Students research the Internet, read designated books and selection, participate in discussions and write short reports while completing this series of lessons about slavery and the Underground Railroad. As a final project, they design a...

Parades are a great way to celebrate. Get young historians into the festivities by asking them to create an informational float for a Freedom Parade. Picking a topic from the provided list or suggesting one of their own, class members...

Helpful for an American literature or history unit, this instructional activity prompts middle schoolers to examine slavery in the United States. They read slave narratives that were part of the Federal Writers' Project and then conduct...

Who bears the most responsibility for ensuring that goods are ethically produced? Using evidence drawn from Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science, the unit's central text, and from the...

Young historians trace the roots of African slavery and learn about the causes and effects of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade through a PowerPoint presentation and by reading and discussing excerpts from the book Copper Sun.

Class members examine the images Arson and Budhos use to depict the working conditions on the sugar plantations and consider how these images support the arguments the writers present in Sugar Changed the World.

As first-year students continue to investigate how sugar changed the world, the focus shifts to a consideration of why people with limited job options take on dangerous or subjugating work. Class members read an opinion piece by Nicholas...

Students analyze primary sources on slavery from Kansas Territory. In this Civil War instructional activity, students evaluate the antislavery and pro-slavery arguments and summarize key points. Students write a persuasive paper from the...

Learners discover how to use primary and secondary sources in research. In this Civil War lesson, students conduct research on slavery as they distinguish between primary and secondary sources regarding the same events.

Learners access oral histories that contain slave narratives from the Library of Congress. They describe the lives of former slaves, sample varied individual experiences and make generalizations about their research in journal entries.

What a wonderful way to follow up on the reading of, Roll of Thunder Hear Me Cry! The lesson has pupils split up into small groups of two to four students. Each group must work collaboratively to create a multimedia project that relates...

Students study the state of the world before the slave trade. They explain the geography and economics of the slave trade. They explore primary sources and how historians use these sources to create historical interpretations.

The 20th century saw many new possibilities open up to women in America, thanks to many well-known female historical figures — and some women who are not as famous but who are equally accomplished. Learn about the women who contributed...

Learners examine the experience of the middle passage of slaves. They review slave songs and discuss their common themes. They develop a monologue in which they integrate a fragment of an actual slave song into a poem they have written.

Hook your learners with a great project. They research the underground railroad and civil rights movement through literature, view the video The Underground Railroad: Escape from Slavery, and read the book House of Dies Drear in...

Students examine how African Americans escaping slavery used storytelling to communicate. They listen to and read the lyrics for the song, Follow the Drinking Gourd, view the Reading Rainbow video, and write and illustrate their own story.

Students read slave narratives and retell the stories to the class, identifying sensory details. In this slavery lesson, students discuss the importance of sensory details, then read the slave narratives looking for specific examples. ...

Fifth graders examine the manufacturing of cotton. In this cotton and slavery lesson, 5th graders review background information about cotton and slavery. Students examine a real cotton ball and discuss why it was painful to pick....

Thomas Jefferson is one of the most recognized names and faces in America—but is there more to the third president of the United States? Upper elementary and middle schoolers conduct research on Jefferson, his famous home at Monticello,...

Students explore the history of slavery. In this slavery lesson, students take a closer look at slavery in the Americas and the abolitionist movement as they visit the suggested museums and their websites.

Eighth graders use first-hand slave narratives that show conditions of slavery. They paste text into Appleworks and publish with a picture clipped from web sites. They create a group account of life during slavery to prepare for reading...

Students investigate the Presidential history of Abraham Lincoln by completing a multimedia project.  For this U.S. politics lesson, students examine the image of Lincoln on a penny and work in groups to research Lincoln's life...

Second graders discover that people can connect the dots of the stars to make pictures in the sky and have been doing so for thousands of years. They understand that throughout the United States people worked together to plan an escape...

Students examine slavery and the civil war by creating a research project.  In this underground railroad activity, students create a KWL chart and decide on one of several creative projects they will complete about slavery....