Minnie Bruce Pratt's poem, "The Great Migration," offers young scholars an opportunity to reflect on how where we come from influences who we are. Groups conduct a close reading of the poem, recording observations about the poem's...

Get the story straight. Scholars gather information about the Great Migration as they listen to a reading from Promises to Keep. They then examine the text to find evidence to support the feeling of resentment. Learners take part in...

What were living conditions like in the United States during The Great Depression, and how do those conditions compare with today? That's the question young scholars consider as they prepare to read John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men....

A reading of Walter Dean Myers' "Harlem" sets the stage for studying the literature, art, and music of the Harlem Renaissance. The instructional activity begins with a review of the social, political, and economic conditions of the 1920s...

Panel 58 from Jacob Lawrence's "Migration Series" of paintings provides middle schoolers with an opportunity to sharpen their observation and analytical skills. After engaging in a warm-up activity that introduces the concepts of...

To better understand the migrant experience during the Great Depression, pupils analyze two primary resources: photographs by Dorothea Lange and a U.S. Map that shows the Dust Bowl. They compare and contrast Lange's images to Steinbeck's...

The third lesson in a unit that traces the history of African Americans serving in the US Congress examines the period from 1929 through 1970. After reading a contextual essay that details the few African Americans elected to Congress...

Despite some advances made during the Reconstruction Era following the Civil War, the period from 1887 through 1929, African Americans serving in Congress suffered severe setbacks due to Jim Crow Laws and voter suppression. Class members...

Why did African American voters switch from the Republican Party to the Democratic party during the Depression Era? That is the question young historians attempt to answer as they study primary source documents from the period. The focus...

Introduce your seventh graders to the Harlem Renaissance with a unit that explores this dynamic period's music, literature, and ideas. The 160-page guide includes a unit calendar, an introduction to the unit, 10 richly detailed lessons...

Music, writing, and activism all tell the story of history! The resource uses these elements and more in a presentation to discuss the Jazz Age and Harlem Renaissance. Your class views biographies, discusses important events, and...

Turn your students into flocks of migratory birds for this fun lesson on animal migration. Prior to the activity, the teacher creates four different migration routes in the classroom or any available open space, labeling nesting...

June 19 is now a United States federal holiday. Young historians examine the background of the first Juneteenth celebrations and why on June 15, 2021, Congress finally approved "Juneteenth National Independence Day" as a federal holiday.

The story of one bird provides valuable insight into general animal behaviors and interactions. Young researchers investigate the peregrine falcon using a web search. They analyze the behaviors of the raptor including its migration...

Jazz and the City, Jazz and the Civil Rights Movement, Jazz and Gender, Jazz and Literature, Jazz and the Arts, Jazz and Film. Here's a packet of unit plans organized around themes that reflect American culture. Each unit examines how...

Accompany a reading of First Come the Zebra written and illustrated by Lynne Barasch with a teacher's guide equipped with before reading, vocabulary, and after reading activities. Additional social studies,...

The Nineteenth Amendment granted women the right to vote—as long as they were white. High schoolers read articles and essays about racism in the suffrage movement and consider how intersectionality played a role in the movement. Scholars...

Groups select a photograph from one of the four eras of African Americans in Congress and develop a five-minute presentation that provides background information about the image as well as its historical significance. The class compares...

Imagine the lure of being offered a job at a secret site, working on a secret project, and earning higher wages! Such was the approach used to recruit African Americans to Hanford, Washington, one of several sites used to develop...

Enable students to use the blues to explore urbanization, technology, and their effects on everyday life in the 20th century. Musicians were among the large number of people who, between 1914 and 1945, participated in the Great Migration...

Using maps, images, websites, and handouts, learners work to understand the nature of human migrations. They compare and contrast human migration from the past to the present, identify causes for migration, and trace migration routes on...

Contemplate what music learners listen to and why they listen. Can they find poetry within music lyrics? Specifically hone in on blues lyrics and ruminate upon the social issues prevalent in the themes. Particular song lyrics coincide...

One of my favorite things about this resource is that they use a standardized lexile to help you determine who should be reading what book. I also love this great teacher's guide for the book, The Class Election from the Black...

With the abundance of food products we can easily access in our society today, it is easy to forget the toll this can take on our global environment. Young learners will discover how the transition to agriculture and domesticated living...