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.
This lesson plan highlights the importance of First Amendment rights by examining Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms painting series. Students discover the First Amendment in action as they explore their own community and country through newspapers, art, and role playing.
American foreign resonates with the debate over U.S. entry into the League of Nations-collective security versus national sovereignty, idealism versus pragmatism, the responsibilities of powerful nations, the use of force to accomplish idealistic goals, the idea of America. Understanding the debate over the League and the consequences of its failure provides insight into international affairs in the years since the Great War and beyond. In this lesson, students read the words and listen to the voices of some central participants in the debate over the League of Nations.
Using the life of Davy Crockett as a model, students learn the characteristics of tall tales and how these stories reflect their historical moment. The lesson culminates with students writing a tall tale of their own.
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.
In this lesson, students learn the craft of screenwriting, engage in historical research to learn how filmmakers combine scholarship and imagination to bring historical figures to life, and reflect on how cinematic storytelling can shape our view of the past.
Explore the ways in which First Ladies were able to influence the country while dealing with the expectations placed on them as women and as partners of powerful men.
To appreciate some of the extra-literary elements of a play, students pause at various intervals in their study of Thornton Wilder's Our Town to develop their own settings, characters, and conflicts.
Through these lessons, students learn to identify and describe the various roles and responsibilities of the President of the United States and their own roles as citizens of a democracy.
In this lesson, students will explore the role of the individual in the modern world by closely reading and analyzing T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”
