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Humanities Texas offers a range of instructional resources and materials on our website that curriculum coordinators, teachers, and families can use while students are away from their school classrooms. This month, we highlight Texas Originals, a radio series we developed with Houston Public Media profiling individuals who have had a profound influence upon Texas history and culture.

Texas Originals features a number of individuals covered in the Texas social studies and language arts curricula. Episodes are currently available online and on iTunes. Listen and learn more about Texas "originals" such as Stephen F. Austin, John Biggers, Clara Driscoll, Sam Houston, Barbara Jordan, Tom Lea, Dorothy Scarborough, and Juan Seguín.

Humanities Texas has developed a document showing how the episodes produced to date correlate with the TEKS for seventh-grade Texas history. We have also developed topically organized resource guides for teachers of eighth-grade U.S. history, eleventh-grade U.S. history, and Texas history. These guides link to a wide range of digital resources on the Humanities Texas website, including episodes of Texas Originals.

In this "Write Your Own Script" activity, students research and write their own Texas Originals episode about an individual who has shaped Texas history. Share your script with us, and you might see your episode featured in a future newsletter!

We hope that these materials are enlightening, inspiring, and helpful. Please contact our staff with questions, tips, recommendations, and stories of applying these materials with your teachers, students, and families. Email Humanities Texas staff at txoriginals@humanitiestexas.org.