In honor of International Women’s Day on March 8th, CNN posted a site where you could choose an inspirational quote by a famous woman, select a background from three choices, and share it via Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, or Tumblr. I spent quite a bit of time reading the words of Eleanor Roosevelt, Marie Curie, and Maya Angelou, and nodding in agreement.
I have a Pinterest board of Favorite Quotations that I will often send my students to as a resource for various projects. The ease of CNN’s site allowed me to add a few more to my collection. If your students have access to any of the social networks, they could share some of their own. (There were a couple of “less serious” quotes, such as from Zsa Zsa Gabor, so you will need to take the age of your students into account before referring them to this resource.)
If you do Socratic Dialogue in your class, many of these would be good jumping off points for discussion. You can also make connections by asking the students to think of other people that would identify with the quote, or even fictional characters who could have easily spoken those words.
