Lesson Plans

325 Result(s)
Grade Range
K-5
Music from Across America

Students examine and listen to a variety of forms of music to learn about the cultural, geographic, and stylistic diversity available within the United States.

Grade Range
9-12
In Her Shoes: Lois Weber and the Female Filmmakers Who Shaped Early Hollywood

Introduce students to the work of women filmmakers in early Hollywood with this comprehensive lesson plan developed by the American Film Institute. This curriculum has three objectives: for students to develop research skills by using the AFI catalog and other online databases; for students to critically analyze the film “Shoes” by Lois Weber (1916); and for students to explore the important role that women played in the development of the motion picture industry. 

Grade Range
9-12
Walt Whitman's Notebooks and Poetry: The Sweep of the Universe

Clues to Walt Whitman's effort to create a new and distinctly American form of verse may be found in his Notebooks, now available online from the American Memory Collection.  In an entry to be examined in this lesson, Whitman indicated that he wanted his poetry to explore important ideas of a universal scope (as in the European tradition), but in authentic American situations and settings using specific details with direct appeal to the senses.

Grade Range
9-12
Learning the Blues

Take a virtual field trip to Memphis, Tennessee, and explore the history of the blues.

Grade Range
6-12
Washington and the Whiskey Rebellion

Students weigh the choices Washington faced in the nation’s first Constitutional crisis by following events through his private diary.

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
6-8
Lesson 3: A Debate Against Slavery

Sometimes, people will fight to keep someone else from being treated poorly. Disagreement over slavery was central to the conflict between the North and the South. The nation was deeply divided.

Grade Range
9-12
Lincoln Goes to War

Relive the decisions that led to the attack on Fort Sumter to determine whether Lincoln aimed to preserve peace or provoke the hostilities that led to the Civil War.

Grade Range
6-12
Lesson 1: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nonviolent Resistance

By examining King's famous essay in defense of nonviolent protest, along with two significant criticisms of his direct action campaign, this lesson will help students assess various alternatives for securing civil rights for black Americans in a self-governing society.