Lesson Plans

119 Result(s)
Grade Range
6-8
Understanding the Salem Witch Trials

In 1691, a group of girls from Salem, Massachusetts accused an Indian slave named Tituba of witchcraft, igniting a hunt for witches that left 19 men and women hanged, one man pressed to death, and over 150 more people in prison awaiting a trial. In this lesson, students will explore the characteristics of the Puritan community in Salem, learn about the Salem Witchcraft Trials, and try to understand how and why this event occurred.

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
K-5
The Royal Art of Benin

This lesson plan introduces students to art of the West African kingdom of Benin, which flourished from the 12th or 13th to the end of the 19th centuries in what is now southern Nigeria. Students learn about how the royal power of the king of Benin was communicated through brass plaques and use symbolism to create their own paper plaques.

Grade Range
6-8
Background on the Patriot Attitude Toward the Monarchy

Understanding the Patriot attitude toward the British monarchy is helpful in understanding the Founders’ reluctance to have a strong executive under the Articles of Confederation as well as their desire to build in checks of executive power under the Constitution.

Grade Range
9-12
Magna Carta: Cornerstone of the U.S. Constitution

The Magna Carta served to lay the foundation for the evolution of parliamentary government and subsequent declarations of rights in Great Britain and the United States. In attempting to establish checks on the king's powers, this document asserted the right of "due process" of law.

Grade Range
9-12
Frontiers on the Big Screen

How does popular culture engage history? In this lesson plan, students will examine The Searchers, one of the most widely acclaimed Western movies of all time, to explore interpretations of race, gender, and family–both in the time period depicted by the film and the time period in which the film was produced.

Grade Range
9-12
Hammurabi's Code: What Does It Tell Us About Old Babylonia?

King Hammurabi ruled Babylon, located along the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, from 1792–1750 BCE however, today he is most famous for a series of judgments inscribed on a large stone stele and dubbed Hammurabi's Code. In this lesson students will learn about the contents of the Code, and what it tells us about life in Babylonia in the 18th century BCE.

Grade Range
9-12
"Common Sense": The Rhetoric of Popular Democracy

This lesson looks at Thomas Paine and at some of the ideas presented in his pamphlet, "Common Sense," such as national unity, natural rights, the illegitimacy of the monarchy and of hereditary aristocracy, and the necessity for independence and the revolutionary struggle.