To understand the controversy surrounding the US 2000 presidential election, class members investigate the rationale behind the Electoral Collage, the intimidation involved in the election of 1876, and the 2004 American League...

Use Nathanial Hawthorne's immortal text on the influence of religion on the early American settlements, as well as its continued impact on American culture, with a unit that focuses on The Scarlet Letter. In addition to Hawthorne's...

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...

Drawn by promises of fertile land, thousands of settlers poured West because of the Homestead Act of 1862. By examining images of the ads that drew them westward, learners consider the motivations for movement. They also consider how the...

What would change in your daily life due to a power outage? Here, learners explore the inventions brought to us by the one and only, Thomas Edison, and imagine a day without them. Scholars take part in a grand conversation and write a...

To prepare for a reading of Christopher E. Crowe's Mississippi Trial, 1955, class members create a KWHL chart and begin by generating questions they have about the civil rights movement, slavery, and the death of Emmett...

The reading of a contextual essay launches a study of Black Americans who served in Congress from 1870 through 1887. Young historians identify the African Americans who served during this period, investigate the ways they won national...

The opening chapters of Mark Twain's masterpiece, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, can be daunting for some readers. A reader's theater assignment divides the second chapter of the novel into a seven-role script, allowing...

What is stereotyping, and how do we handle stereotyping in our daily interactions? Your young historians will not only have the opportunity to learn about the first African American woman to publish a short story–Frances Ellen...

Is it easy to find a job I'll love? Show scholars the importance of understanding the labor market with part three in a five-part series of career and college readiness lesson plans. After learning important vocabulary, learners track...

If it's on the Internet, it must be true—right? How can someone tell if a website contains less-than-truthful information? Savvy surfers evaluate sources in the fifth of a six-part college and career readiness instructional activity...

Learn more about the history and five pillars of Islam with an extensive resource that focuses on the religion's connection to art. Focusing on calligraphy, textiles, and architecture, the packet illustrates the beauty of the artistic...

Prepare your class for a unit on Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles with an activity that works for pre-reading, during reading, and post-reading. Learners fill out a K-W-H-L chart to reflect on what they already know, what...

Encourage your learners to examine the setting in Theodore Taylor's The Cay. Pupils work in small groups to put together a description of the setting before reading two more chapters of the book. They use their double-entry journals to...

Where to begin? With the vocational education that provides the skills necessary to gain economic security or with a Liberal Arts education? As part of a study of leaders of the civil rights movement, class members compare and...

Class members use the think-pair-share strategy to compare the views of W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington and to consider how each man's backgrounds influenced his philosophy.

As part of the introduction to Edward Bloor's Tangerine, class members generate a KWHL chart listing what they know, what they want find out, how they plan to find this information, and what they have learned or still want to learn.

In a hands-on learning activity, pupils read about and recreate the experience of Harriet Jacobs, author of one of the most famous slave narratives of all time in which she describes her years of hiding from her master in a confined...

Drag queens in thigh-high shiny red leather boots! Welcome to Kinky Boots, the Tony Award-winning musical about a young man trying to save his family-owned shoe-making business. With an engaging story line and songs by Cyndi Lauper, the...

Give youngsters the tools to approach cyberbullying and hostile language on the Internet. This lesson plan includes a variety of handouts and worksheets that will prompt discussion and inquiry with your class members around harmful...

As part of their study of the history of the Channel Islands, class members craft an informational article to post on a bulletin board that features the Chumash ancestral tradition of tomol paddling.

The industrialization and urbanization of Alabama during the New South era (1865-1914) is the focus of a lesson plan that asks class members to use primary source documents to examine the impact of industrialization on Alabama workers...

Young historians research the devastating attacks of 9/11 and use that information to script their own documentaries. The follow-up activity includes recording the documentary and conducting classmate interviews, 

Beyond reading and arithmetic, one of the most important skills for graduating seniors to have is fiscal literacy and responsibility. Start them on the right financial track with nine lessons that focus on a variety of important...