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 Frederick Douglass: What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? 7, 8, 9, 10 Click to download this five-lesson unit :
Lesson Plan The Civil Rights Movement: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X Government and Civics Click to download this three-lesson unit.
Essay The Civil Rights Movement Taylor Branch The word "movement" often designates a cultural shift of less import than the American Revolution, Great Depression, and other capitalized dramas in history. To be sure, some popular movements have gained broader recognition in the...
Essay Lincoln Allen C. Guelzo 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ No one seemed less well-cast for the role of reformer, in an age of reform, than Abraham Lincoln. To begin with, he was a stranger, emotionally and intellectually, to evangelical Christianity, the great engine of reform in the...
Essay The Road to War Chandra M. Manning Economics, Government and Civics 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ ‘A house divided against itself can not stand’ I believe this government can not endure permanently, half slave, and half free . . . I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it...
Essay "Hidden Practices": Frederick Douglass on Segregation and Black Achievement, 1887 Edward L. Ayers Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Frederick Douglass recalled his feelings when slavery came to an end, after so much work and so many sacrifices. "I felt that I had reached the end of the noblest and best part of my life," he admitted. But Douglass hardly...
Essay Reconstruction Edward L. Ayers In the twelve years after the Civil War—the era of Reconstruction—there were massive changes in American culture, economy, and politics. These were the years of the "Old West," of cowboys, Indians, and buffalo hunts, of cattle drives,...