Lesson Plan Pilgrims, the Mayflower Compact, and Thanksgiving Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy, World History 3, 4, 5 Click here to download this four-lesson unit.
Lesson Plan The French and Indian War Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Unit Objective This unit is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based teaching resources. These units were developed to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of historical...
Lesson Plan The Mexican-American War: Arguments for and against Going to War Geography, Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Click here to download this three-lesson unit.
Lesson Plan Survival in the American Wilderness: Fiction v. Nonfiction 7, 8 Unit Objective This unit is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based units. These units were developed to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of historical significance....
Lesson Plan Rural America: The Westward Movement Geography 7, 8 Unit Objective This unit is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based teaching resources. These units were developed to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of historical...
Spotlight on: Primary Source A plea to defend the Alamo, 1836 Government and Civics A decade of conflict between the Mexican government and US settlers in Texas culminated in 1836 with the siege of the Alamo and the Texas Declaration of Independence. On February 23, 1836, Lieutenant Colonel William Travis, Jim Bowie,...
Spotlight on: Primary Source A report from Spanish California, 1776 Foreign Languages, Government and Civics Fernando de Rivera y Moncada, military commander of Alta California, wrote this letter from Mission San Gabriel. Rivera y Moncada was instrumental in the development of missions in California and was in a sometimes-contentious...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Receipt for land purchased from the Six Nations, 1769 Government and Civics This document records that the representatives of the Six Nations, who signed using totems to designate individuals and tribes, received $10,000 as payment from the Penns for land the tribes had ceded in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in...
Spotlight on: Primary Source The Haymarket Affair, 1886 Economics, Government and Civics The Haymarket Affair is considered a watershed moment for American labor history, at a time when fears about the loyalties and activities of immigrants, anarchists, and laborers became linked in the minds of many Americans. On May 3,...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Phillis Wheatley’s poem on tyranny and slavery, 1772 Government and Civics, Literature, Religion and Philosophy Born in Africa, Phillis Wheatley was captured and sold into slavery as a child. She was purchased by John Wheatley of Boston in 1761. The Wheatleys soon recognized Phillis’s intelligence and taught her to read and write. She became...