A new CMK Press book — a little different, very us
20 views
Skip to first unread message
Sylvia Martinez
May 13, 2026, 6:54:21 AM (12 days ago) May 13
to K-12 Fab Labs and Makerspaces
Hi everyone,
You know CMK Press from Invent to Learn, so I want to tell you about our newest title — and why, even though it's a US History book, it belongs in your hands.
History in Their Hands: Teaching Inquiry-Based United States History Through the Lens of Black Agency, by Beth Krasemann, is a teacher guide for middle and high school history educators. It centers Black agency throughout US history — from before 1619 to the present — and builds every lesson around primary source documents: text, images, audio, and video.
This might seem like a departure from our ed tech and maker roots, but it's not really. At its core, this is a book about trusting students with authentic materials and asking them to construct meaning together. Students aren't absorbing information — they're doing the work of historians: analyzing evidence, forming arguments, challenging received narratives. That's the same spirit that runs through everything we publish.
The book comes with a companion website for teachers, with all primary source documents in one place, links to additional resources, and a Classroom Mode that turns the site into a projection tool for whole-class document analysis.
If you teach history — or know someone who does — I think you'll find this worth a look. And even if history isn't your subject, the inquiry approach Beth models here is one any teacher can learn from.
Get your copy at https://cmkpress.com/history-in-their-hands/.
Sylvia Martinez
The Language of Computation: Constructing Modern Knowledge in Reggio Emilia Institute - June 15-19, 2026 https://reggio.constructingmodernknowledge.com
You know CMK Press from Invent to Learn, so I want to tell you about our newest title — and why, even though it's a US History book, it belongs in your hands.
History in Their Hands: Teaching Inquiry-Based United States History Through the Lens of Black Agency, by Beth Krasemann, is a teacher guide for middle and high school history educators. It centers Black agency throughout US history — from before 1619 to the present — and builds every lesson around primary source documents: text, images, audio, and video.
This might seem like a departure from our ed tech and maker roots, but it's not really. At its core, this is a book about trusting students with authentic materials and asking them to construct meaning together. Students aren't absorbing information — they're doing the work of historians: analyzing evidence, forming arguments, challenging received narratives. That's the same spirit that runs through everything we publish.
The book comes with a companion website for teachers, with all primary source documents in one place, links to additional resources, and a Classroom Mode that turns the site into a projection tool for whole-class document analysis.
If you teach history — or know someone who does — I think you'll find this worth a look. And even if history isn't your subject, the inquiry approach Beth models here is one any teacher can learn from.
Get your copy at https://cmkpress.com/history-in-their-hands/.
Sylvia Martinez
Co-author of Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom
"The Maker Movement in schools now has a bible." - Larry Magid, Technology Columnist, Huffington Post, CBS News.
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages