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Organizer
Student Handouts

Pivotal Events

For Teachers 4th - 12th Standards
This is a simple graphic organizer that allows your class members to chronicle the progress and significance of a series of pivotal events.
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Activity
Curated OER

Current Event Project

For Teachers 4th - 12th Standards
One of the best ways to make history relevant and engaging is to analyze current events before they become history! Check out these project guidelines for a current event research paper, outlining the major required sections of the...
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Lesson Plan
Literacy Design Collaborative

Using Textual Evidence to Analyze Literary Responses to Historical Events

For Teachers 9th Standards
Scholars analyze Animal Farm to learn how to add textual evidence into essays to support their ideas. They search for a deeper meaning to the story and how it relates to the text Totalitarianism and Revolutions in Russia. To finish,...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Digging Up Artifacts On Line

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Why is it important to preserve historical documents and artifacts? Examine the role of primary source documents and the availability of these documents on the Internet. Middle and high schoolers write a journal about the nature of...
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Lesson Plan
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University of Pennsylvania

From the Dreyfus Affair to the World Today

For Teachers 8th - 12th Standards
Historical events do not occur in a vacuum. Such is the case of the Dreyfus Affair, where the connection between Captain Alfred Dreyfus, Emile Zola, and Hannah Arendt is fused by the events of the early 20th century. The informative...
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Worksheet
K12 Reader

Two Viewpoints of the Same Event: Lee Surrenders to Grant, 1865

For Students 9th - 11th Standards
How did Union General Ulysses S. Grant view the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in 1865, which effectively ended the United States Civil War? After reading an excerpt from Grant's autobiography, your young historians will...
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Activity
D-Day Normandy 1944

D-Day Normandy 1944

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
No study of World War II would be complete without an in-depth examination of the events of June 6, 1944. Pascal Vuong's D-Day Normandy:1944, is the perfect vehicle to convey the sheer magnitude of the events that have been called the...
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Lesson Plan
Newseum

From the Front Page to the History Books

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Young journalists compare news coverage of four major events with how the same events are covered in historical accounts. The ensuing discussion asks class members to compare and contrast the role of a reporter and the role of a historian.
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Activity
PBS

1000 Words

For Students 6th - 12th Standards
A picture really can speak a thousand words—no matter how old! Scholars become history detectives as they learn how to analyze historical photos and evidence to uncover the past. The fun hands-on activity makes history come alive through...
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Lesson Plan
Newseum

Before and After: Analyzing Turning Points in History

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Scholars examine front-page news stories to gather evidence about significant historical events. They hypothesize how these events changed people's lives who lived through them and how they continue to impact lives today.
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Lesson Plan
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PBS

Women's History: Parading Through History

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Want to teach your pupils about debate, effective speech techniques, propaganda, and the women's movement? The first in a sequential series of three, scholars analyze real propaganda images from the the historic women's movement, view a...
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Activity
PBS

Before We Travel, We Research

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Context is key when it comes to historical research. Prior to field research, class members learn as much as they can about the site they are going to visit. Groups investigate and prepare presentations about the history of the site, the...
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Lesson Plan
PBS

Crack the Case: History's Toughest Mysteries

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Young sleuths don their trench coats, tip their fedoras, and grab their notepads to investigate one of four famous unsolved mysteries. After examining multiple primary and secondary sources related to their cold case, they propose a...
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Lesson Plan
K20 LEARN

Voices from the Past: History and Literature

For Teachers 10th - 11th Standards
Art can enhance the understanding of history. That's the big idea in a lesson that has young scholars read Randall Jarrell's poem "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" and an excerpt from John Hersey's Hiroshima, which provide a...
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Organizer
Polk Bros Foundation

I Can Analyze a Story or History Completely and Carefully

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Start off analysis of a text with a worksheet that asks pupils to complete several tasks. Class members note down a couple of characters or people and their distinguishing traits, describe the most important event, summarize the text...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Socratic Seminar on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter From Birmingham Jail

For Teachers 7th - 12th Standards
Key in the struggle to gain the rights of democratic citizenship was the April 1963 arrest of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for civil disobedience. To deepen their knowledge and understanding of events during the civil rights movement,...
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Lesson Plan
US Holocaust Museum

Time Capsule in a Milk Can

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Imagine dumping out a milk can and finding letters from one of the darkest moments in history! Scholars use Holocaust Reading Passages and research to discover how people recorded and hid history during the events of World War II. They...
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Worksheet
Smithsonian Institution

Mary Henry: Journal/Diary Writing

For Students 7th - 12th Standards
A great way to connect social studies with language arts, a resource on Mary Henry's historical diary reinforces the concepts of primary and secondary sources. It comes with an easy-to-understand lesson plan, as well as the reference...
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Activity
PBS

Going Back In Time

For Students 6th - 12th
History detectives eschew that time machine and follow the paper trail to go back in time to investigate an unfamiliar object. The goal is for class members to develop their skills as historical detectives.
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Lesson Plan
PBS

March on Washington: A Time for Change

For Students 6th - 12th Standards
Young historians conclude their study of the events that lead up to and the planning for the March on Washington. After examining videos and primary source documents, they consider the civil rights objectives that still need to be...
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Lesson Plan
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Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary

From Ben’s Pen to Our Lives

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
What would Ben do? Jumping off from the pseudonymous letters Ben Franklin fooled his older brother into publishing when he was still a teenager, young literary lovers dive into acting, writing, and addressing a local issue with wit and...
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Lesson Plan
Stanford University

Voices of the Struggle: The Continual Struggle for Equality

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
As part of a study of the Civil Rights Movement from 1868 to the present, class members examine first person narratives, the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, and other significant events in civil rights history. They then...
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Activity
Weebly

Holocaust Diary Project

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Here is a good interdisciplinary project that combines creative and narrative writing with studies of the Holocaust. Your young historians will compose a diary of experiences from the perspective of an individual living during the time...
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Lesson Plan
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National Endowment for the Humanities

Revolution '67, Lesson 2: What Happened in July 1967? How Do We Know?

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Even in a world in which dozens of participants and curious onlookers record every controversial event, the basic facts of what happened are often in dispute. Revolution '67, Lesson 2 explores 1967 Newark, New Jersey using an examination...

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