The television and interstate highways both came of age in 1950s America. Scholars use film, text, and discussion to explore how these and other cultural icons shaped the literature of the time. Pupils also create a family history...

For many people, Barack Obama's presidency was the next step in Martin Luther King, Jr's dream of America's future. Explore the dreams of Americans past and present, as well as the young Americans in your class, with a set of activities...

Cover the 1980s in your class with a brief informational text and seven related questions. The one-page reading passage includes general information about jobs and skills, population patterns, and the AIDS epidemic. 

How do you talk about things that have already happened? What about things that happened in the past and are still happening? Explore past, past perfect, and past progressive verb tenses in a helpful slideshow presentation.

Looks at what life was like for women in 1950s America. Examines the tension between the expectations of conformity and domesticity and an emerging discontent as many women chose to continue working after World War II. Meanwhile, African...

Looks at the paranoia of the 1950s when Americans lived in fear of communism. The House Committee on Un-American Activities created blacklists of people working in Hollywood, McCarthyism flourished, and the Rosenberg couple were tried...

This is an informational article about how Martin Luther King Jr. worked toward changing America in the 1950s and 1960s. It includes a short bio of Dr. King and a reading purpose: As you read, take notes on the problems that African...

Selected (7) reading passages (grades 8-10) to pair with the drama "A Raisin in the Sun" by Lorraine Hansberry. When a struggling African-American family receives a large insurance check, a conflict erupts on how to spend the money....

Looks at the nuclear arms race in the 1950s as the United States and the USSR both stockpiled nuclear weapons. Includes 1951 propaganda video showing schoolchildren how to 'Duck and Cover' in the event of a nuclear attack. [9:15]

Looks at the USSR's launch of Sputnik and the galvanizing effect it had on America's motivation to fund aerospace research. NASA was soon formed and more funding was put in place for public education in the sciences and math.

Discusses the domestic and foreign policies of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

This extensive learning module examines the United States' response to the global uncertainty and instability that followed World War II and the ways that marginalized groups challenged discrimination, and the counter-responses to their...

Describes the main events of the Korean War.