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Showing results 31 – 40 of 40

Teaching Resource

Examining Women’s Roles through Primary Sources and Literature

Essential Question:

How were the ever-changing roles of women in American society chronicled?

Background

Joseph Heller writes in his book The Feminization of Quest-Romance that “American Literature equates the very essence of what it means to be American with the essence of what it means to be male. [Thus] women’s roles are identified only in relation to the male heroes whose identities they strengthen.” It can be argued that throughout much of American history, American women had few rights or...

Teaching Resource

The Cold War: Discussing the Speech of President Kennedy in 1963

By Eileen Frawley, Notre Dame School, New York, NY

Introduction

The cold war is the term for the rivalry between the two blocs of contending states that emerged following the Second World War. It was a series of confrontations played out on the world stage between the non-Communist states, led by the United States and Great Britain, and the Communists, led by the Soviet Union. In 1946 the former Prime Minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill, gave a speech in Missouri foreshawdowing the divide between...

Teaching Resource

Of Mice and Men and Migrant Farm Workers of the Great Depression

Overview

John Steinbeck’s famous hobos, George and Lennie, bring the migrant farm experience of the Great Depression to life in the celebrated classic of American literature, Of Mice and Men. Part of the huge grain growing industry of the American west, Depression Era itinerant farm workers like George and Lennie, mostly single men, traveled by boxcar from farm to farm in search of work and ever since have populated the landscape of the American cultural milieu. Depictions of these hobos are found in many varieties of art...

Teaching Resource

Singing for Freedom

Background

In the early 1960s, Mississippi was the poorest state in the nation, with most non-white families living well below the poverty line. Although African Americans made up nearly half of the state's population, few were registered to vote, and there were no African American representatives in the Democratic Party. In 1964, a presidential election year, civil rights organizations decided to focus on four goals in Mississippi: registering African Americans to vote; using the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to challenge...

Teaching Resource

Farewell to Manzanar: Japanese Internment Camps During World War II

Background

In 1886, after the arrival of Commodore Perry, the Japanese government lifted its ban on emigration and allowed its citizens to move to other countries. In the years after that, however, the United States made it more difficult for Japanese to immigrate to America. In 1911, the United States Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization declared that only people descended from whites and African Americans could become citizens. The United States Supreme Court upheld this ban in 1922 in the court case Ozawa v. US (for an...

Teaching Resource

The Stamp Act Crisis

Sid Lapidus Collection: Liberty and the American Revolution Introduction

This teaching strategy offers particular insights into the American and British perspectives on taxation during the decades leading up to the American Revolution.

Guiding Questions What is...

Teaching Resource

Conflict and Captivity in the Colonies

Background

The early seventeenth century was punctuated by a series of small wars between Native Americans and colonists. Many colonists were captured and taken prisoner, but two women, whose ordeals were published as books, stand out. Mary Rowlandson wrote an account of her 1675 capture and escape, The Narrative of the Captivity and the Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, in which she described her captivity and treatment by the Native Americans during King Phillip’s War. Hannah Dustin was captured in 1675, during King...

Teaching Resource

The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine: A Common Core Unit

Unit Objective

This lesson on the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core–based units. These units were written to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of historical significance. Students will demonstrate this knowledge by writing summaries of selections from the original document and, by the end of the unit, articulating their understanding of the complete document by answering questions in an argumentative writing style to fulfill the Common...

Teaching Resource

Norwegian Immigration in the Nineteenth Century

Background

For most Norwegians in the nineteenth century, America remained a remote and exotic place until the first immigrants began to write home. These "American letters," which traveled from the immigrants back to former neighbors, friends, and family in the old country and which were freely shared with others, had a great influence on the extent and nature of nineteenth century migration from Europe, and especially from Norway, to the United States. Once these early Norwegian immigrant letters reached Norway, quite a few of...

A student listens intently as Tim Bailey, 2009 History Teacher of the Year, goes

Teaching Resource

Teaching Literacy Through History Units and Lesson Plans

Common Core–aligned history units to help history and ELA teachers improve reading and writing instruction.