Lesson Plans

This lesson plan highlights the story of Harry Washington, a man formerly enslaved by George Washington. In a game of revealing mystery, students work intimately with a host of primary sources including maps, letters, ship manifests, and settlement records to develop a timeline of Harry’s life from enslavement to liberation.

In this lesson about Galileo, students test the arguments on both sides of the case that shook the foundations of faith and science.

Students examine pictures of household objects from the late 20th century, gather historical information about them from older family members, and then create an in-class exhibit of historical objects from their own homes.

In this lesson, students examine the contrasting view of two free black men in nineteenth century America abolitionist David Walker and black nationalist John Day. After reviewing background information and primary sources about the two polices, students will argue for or against the most beneficial policy for nineteenth-century African Americans.

Students develop a foundation on which to understand the basic disagreements between North and South.

Students listen to a biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., view photographs of the March on Washington, and study King's use of imagery and allusion in his "I Have a Dream" speech.

This lesson plan introduces students to allegory in the visual arts through the works of a number of well-known artists, including Thomas Cole and Caravaggio.

This lesson brings together digital mapping and the Chronicling America newspaper database as part of an inquiry into how and where the women’s suffrage movement took place in the United States. Primary source newspaper articles published between 1911-1920 and maps from 1918-1920 are used to prompt student research into how women organized, the type of elections that women could participate in, and the extent to which the 19th Amendment transformed voting rights in the U.S.

Students will learn what a symbol is, and how this particular symbol—the American flag—is an important part of our everyday lives.

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.