Maryland Department of Education
Our Children Can Soar
Amazing efforts of African American leaders are celebrated in a lesson on civil participation. The engaging resource focuses on primary and secondary sources to analyze the impact of African American leaders such as Ella Fitzgerald....
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My Story and History: Peeking into the Past with Paintings
Consider how you can use a visual source, such as a painting, to learn about a historical time or event. Young learners discuss primary sources and how they differ from secondary sources, then analyze the painting Mother and Child by...
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Comparing Visual Interpretations and Actual Events: War & Battle
A Venn Diagram is used to compare artistic and historical representations of a single event. Young analysts view the provided images, read textbook descriptions, and discuss the validity of each representation in terms of bias and...
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Primary Sources and Protagonists: A Native American Literature Unit
Introduce your middle schoolers to the lives of past Native Americans. First, learners work together to put photographs in a sequence. Then, using their sequence, they create stories to share with the whole class. No matter how old your...
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Real-Life History: Looking at Our Community
Spend several days with your class exploring local history. Learners brainstorm and categorize sources of historical information as primary or secondary; collect and present artifacts from family/community; construct a definition of...
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Critical Reading, Imaginative Writing and the Montage
Students discuss the difference between primary and secondary sources and consider how an exhibit is researched. They design and create a montage that reflects themselves in a social and historical context.
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Be a Sourceerer's Apprentice
High schoolers examine and discuss various primary and secondary sources. They bring in an example of a primary source, explain how it is a primary source, and complete a worksheet about interviewing a primary source.
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Light and Shadow
Students compare and draw items with shading based on where a light source is in relation to the object.
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Hernando De Soto's Trip Through South Carolina
Fourth graders become familiar with the explorations of Hernando DeSoto. In this DeSoto lesson, 4th graders recognize the routes and territories of DeSoto's explorations. Students use primary and secondary sources and research to answer...
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Water: A Source of Life and Culture
Students explore water as a feature of culture. In this visual arts instructional activity, students consider the necessity of water in every culture. Students select water symbols and use their artistic skills to create water symbol...
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Sources of Information
Students review information from a previous lesson about JFK and his assassination. As a class, they identify sources they believe historians use and describe the difference between a primary and secondary source. In groups, they...
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Crossing the Delaware with Historic, Cultural, and Personal Interpretations
Sixth graders discover the importance of information sources by researching the United States History. In this research gathering instructional activity, 6th graders examine a historical painting of George Washington and analyze...
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People and Places
Fifth graders investigate how the geography of the land effected the human experience of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. They research using primary and secondary sources, design a map.
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Feminism Does Not Have to be an F-Word
Students analyze social activism messages in music. For this feminism lesson, students explore selected music that expresses sentiments voiced in the women liberation movement in the United States. Students compare the lyrics of the...
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Red is the Word!
Through the use of stories, artwork, and the KidPix program, youngsters explore the color word red, and engage in activities around the word. Teaching kindergartners about the color words can be so much fun. This could be adapted for any...
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Pioneering Children on the Move
Students inquire about life for pioneer children. In this pioneer period lesson, students analyze photographs of children, make information foldables, and create a covered wagon that was typical of the ones of the past. Students will...
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Black Kentuckians and the Civil War
Students demonstrate how the American Civil War affected black Kentuckians socially and politically. They identify and discuss the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which forced the end of slavery in Kentucky months after the...
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Lincoln's Legend and Legacy
Students evaluate Lincoln's impact on American History. In this Civil War lesson, students view a film clip of writings about Lincoln. Students take notes and compare how the writings define his legacy. Students write their own poem or...
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Historians Interpret Sources
Students read excerpts from the historian Conover Hunt writing about John F. Kennedy and from primary source documents using the handout: Historical Sources and Historians. Students discuss and identify source types, evaluate sources,...
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African American Life in the Pee Dee Before the Civil War
Third graders examine the life of the African American in the Pee Dee region during slavery. In this slavery lesson, 3rd graders explore primary and secondary documents related to the topic and create a timeline of when slavery...
K20 LEARN
Diversity Quilt: A Lesson on Culture
After brainstorming the various aspects of cultural identity, class members interview each other, examine video clips, and read stories to discover how these aspects reveal one's cultural identity. Individuals then craft a quilt square...
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A Presidential Portrait: Andrew Jackson
Eighth graders examine the role of intended meaning in Ralph Earl's portrait of Andrew Jackson. They, in groups, research periods in Jackson's life and use gathered information to create their own portraits of Jackson.
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Shakespeare: Standing on the Bookshelves of Giant
A phenomenal lesson on Shakespeare! Middle and high school learners create WebQuests about the texts and authors that Shakespeare himself studied when he was in grammar school. They use a variety of media in order to create dramatic...
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Real-Life History
Students collect artifacts which are part of their family/community history. They gather at home and share in the classroom at a specified time when extra care and supervision might be provided.