Lesson Plans

424 Result(s)
Grade Range
9-12
Lesson 2: The House Un-American Activities Committee

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union had deteriorated to the point of "cold war," while domestically the revelation that Soviet spies had infiltrated the U.S. government created a general sense of uneasiness. This lesson will examine the operations of House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in the late 1940s.

Grade Range
9-12
Man in the Middle: Thomas Day and the Free Black Experience

Thomas Day (1801–ca. 1861) was a successful free black furniture maker and businessman who stood “in the middle” of competing forces in nineteenth-century America: between black and white, slave and free, North and South, and Africa and America.

Grade Range
6-8
Lesson 1: Factory vs. Plantation in the North and South

This lesson focuses on the shift toward mass production in northern factories and on southern plantations that occurred during the first half of the 19th century. Using an economics-focused approach to examining U.S. history prior to the civil war, students examine the role of slavery, industrialization, regionalism, and political responses that ultimately led to the start of a war. 

Grade Range
K-5
Aesop and Ananse: Animal Fables and Trickster Tales

In this unit, students will become familiar with fables and trickster tales from different cultural traditions and will see how stories change when transferred orally between generations and cultures. They will learn how both types of folktales employ various animals in different ways to portray human strengths and weaknesses and to pass down wisdom from one generation to the next.

Grade Range
K-5
Where I Come From

Students take research into their heritage a step beyond the construction of a family tree, traveling through cyberspace to find our what's happening in their ancestral homelands today.

Grade Range
6-12
Afro Atlantic: Paths from Enslavement

Use Aaron Douglas’s mural Into Bondage to introduce the stories of famous Harlem Renaissance figures, including Langston Hughes, and to explore the history and importance of Juneteenth, a holiday celebrating the end of Black enslavement in the United States.  

Grade Range
6-12
Who Belongs on the Frontier: Cherokee Removal

Cherokee people faced a number of challenges to their sovereignty in the 18th and 19th centuries. In this lesson plan, students examine the geographic, political, and cultural frontiers Cherokees confronted and overcame during this time. 

Grade Range
9-12
Birth of a Nation, the NAACP, and Civil Rights

In this lesson students learn how Birth of a Nation reflected and influenced racial attitudes, and they analyze and evaluate the efforts of the NAACP to prohibit showing of the film.