Site Search

90,919 items

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Jacksonian Democracy

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1: The aristocracy of our country . . . continually contrive to change their party name. It was first Tory, then Federalist, then no party . . . then National Republican, now Whig. . . . But by whatever name they reorganize...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Indian Removal

Geography, Government and Civics

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Reading 1 Toward the aborigines of this country no one can indulge a more friendly feeling than myself, or would go further in attempting to reclaim them from their wandering habits and make them a happy, prosperous people. Humanity...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Political Battles of the Jacksonian Era: The Bank War

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1: It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Political Battles of the Jacksonian Era: Nullification

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1: And, sir, let it be remembered that a revenue system, grossly and palpably unequal in itself--a system which, under the most favorable modification, would levy the entire amount of the federal taxes from one-fifth part of...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Origins of the Cold War: The Containment Policy

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 Soviet power...bears within itself the seeds of its own decay, and the sprouting of these seeds is well advanced...[If] anything were ever to disrupt the unity and efficacy of the Party as a political instrument, Soviet...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Origins of the Cold War and Soviet-American Confrontation

Economics, Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague,...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: The Korean War

Economics, Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 In Korea the Government forces, which were armed to prevent border raids and to preserve internal security, were attacked by invading forces from North Korea. . . . The attack upon Korea makes it plain beyond all doubt that...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Anti-Communism at Home

Economics, Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 Sec. 2: (a) It shall be unlawful for any person— (1) to knowingly or willfully advocate, abet, advise, or teach the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Roots of Reform: Religion and Social Reform

Religion and Philosophy

9, 10, 11, 12

From 1801 for years a blessed revival of religion spread through almost the entire inhabited parts of the West. . . . The Presbyterians and Methodists in a great measure united in this work, met together, prayed together, and preached...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Antebellum Social Reform

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1: “The elementary schools throughout the state are irresponsible institutions, established by individuals, from mere motives of private speculation or gain, who are sometimes destitute of character, and frequently, of the...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Religion and Social Reform: Abolitionism

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 Assenting to the “self-evident truth” maintained in the American Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights” . . . I shall strenuously contend...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Urban Political Machines

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 An army led by a council seldom conquers: It must have a commander-in-chief who settles disputes, decides in emergencies, inspires fear or attachment. The head of the Ring is such a commander. He dispenses places, rewards...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: The Rise of the City

Economics, Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 To-day, what is a tenement? . . . When last arraigned before the bar of public justice: “It is generally a brick building from four to six stories high on the street, frequently with a store on the first floor which, when...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Problems of Youth

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 Every American boy, a hundred years ago, lived either on a farm or in such close touch with farm life that he reaped its benefits. He had all the practical knowledge that comes from country surroundings; that is, he could...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Progressive Reform and the Trusts

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 The dull, purblind folly of the very rich men; their greed and arrogance . . . and the corruption in business and politics, have tended to produce a very unhealthy condition of excitement and irritation in the popular mind,...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: World War I

Economics, Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy, World History

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 The United States must be neutral in fact, as well as in name, during these days that are to try men’s souls. We must be impartial in thought, as well as action, must put a curb upon our sentiments, as well as upon every...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Reconstruction

Government and Civics

Reading 1 We hold it to be the duty of the government to inflict condign punishment on the rebel belligerents, and so weaken their hands that they can never again endanger the Union; and so reform their municipal institutions as to...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Slavery

Economics, Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy

Reading 1: The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the...most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other.....Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Sectional Conflict

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 I do not . . . hesitate to avow before this House and the country, and in the presence of the living God, that if by your legislation you seek to drive us from the territories of California and New Mexico, purchased by the...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Secession and the Civil War

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 The leaders and oracles of the most powerful party in the United States have denounced us as tyrants and unprincipled heathens through the whole civilized world. They have preached it from their pulpits. They have declared...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Conflict over Ratifying the Constitution

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

View these Guided Readings as a printable PDF.

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: African Americans after Slavery

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 All freedmen . . . over the age of eighteen years, found on the second Monday in January, 1866, or thereafter, with no lawful employment or business, or found unlawfully assembling themselves together, either in the day or...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Indian Policy

Geography, Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 One [infantry] battalion...left Fort Lyon [Colorado] on the night of the 28th of November, 1864; about daybreak on the morning of the 29th of November we came in sight of the camp of friendly [Cheyenne and Arapaho] Indians.....

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: The Changing Status of Women

8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 Man is or should be woman’s protector and defender. The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life. . . .The paramount destiny and...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: The Farmers' Revolt

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 For our business interests, we desire to bring producers and consumers, farmers and manufacturers into the most direct and friendly relations possible. Hence we must dispense with a surplus of middlemen, not that we are...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Responses to Industrialism

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 It is idle to talk of a peaceful strike. None such has ever occurred. All combinations to interfere with perfect freedom in the proper management and control of one's lawful business, to dictate the terms upon which such...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: The Gospel of Wealth

Economics

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Reading 1 Thus is the problem of Rich and Poor to be solved. The laws of accumulation will be left free; the laws of distribution free. Individualism will continue, but the millionaire will be but a trustee for the poor; entrusted for...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Reflections on the Great Depression and the New Deal

Economics, Government and Civics

Reading 1 I want to tell you about an experience we had in Philadelphia when our private funds were exhausted and before public funds become available. . . . One woman said she borrowed 50 cents from a friend and bought stale bread...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Federalists and Jeffersonians

Economics, Government and Civics, World History

Reading 1 Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts He has made His peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. —Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia ...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Toward Revolution

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 For fire and water are not more heterogeneous than the different colonies in North America. Nothing can exceed the jealousy and emulation which they possess in regard to each other. . . . In short . . . were they left to...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Impact of the Revolution on Women and African Americans

Government and Civics

8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Major Social Issues of the 1960s

Government and Civics

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Reading 1: Civil Rights The separate but equal doctrine has failed in three important respects. First it is inconsistent with the fundamental equalitarianism of the American way of life in that it marks groups with the brand of...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Imperialism and the Spanish-American War

Economics, Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 Up to our own day American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West. . . . The frontier is the line of most rapid and effective Americanization. . . . The frontier promoted the...

Classroom Resources

Guided Readings: American Foreign Policy in the 1970s

Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 Why are we in South Vietnam? We are there because we have a promise to keep. Since 1954 every American President has offered support to the people of South Vietnam. . . . We have made a national pledge to help South Vietnam...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Manifest Destiny

Economics, Geography, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1: Our manifest destiny [is] to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions. John L. O'Sullivan, 1845 Reading 2: Texas has been absorbed into the Union as the...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: World War II

Economics, Government and Civics, World History

Reading 1 It seems to be unfortunately true that the epidemic of world lawlessness is spreading. When an epidemic of physical disease starts to spread, the community approves and joins in a quarantine of the patients in order to...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: The Atomic Bomb

Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, World History

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 Nuclear bombs cannot possible remain a "secret weapon" at the exclusive disposal of this country for more than a few years. The scientific facts on which their construction is based are well known to scientists of other...

Classroom Resources

Infographic: "Bookending" the Twentieth Century

Economics, Geography, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

View this infographic as a downloadable PDF.

Classroom Resources

Statistics: The Growth of Cities

Economics, Geography, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

9, 10, 11, 12

Urban Growth Number of Cities 1860 1900 100,000-499,999 7 32 500,000 or more 2 6 Percent of Total Population 1860 1900 100,000-499,999 4% 8% 500,000 or more 4% 11% Questions for Discussion What factors contributed to the growth of...

Classroom Resources

Statistics: Education in America, 1860-1950

Economics, Government and Civics, Literature

9, 10, 11, 12

Resources Invested in Education Spending on Education Spending Per Child 15-19 Percentage of GNP 1860 $60 $5.33 1.4 1900 $503 $20.53 2.9 Improvements in Education % Illiteracy 10 or older High School Graduates College Enrollment Total...

Classroom Resources

Statistics: Slaves and Slaveholdings

Economics

6, 7, 8

Slaveholding, 1860 Non-slaveholders 76.1 percent 1-9 slaves 17.2 percent 10-99 6.6 percent over 100 0.1 percent Distribution of Slaves Number of slaves held 0 1-6 7-39 40+ Percent of white families 75 15 9 1 Percent of slaves held 0...

Classroom Resources

Infographic: North-South Comparisons before the Civil War

Economics, Geography, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Download this infographic as an image.

Classroom Resources

Infographic: Casualties and Costs of the Civil War

Economics, Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12

View this infographic as a PDF.

Classroom Resources

Infographic: Differences between Federalists and Antifederalists

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

The differences between the Federalists and the Antifederalists are vast and at times complex. Federalists’ beliefs could be better described as nationalist. The Federalists were instrumental in 1787 in shaping the new US Constitution...

Classroom Resources

Statistics: The Changing Lives of American Women

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The Changing Family Age of First Marriage Average Household Size Male Female 1790 -- -- 5.79 1890 26.1 22.0 4.93 1900 25.9 21.9 4.76 1910 25.1 21.6 4.54 1920 24.6 21.2 4.34 1930 24.3 21.3 4.11 1940 24.3 21.5 3.77 1950 22.8 20.3 3.52...

Classroom Resources

Statistics: The Changing Lives of American Farmers

Economics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

9, 10, 11, 12

Agricultural Productivity 1800 1900 Wheat Worker-hours to produce an acre 56 15 Yield per acre 15 14 Corn Worker-hours per acre 86 38 Yield per acre 25 26 Cotton Worker-hours per acre 185 112 Yield per acre 147 191 ...

Classroom Resources

Statistics: Trends in American Farming

Economics, Geography

9, 10, 11, 12

Percentage of Labor Force in Agriculture 1860 53% 1870 52% 1880 51% 1890 43% 1900 40% 1910 31% 1920 26% 1930 21% Farming Profession Number of Farms (in thousands) Proportion of Total Population 1940 6,350 23.1% 1950 5,648 15.2% 1960 3...

Classroom Resources

Infographic: Industrialization: The Growth of Industry

Economics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

View this infographic as a downloadable PDF. If you would like to learn more about Industrialization, view " Industrialization: American Labor " and " Industrialization: Changing Living Standards ." ...

Classroom Resources

Infographic: Industrialization: American Labor

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12

View this infographic as a downloadable PDF. If you would like to learn more about Industrialization, view " Industrialization: Changing Living Standards " and " Industrialization: The Growth of Industry ." ...

Classroom Resources

Infographic: Industrialization: Changing Living Standards

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12

View this infographic as a downloadable PDF. If you would like to learn more about Industrialization, view Industrialization - American Labor and Industrialization - The Growth of Industry . ...

Classroom Resources

Statistics: The American Economy during the 1920s

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12

Cars on the Road 1919 6.7 million 1929 23 million Percentage of Households with Radios 1925 19 percent (5,000,000 homes) 1929 35 to 40 percent Sales of Radios 1922 $60 million 1929 $842.6 million Wage Levels and the Price of a Ford...

Classroom Resources

Statistics: The Impact of the Depression

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Change in Gross National Product 1879-89 + 6 percent 1889-99 + 4 percent 1899-1909 + 4 percent 1909-19 + 2 percent 1919-29 + 3 percent 1929-39 0 percent 1939-49 + 4 percent 1949-59 + 4 percent 1959-69 + 4 percent 1969-79 + 3 percent...

Classroom Resources

Infographic: The Civil Rights Revolution: Interpreting Statistics

Economics, Government and Civics

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

African American Voter Registrations Questions to Think About What difference did the Voting Rights Act make in black voter participation in the states that had been part of the Confederacy? In which states was the impact greatest? ...

Classroom Resources

Statistics: America in Our Time

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12

America in Our Time Consumer Price Index Price Increase 1972 2 percent 1974 8 percent 1976 5 percent 1978 8 percent 1980 12 percent 1982 4 percent 1984 4 percent Consumer Prices, 1967 3-bedroom house $17,000 New Cadillac de Ville...

Lesson Plan

Declarations of Independence: Women's Rights and the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions

Government and Civics

6, 7, 8

Background Under the leadership of Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a convention for the rights of women was held in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. It was attended by between 200 and 300 people, both women and men. Its...

Classroom Resources

Study Aid: Reconstruction Amendments

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Thirteenth Amendment Prohibited slavery in the United States Fourteenth Amendment Defined national citizenship Reduced state representation in Congress proportional to number of disfranchised voters Denied former Confederates the...

Classroom Resources

Study Aid: The Articles of Confederation

Economics, Government and Civics

5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Deficiencies of the Articles of Confederation No separate executive branch to carry out the laws of Congress No national judiciary to handle offenses against the central government’s laws or to settle disputes between states Congress...

Classroom Resources

Study Aid: New Deal Legislation

Economics, Government and Civics

New Deal Legislation 1932 Reconstruction Finance Corporation Granted emergency loans to banks, life insurance companies, and railroads 1933 Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Employed youth in reforestation, road construction, and...

Classroom Resources

Study Aid: Great Society Legislation

Government and Civics

8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

President Lyndon Johnson announced his Great Society program during his State of the Union address in 1964. He outlined a series of domestic programs that he promised would eliminate poverty and inequality in the United States. By the...

Classroom Resources

Study Aid: Slavery Fact Sheet

Economics, Geography, Religion and Philosophy, World History

9, 10, 11, 12

Geography Enslaved Africans came primarily from a region stretching from the Senegal River in northern Africa to Angola in the south. Europeans divided this stretch of land into five coasts: Upper Guinea Coast: The area delineated by...

Classroom Resources

Study Aid: Slavery and the Law in Seventeenth-Century Virginia

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

1662 General Assembly determines “Negro women’s children to serve according to the condition of the mother.” 1667 General Assembly passes “An act declaring the baptisme of slaves doth not exempt them from bondage.” 1669 Virginia...

Classroom Resources

Study Aid: Major Slave Rebellions

Economics, Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12

New York City, 1712 Like many later revolts, this one occurred during a period of social dissension among White colonists following Leisler’s Rebellion. The rebels espoused traditional African religions. Stono Rebellion, 1739 The...

Classroom Resources

Study Aid: National Expansion

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

National Expansion Free States Slave States Connecticut Delaware Massachusetts Georgia New Hampshire Maryland New Jersey North Carolina New York South Carolina Pennsylvania Virginia Rhode Island Kentucky (1792) Vermont (1791)...

Classroom Resources

Infographic: New States in the Union

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

View this infographic as a downloadable PDF.

Lesson Plan

Woman Abolitionists

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Background Women always played a significant role in the struggle against slavery and discrimination. White and black Quaker women and female slaves took a strong moral stand against slavery. As abolitionists, they circulated...

Lesson Plan

Militancy and the Abolitionist Movement

9, 10, 11, 12

Essential Question Did militancy help or hinder the abolitionist movement? Materials Abolition Excerpts (PDF) Timeline of the Abolitionist Movement (PDF) Background Although the original Constitution of the United States did not...

Lesson Plan

Who Was John Brown?

Government and Civics

6, 7, 8

"Did John Brown fail? John Brown began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic." —Frederick Douglass Background The late 1840s and the 1850s were a turbulent and complex time in American history as the...

Lesson Plan

Examining Antebellum Elections

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Aim What can the statistics tell us about the rise and fall of the second two-party system? How did the breakdown of this system contribute to the onset of the Civil War? Overview The purpose of this lesson is to examine the...

Lesson Plan

Every Four Years: Qualifications for the Office of President and Electing the President

Government and Civics

5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Overview Students will examine aspects of Article II of the Constitution for specific information related to the requirements for and method of electing the president. Materials (attached) KWL Chart (PDF) The United States...

Lesson Plan

Every Four Years: Introducing Presidential Elections

Government and Civics

6, 7, 8

Lesson Overview The students will examine, explain, and evaluate Article II, Section 1 of the US Constitution for specific information concerning the eligibility requirements and election process for the office of President of the...

Lesson Plan

A Different Perspective on Slavery: Writing the History of African American Enslaved Women

9, 10, 11, 12

Introduction The accounts of African American slavery in textbooks routinely conflate the story of enslaved men and women into one history. Textbooks rarely enable students to grapple with the lives and challenges of women constrained...

Lesson Plan

Enslaved African Americans and Expressions of Freedom

Art, Literature

9, 10, 11, 12

Overview Students will examine African American slave spirituals, a painting, and a personal narrative to analyze the underlying messages of these materials. Materials The Old Plantation (painting) can be seen at: http://www.history...

Lesson Plan

A Look at Slavery through Posters and Broadsides

Art

6, 7, 8

Overview Students will examine posters and broadsides from the 1800s to examine attitudes about slavery in the United States at that time. Materials Overhead or copies for all students of the poster packet (PDF) Poster Inquiry Sheet...

Lesson Plan

Jewish Immigration, Popular Culture, and the Birth of the Comic Book

6, 7, 8

Background The study of immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries goes beyond the study of the ethnic make-up of the immigrants of this era, the challenges and hardships they encountered in the United States,...

Lesson Plan

Norwegian Immigration in the Nineteenth Century

Geography, Literature

5, 6, 7, 8, 9

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...

Lesson Plan

Framing Soo Hoo Lem Kong

6, 7, 8

Overview Students will examine immigration documents and interviews in order to describe the experience of Chinese immigrants entering California in the 1900s. Students will use depth and complexity icons as tools to develop higher...

Lesson Plan

Martin Luther King Jr.: His Legacy as Seen Through the Mississippi Summer Freedom Project

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Background Martin Luther King Jr. Day, January 21, is celebrated by Americans each year to remember and recognize the life and work of the man. Martin Luther King Jr., however, represents far more than the contributions of a single...

Lesson Plan

Celebrating Labor Day

Government and Civics

4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Essential Question To what extent have the conditions of American workers improved over the past 100 years? Background After the Civil War, the United States witnessed an accelerating movement of people westward, a rapidly increasing...

Lesson Plan

The First Thanksgiving Celebration

K, 1, 2, 3, 4

Learning Objectives Students will use literature to gain insight into the lives of the Wampanoag people and their participation in the first Thanksgiving celebration. Students will present information on different aspects of the...

Lesson Plan

Abraham Lincoln on Slavery and Race

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Background Slavery played a prominent role in America’s political, social, and economic history in the antebellum era. The "peculiar institution" was at the forefront of discussions ranging from the future of the nation’s economy to...

Lesson Plan

Lincoln’s Reconstruction Plan

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Essential Question To what degree was Abraham Lincoln successful in achieving his goals? Background The Civil War was perhaps the most momentous event that the United States endured in its history. Author and historian Shelby Foote...

Lesson Plan

What Events Led to Lincoln’s Assassination?

4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Overview Fourth-grade students often associate Abraham Lincoln with three things: He wore a tall hat, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and he was assassinated. The murder of Lincoln, whom most historians consider one of the...

Lesson Plan

Alice Paul: Suffragist and Agitator

9, 10, 11, 12

Background The American women’s suffrage movement has always been identified with its two founders, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, whose strong, enthusiastic leadership defined the movement. When they retired from active...

Lesson Plan

Examining Women’s Roles through Primary Sources and Literature

Art, Literature

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

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...

Lesson Plan

Challenging Segregation in Public Education

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Background The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, during the congressional Reconstruction era. The amendment’s most significant provision —"No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or...

Lesson Plan

Securing the Right to Vote: The Selma-to-Montgomery Story

Government and Civics

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Essential Question What conditions created the need for a protest march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965, and what did that march achieve? Background Throughout American history, African Americans have struggled to gain...

Lesson Plan

Nonviolent Direct Action at Southern Lunch Counters

8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Background On February 1, 1960, four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro, North Carolina, walked into a Woolworth’s store and quietly sat down at the lunch counter. This seemingly...

Lesson Plan

Singing for Freedom

Literature

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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...

Lesson Plan

June 25, 1876: An Interpretation of an Historical Event

Government and Civics

6, 7, 8

Essential Question How should events from the Indian Wars be commemorated by the federal government? Background The Battle of Little Bighorn was one in a series of conflicts that occurred during the American attempt to remove native...

Lesson Plan

Native American Policy

Government and Civics

6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Background: Two conflicting policies have governed this country’s treatment of Native Americans—assimilation and removal. As the United States expanded, it became necessary to issue formal policy statements and make treaties with...

Lesson Plan

The Pony Express: The Fastest Delivery of a Message across America

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Background The inauguration of a new service, the Pony Express, on April 3, 1860, promised the fastest communication ever from the Missouri River to California. How long did a Pony Express message take to go from its starting point in...

Lesson Plan

The Textile Industry and the Triangle Factory Fire

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12

Overview Dramatic change characterized the rapid industrialization of nineteenth-century America. The economy, politics, society and specifically women were all affected. In the early stages of this economic revolution, manufacturing...

Lesson Plan

George Pullman: His Impact on the Railroad Industry, Labor, and American Life in the Nineteenth Century

Economics, Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

9, 10, 11, 12

Background George Mortimer Pullman was an influential industrialist of the nineteenth century and the founder of the Pullman Palace Car Company. His innovations brought comfort and luxury to railroad travel in the 1800s with the...

Lesson Plan

Nineteenth-Century Technology in Twenty-First-Century America

Economics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Introduction The nineteenth century was marked by a period of innovation, invention, and a huge spurt of growth known as the industrial revolution. Many inventions from the nineteenth century never caught on or have become obsolete,...

Lesson Plan

Dashes and Dots: A Product of the Nineteenth Century

Economics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Overview Students will examine primary sources including letters, a patent, photos, and diagrams to identify and describe the technological invention and development of the telegraph that evolved during the nineteenth century....

Lesson Plan

Symbols of the 1920s: New York City Skyscrapers in Photographs and Paintings

Art

9, 10, 11, 12

Overview The roaring 1920s was an era of dramatic change. Among the most enduring manifestations of this change was the rise of the big city. The centrality of urban growth to the social, political, and economic changes of the 1920s...

Lesson Plan

The Great Chicago Fire of 1871: A Story of Human Tragedy and Triumph

4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Background Ask anyone what the greatest disaster in Chicago was and probably no one will say, "The Great Iroquois Theatre Fire of December 30, 1903." Six hundred three souls perished in that fire. They probably won’t say, "The sinking...

Lesson Plan

Philadelphia and the Constitutional Convention "Heat Up"

Government and Civics

K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Background Little did William Penn know that his plans for a "Great Towne," set up in rectangular form between the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers, would become the site of some of the most important meetings in our nation’s founding,...

Lesson Plan

Alamo Simulation

Geography

9, 10, 11, 12

Overview Through a simulation, in which Canadians try to seize the state of Maine, students will gain an understanding of the circumstances surrounding the Battle of the Alamo, February 23–March 6, 1836, between approximately 200...

Lesson Plan

Democracy in Early America: Servitude and the Treatment of Native Americans and Africans prior to 1740

World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Essential Questions How did European explorers and colonists who came to the New World for "Gold, Glory and/or God" justify their treatment of Native Americans, enslaved Africans, and indentured servants? To what extent were there...

Site Search

Stay up to date, and subscribe to our quarterly newsletter.