Lesson Plans

318 Result(s)
Grade Range
6-12
Primary and Secondary Sources: Foundations of Historical Research

In this lesson plan, students will learn how to distinguish between primary and secondary sources and how to use them for historical research. The central type of primary sources used in this lesson plan are fugitive slave advertisements: short, concise, detailed, and engaging primary sources that convey the history of slavery and freedom seeking in striking terms.

Grade Range
K-5
Folktales and Ecology: Animals and Humans in Cooperation and Conflict

The study of humans and animals in cooperation and conflict within folktales from different cultures lends itself to a simple lesson on ecology and endangered species to help students can make connections between the relationships between human beings and animals in folklore and the relationship between people and the environment in our world.

Grade Range
K-5
Morality “Tales” East and West: European Fables and Buddhist Jataka Tales

Fables, such as those attributed to Aesop, are short narratives populated by animals who behave like humans, and which convey lessons to the listener. Jataka Tales are often short narratives which tell the stories of the lives of the Buddha before he reached Enlightenment. In this lesson students will be introduced to both Aesop’s fables and to a few of the Jataka Tales, and through these stories will gain an understanding of one genre of storytelling: morality tales.

Grade Range
9-12
Lesson 2: Responding to Emily Dickinson: Poetic Analysis

In this lesson, students will explore Dickinson’s poem “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers” both as it was published as well as how it developed through Dickinson’s correspondence with her sister-in-law Susan Huntington Gilbert Dickinson.

Grade Range
9-12
Lesson 3: Emulating Emily Dickinson: Poetry Writing

In this lesson, students closely examine Dickinson’s poem “There’s a certain slant of light” in order to understand her craft. Students explore different components of Dickinson’s poetry and then practice their own critical and poetry writing skills in an emulation exercise. Finally, in the spirit of Dickinson’s correspondences, students will exchange their poems and offer informed critiques of each others’ work.

Grade Range
9-12
Lesson 2: The Realism in Magical Realism

In this triumph of magical realism, One Hundred Years of Solitude chronicles a century of the remarkable Buendía family’s history in the fictional Colombian town of Macondo. The three lessons presented here explore the fantastic elements of this imaginary world, the real history that lies behind them, and García Márquez’s own philosophical musings on writing about Latin America.

Grade Range
9-12
Lesson 1: How "Grand" and "Allied" was the Grand Alliance?

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.

Grade Range
9-12
John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, and Judicial Review

If James Madison was the "father" of the Constitution," John Marshall was the "father of the Supreme Court"—almost single-handedly clarifying its powers. This new lesson is designed to help students understand Marshall's brilliant strategy in issuing his decision on Marbury v. Madison, the significance of the concept of judicial review, and the language of this watershed case.

Grade Range
6-12
Chronicling and Mapping the Women's Suffrage Movement

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.