How did the English picture the native peoples of America during the early phases of colonization of North America? This lesson plan will enable students to interact with written and visual accounts of this critical formative period at the end of the 16th century, when the English view of the New World was being formulated, with consequences that we are still seeing today.
Oral History Interviews that bring students together with veterans help to foster empathy and make history come alive. This lessons offers a step-by-step guide to doing an oral history project with Vietnam War Veterans.
This lesson plan is the ninth in the “Incredible Bridges: Poets Creating Community” series. It provides a video recording of the poet, Joy Harjo, reading the poem “Remember.” The companion lesson contains a sequence of activities for use with secondary students before, during, and after reading to help them enter and experience the poem.
This lesson plan is the seventh in the “Incredible Bridges: Poets Creating Community” series. It provides a video recording of the poet, Elizabeth Alexander, reading the poem “Praise Song for the Day” composed for President Barak Obama’s 2009 inauguration ceremony. The companion lesson contains a sequence of activities for use with secondary students before, during, and after reading to help them enter and experience the poem.
In this lesson, students learn how Progressive reformers in government used the public outrage over Upton Sinclair’s book The Jungle as a catalyst for legislation. The story of how two progressives, Theodore Roosevelt and Harvey W. Wiley, worked together within the federal government is not as well-known as the role played by Sinclair’s The Jungle, but it provides the needed historical and political context for the passage of both the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act in June 1906 which are considered the high point of Progressive era legislation.
In this lesson, students continue their examination of Tocqueville’s argument about the power of the majority and its consequences. Having suggested previously that the majority can crush a minority without even hearing its screams, he elaborates on the dangers of unchecked and unlimited power in democratic America and how to deal with it.
The treaty of peace ending the Spanish-American War resulted in the United States obtaining the Philippine Islands from Spain. Despite intense political opposition to the acquisition of the islands, the U.S. Senate ratified the treaty. The political impact of anti-imperialist arguments, the difficult experience of suppressing native Filipino resistance, and the lack of attractive opportunities for further territorial expansion, all effectively stalled the American imperialist/expansionist movement.
After analyzing photojournalist James Karales's iconic photograph of the march, reading background material on it, and considering what the marchers might have thought and felt, students write and illustrate a postcard describing this civil rights event from a marcher's viewpoint.
This lesson introduces students to American colonial life and has them compare the daily life and culture of two different colonies in the late 1700s. Students study artifacts of the thirteen original British colonies and write letters between fictitious cousins in Massachusetts and Delaware.