Walt Whitman's poem "As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days" offers scholars an opportunity to practice their noticing skills. They first examine a postcard of the Newport News Shipyard listing things they notice about the image and how...

Walt Whitman's "O Captain! My Captain!" is one of the most famous and emotional tributes to Abraham Lincoln. Guide readers through the evocative elegy with a reading comprehension worksheet, complete with the poem's text and a...

To begin a study of Walt Whitman's poem, "Election Day, November 1884," learners first call out a word or two that describes their reaction to the recent presidential election. They then read an encyclopedia entry about the Presidential...

Can you love something so much you want to change it? Young patriots investigate Walt Whitman's love of America—and his suggestions to improve it—using primary sources as well as video evidence. Scholars research American issues of the...

Explore the idea of democratic poetry. Upper graders read Walt Whitman, examining daguerreotypes, and compare Whitman to Langston Hughes. They describe aspects of Whitman's I Hear America Singing to Langston Hughes' Let America Be...

Who was Walt Whitman, and what link does he have to president Abraham Lincoln?  After Lincoln's assassination, Whitman wrote "O Captain! My Captain!" This poem and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" are the focus of...

Pair the famous poems "I Hear America Singing," by Walt Whitman, and "I, Too, Sing America," by Langston Hughes, with a more recent poem by Elizabeth Alexander called "Praise Song for the Day" to demonstrate a theme and introduce your...

Students determine if Lincoln and Whitman ever met and write a dialogue between the two men. In this Whitman and Lincoln lesson, students read Whitman's poem "Beat! Beat! Drums!" and connect it to the events of Lincoln's presidency....

Pupils study transportation in mid-19th-century Brooklyn. They look at several photographs of Brooklyn transport from the era and read Walt Whitman's poem "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry." In addition to making critical observations and...

What were the driving forces behind American expansion in the nineteenth century, and what were its effects? Scholars watch a video, read biographies, engage in discussion, write journals and poetry, draw, and create a multimedia...

Students examine the United States at the turn of the century. Using primary source documents, they interpret them within a specific historical context. Using this information, they write a poem with metaphors and a specific meter They...

An engaging biography of "Hoosier" poet James Whitcomb Riley serves as a springboard for study of his unique dialect-based verse. Several activities illuminate differences between spoken vernacular and formal language. Learners record...

Students examine poems dealing with Veteran's Day or Memorial Day. They discuss America's involvement in wars and if anyone in their family has served in the military. They write their own poems and share them with the class.

What do Jerry Yang, Patrick Ewing, John Muir, Charlize Theron, Peter Jennings, and Saint Frances X Cabrini all have in common? They are all immigrants to the United States. Famous and not-so-famous immigrants are the focus of a resource...

Students explore the accomplishments of famous New Yorkers in the 19th century. In small groups, students read biographies and match them with a corresponding primary source document. The group that is most accurate in matching the...

Whitman's poem celebrating the integrity and industry of the masses within a democratic culture.

A poem by Walt Whitman, "Song of the Exhibition," and the on-line catalog of the 1876 Philadelphia Exposition that celebrate the growth, power, and expansion of the nation.

The arts blossomed in the Gilded Age, aided by the wealth of the business tycoons. Read about the artists who flourished at the time, along with the realism in literature that ranged from poetry to novels.