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Analyzing a Letter from Ruth Bader Ginsburg

For Teachers 7th - 12th Standards
Before her career as a Supreme Court Justice, the Notorious RBG was a legal activist for women's rights. Using a letter from then-Professor Ginsburg, young historians carefully examine a letter from Ginsburg to a member of Congress...
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DocsTeach

Analyzing a Letter to Congress About Bloody Sunday

For Teachers 7th - 11th Standards
The brutality of Bloody Sunday—when non-violent protesters who supported voting rights for African Americans were beaten by police—captured a nation. Young historians examine the letter of one horrified American to Congress to consider...
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Lesson Plan
Center for History Education

Post-War Suburbanization: Homogenization

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
The results of World War II made waves all the way to suburban life today. Examine the flight from the cities using images and documents from the 1950s building boom, including a quote analysis and political cartoons. The resource...
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Lesson Plan
Center for History Education

Continuity or Change? African Americans in World War II

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
While World War II was a pivotal moment in history, historians debate its importance to the civil rights movement. Class members consider the implications of segregation and the war using a series of documents and a jigsaw activity....
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Lesson Plan
Center for History Education

Franklin Roosevelt's Proposal for Reforming the Supreme Court: 168 Days of National Debate

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Was it overreach or wise executive functioning? Scholars have long debated Franklin Roosevelt's court-packing scheme when he attempted to stack the court with justices friendlier to his New Deal measures. Now, learners pick up the...
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Lesson Plan
Center for History Education

The Federal Theatre Project: Analyzing Conflict Among Relief, Art, and Politics in 1930s America

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
In the effort to soothe the suffering of the Great Depression, New Deal programs funded a variety of approaches - including a theater project that proved controversial! Using documents such as oral histories, as well as photographs of...
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Lesson Plan
Center for History Education

Dust Bowl Story

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Images of the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression are haunting in the suffering they show. Young historians use photographs—both iconic and lesser known—to tell about the human experience during this time. A series of photographs, as...
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Lesson Plan
Center for History Education

Understanding the Great Migration

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
What would make someone leave home and travel thousands of miles to find another one? Young historians look at letters, demographic data, and artwork to answer the question for the Great Migration, or the movement of thousands of African...
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Lesson Plan
Center for History Education

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper: 19th Century African-American Writer and Reformer

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Although some African American abolitionists—such as Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass—are well known, others, like Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, remain in the shadows of history. Harper was a poet and activist who played an...
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Lesson Plan
Center for History Education

Northern Racism and the New York City Draft Riots of 1863

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Just how racist were some people in the North during the American Civil War? Using excerpts of the Conscription Act, as well as graphic images of lynchings, young historians consider why white people in New York City rioted and killed...
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Lesson Plan
Center for History Education

Speaking Up and Speaking Out: Exploring the Lives of Black Women During the 19th Century

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Young historians investigate the often-hidden history of free and enslaved African American women before the Civil War. Using a collection of primary and secondary sources, including speeches, diaries, and poems, they evaluate the often...
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Lesson Plan
Center for History Education

Nineteenth Century Reform Movements: Women's Rights

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
It's hard to imagine a world where women were marginalized from the seats of power. Yet, there are women today who remember what it was like to not be allowed to vote. Using a DBQ of images and other primary sources, such as political...
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Bibb Mill No 1 Child Labor Photograph Discussion

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
There's no way a child can operate heavy machinery ... right? Pupils examine a photograph of a child operating a loom at mill to learn about child labor and its impacts. Prompts provoke thoughtful discussion or fuel a writing exercise.
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Environmental Case Study: Hetch Hetchy Valley

For Teachers 7th - 12th Standards
What is more important: building a new school or preserving a nature reserve? Keeping a natural area clean or providing clean drinking water to a city of millions? Young scholars weigh these questions—almost literally—using an...
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DocsTeach

Chinese Exclusion Broadside Analysis

For Teachers 7th - 12th Standards
Racism against Asian American goes deep in American history. Using a broadside in favor of the Chinese Exclusion Act, class members examine clues—with key portions of the document blacked out—to better understand the roots of anti-Asian...
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Before and After Carlisle School

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
White reformers thought they were "killing the Indian" to "save the man." Native children were taken from their parents and placed at boarding schools, such as the Carlisle School. Using a comparative photo analysis of children before...
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DocsTeach

Baseball on the World War I Homefront

For Teachers 7th - 12th Standards
Are sports essential to American life? Young historians ponder the question as they examine letters between the owner of the Boston Red Sox and Navy Secretary Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War I. The owner wanted two star players...
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Artists Document World War I

For Teachers 8th - 12th Standards
Drawings may be worth even more than a thousand words. Curious scholars query an artist's rendering of troops leaving a ship after they have arrived in Europe to fight in World War I. By zooming in and looking at the entire piece, class...
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DocsTeach

President Reagan and the Cold War: Vision and Diplomacy

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
After years of boiling tension, the presidency of Ronald Regan and the rise of Mikhail Gorbechev paved a new way forward for diplomacy between the United States and the Soviet Union. Using primary source documents, including letters...
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DocsTeach

Landing a Man on the Moon: President Nixon and the Apollo Program

For Teachers 8th - 12th Standards
Take the small step for man and giant leap for mankind with the Apollo astronauts using primary sources. Young historians explore the documents related to the American space program up through the lunar landing, including presidential...
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Analyzing Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
The end of a war means the causes were resolved, right? Not for World War I. By examining Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, budding historians consider imperialism, nationalism, militarism, and alliances, as well as Wilson's efforts to...
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Nixon Visits China: The Week that Changed the World

For Teachers 8th - 12th Standards
Sometimes one trip shakes up the entire world. When President Richard Nixon traveled to China, he defied international and political boundaries. Nixon was the first American president to visit mainland China, which was a communist nation...
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Unit Plan
Vaquera Films

Wonder Women - The Untold Story of American Superheroines: High School Curriculum Guide

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
A 41-page curriculum guide tells the story of the untold stories of American Superheroines! Divided into three modules, the guide is designed to be used before, during, and after viewing the 2012 documentary Wonder Women! The Untold...
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Lesson Plan
C-SPAN

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)

For Teachers 9th - Higher Ed Standards
The United States is built on the presumption of equality—yet we have not passed the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution. Using video clips featuring historians, a museum tour, and an interview with Ruth Bader Ginsberg, learners...