Lesson Plans

This lesson helps students "hear" some of the diverse colonial voices that, in the course of time and under the pressure of novel ideas and events, contributed to the American Revolution. Students analyze a variety of primary documents illustrating the diversity of religious, political, social, and economic motives behind competing perspectives on questions of independence and rebellion.

In this lesson students will examine the various visions of three active agents in the creation and management of Great Britain’s empire in North America: British colonial leaders and administrators, North American British colonists, and Native Americans.

Through their interpretation of primary documents that reflect Victorian ideals, students can learn the cultural expectations for and limitations placed on Victorian women and then contemplate the writer Charlotte Brontë's position in that context. Then, through an examination of the opening chapters of Jane Eyre, students will evaluate Jane's status as an unconventional Victorian heroine.

Why was the Emancipation Proclamation important? While the Civil War began as a war to restore the Union, not to end slavery, by 1862 President Abraham Lincoln came to believe that he could save the Union only by broadening the goals of the war. Students can explore the obstacles and alternatives America faced in making the journey toward "a more perfect Union."

This lesson plan explores the controversy surrounding "Kennewick Man," the name given to a skeleton discovered near Kennewick, Washington, in July 1996.

Using primary documents, this lesson explores how religion aided and hindered the American war effort; specifically, it explores how Anglican loyalists and Quaker pacifists responded to the outbreak of hostilities and how the American revolutionaries enlisted religion in support of the fight for independence.

Students analyze archival material such as photos, documents, and posters, to understand the who was involved in constructing, and the lasting phenomenon of, the Transcontinental Railroad.

Students research archival material to examine nineteenth and early twentieth century arguments for and against women's suffrage.

This lesson examines the ways in which Great Britain and France countries challenged American neutrality during the Thomas Jefferson administration.

This lesson plan will survey the nature of what Winston Churchill called the Grand Alliance between the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union in opposition to the aggression of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.