The lesson plans featured here have been curated from the Gilder Lehrman Institute’s History Resources and are intended to help integrate your exhibition rental into the classroom. Lesson plans are entirely free of charge. They are geared toward middle and high school students but they can be used selectively for different audiences. You can find the entire catalogue of the Gilder Lehrman Institute’s lesson plans here.
What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?
Grade levels: 7–12
This classroom unit provides five lessons that teach students one way to analyze a primary source document based on Frederick Douglass’s most famous speech.
Slavery in the Constitutional Structure
Grade levels: 7–12+
This lesson plan has students analyze the US Constitution directly and identify the ways slavery was directly or indirectly protected in the founding document. Integrate Douglass into this lesson plan by discussing his own change in view about whether the Constitution was a pro-slavery document.
Children’s Attitudes about Slavery and Women’s Abolitionism
Grade levels: 6–8
This two-part lesson plan asks students to examine the attitudes of children from northern states toward slavery in the 1830s–1860s by analyzing anti-slavery posters and other abolitionist documents aimed at young people.
The Emancipation Proclamation through Different Eyes
Grade levels: 6–8
This lesson asks students to analyze the Emancipation Proclamation through the lenses of different segments of the population at the time it was passed.
A Look at Slavery through Posters and Broadsides
Grade levels: 6–8
This group-activity lesson plan asks students to look at posters and broadsides about slavery from the pre–Civil War era and analyze the attitudes about slavery they convey and their possible effects.
The Impact of Supreme Court Decisions on the Struggle for African American Equality
Grade levels: 9–12
This classroom unit provides three lessons that help students analyze and think critically about the Supreme Court’s role in enforcing inequality or equality through three major court cases: Dred Scott v. Sandford, Plessy v. Ferguson, and Brown v. Board of Education.
Juneteenth and Emancipation
Grade levels: 9–12
This four-lesson unit asks students to analyze primary sources that convey the reality of slavery in the US and provide context for the federal holiday of Juneteenth.
The Supreme Court and the Fourteenth Amendment
Grade levels: 9–12
This four-part lesson plan challenges students to dive deep into the process of reintegrating the Confederate states into the United States with the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment.