Foreign Policy Research Institute
Comparing Regimes: Critical Reading of Memoirs and Experiences from Totalitarian Regimes
Can you imagine living in a totalitarian country? Learners will read several primary source memoirs to gain a deeper understanding of what life is like under a controlled government. They'll discuss each piece in pairs, research...
Curated OER
What is Your Story?
Pupils listen to Picnic In October and Memory Coat to explore the concept of memoirs. They interview a family member and write a personal memoir that reflects their own family history.
American Immigration Law Foundation
No Pretty Pictures
Here is a nice set of activities and discussion questions to accompany your class reading of No Pretty Pictures, a memoir of a young girl's experiences and struggle for survival during the Holocaust.
Briscoe Center for American History
Mary Maverick and Texas History - Part 1
What's the difference between a diary and a memoir? Young historians explore the ramifications of this question as they learn how to use primary source materials to gain an understanding of life on the Texas frontier.
Curated OER
Confronting Two Challenges--One Physical, One Intellectual
Students examine the challenges of a new language and culture. In this cultural lesson, student read Running by Peter Hessler and discuss obstacles faced, including the language barrier. Students write an essay about a time they...
Curated OER
How a Writer Conveys Descriptions With a Wallop Lesson 3 for Running (From River Town)
Students examine strategies an author uses to provide qualitative and quantitative aspects of life in China. They apply the strategies to their own writing.
Curated OER
How Cultures Differ - Two Different Perspectives on the Same Even
Students explore the effects of culture through the story Running by Peter Hessler. In this geography and cultural lesson, students act as newspaper reporters covering the story of the race. Students write newspaper articles as reporters...
Briscoe Center for American History
Mary Maverick and Texas History - Part 2
To conclude their investigation of the life of Mary Maverick and to demonstrate their ability to analyze primary source documents, groups use the SOAPS questioning method to examine Maverick's account of events in early Texas history.
Curated OER
The Armenian Genocide: The American Ambassador in Constantinople
Students analyze America's reaction to the Armenian Genocide. They write a journal response, read and discuss text, compare/contrast reactions around the world to the Armenian Genocide and the genocide in Rwanda, and write an essay.
Curated OER
Frontier Life Story
Students undertake a similar (but not quite as drastic) adventure as that of Frontier House as they explore the day-to-day realities of frontier life through a Laura Ingalls Wilder story, and reflect on which time period suits them...
Curated OER
Great Migration 2002
Ninth graders compose journal entries that relate to interview topics working in pairs interviewing each other. They create ten interview questions on their own as well as deliver presentations about their interviews of one another. Each...
Curated OER
Night by Elie Wiesel
Tenth graders explore WWII by reading a book with their class. In this Holocaust research lesson, 10th graders read the book Night, and discuss the horrors of the concentration camps and Nazi brutality during WWII. Students complete...