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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

Immigration in the Gilded Age: Using Photographs as Primary Sources

Geography, Government and Civics

6, 7, 8

Aim / Essential Question How successful were photographs in demonstrating the conditions of immigrants during the Gilded Age? Background The latter portion of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century witnessed the start...

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...

Lesson Plan

Conflict and Captivity in the Colonies

Literature

6, 7, 8

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...

Lesson Plan

Differing Views of Pilgrims and American Indians in Seventeenth-Century New England

Economics, Government and Civics

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Background Wampanoags Much of what is known about early Wampanoag history comes from archaeological evidence, the Wampanoag oral tradition (much of which has been lost), and documents created by seventeenth-century English colonists....

Lesson Plan

The Supreme Court and the Fourteenth Amendment

Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy

9, 10, 11, 12

Overview: The Founding Fathers created the Supreme Court in Article III of the Constitution of the United States. The most influential role of the Court, however, was defined later through the appeal process, in cases involving the...

Lesson Plan

Ratification Debates: A New York Case Study

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Historical Background The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 was full of conflict and compromise. Yet as the convention drew to a close, some of the biggest debates were just beginning. According to the...

Lesson Plan

An "Unconstitutional" Act? The Suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Background At the beginning of the Civil War, as the number of dead increased daily, a force of opposition to the war efforts began to intensify in the Congress and in the voices of the American people. Abraham Lincoln, in an effort...

Lesson Plan

"Father" of Our Country v. "Father" of the Bill of Rights

Government and Civics

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

Essential Questions To what extent does the Bill of Rights provide a "blanket of protection" for American citizens? Why do many Americans believe that the Bill of Rights is especially relevant today? Objectives Students will be able...

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