original songs that reflect their own experiences with discrimination. An invitation only program, with a limited number of students who could be accepted, we’ve redesigned the opportunity to create a new online version that’s open to all 6 – 12th grade classrooms in a twelve county radius in Northeast Ohio. 

We used Youth Sing Out as a model to develop a second partnership with Lake Erie Ink, who will be teaching writing workshops online in a similar manner in support of Youth Speak Out. Students will take an online tour, participate in online writing sessions, and submit their essays into a contest in which students can win scholarship money and schools will receive anti-bias education funding. 

This year, we hope to reach more students than ever before with this totally free online resource!

Ohio learning standards

  • Youth Sing Out songwriting workshop

  • Youth Speak Out essay writing workshop

Youth Sing Out meets Ohio’s Standards for Music including:

Career and College Readiness Anchor Standards for 6th, 7th, and 8th for Creating (6.2CR, 7.2CR, 8.2CR), Performing (7.2PE. 8.2PE), Responding (6,7,8.6RE, 8.1RE) Connecting (6.4CO, 7.4CO, 8.7CO) and Speaking and Listening (1-2).

Career and College Readiness Anchor Standards for High School for Creating (ENN.1CR, ENN.2CR, ENN.3CR), Performing (ENN.1PE, ENN.2PE, ENN.8PE), Responding (ENN.1RE, ENN.2RE, ENN.3RE)

Youth Sing Out meets Ohio’s Standards for ELA including:

Career and College Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing (3-6), Language (3); and Speaking and Listening (1-2).

When can teachers and schools sign up?

We recommend signing up as soon as possible. When funding for the free workshops runs out, we will have to close the program. Sign up early to secure your spot.

Workshops will occur between September 2020 and March 2021.

Watch the Stop the hate info session

Book an online workshop: Contact our education department

Show me other resources
Tell me more about tours
I want to enter the contest

The Maltz Museum is supported by Cuyahoga Arts & Culture, Jewish Federation of Cleveland, and Ohio Arts Council

© 2020 Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage