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Unit Plan
Core Knowledge Foundation

The Civil War

For Teachers 5th Standards
A unit covers many aspects of the Civil War. Over six weeks, fifth graders delve deep into the history of slavery, the Civil War—before, during, and after—Abraham Lincoln, women's contributions, the Emancipation Proclamation, and...
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eBook
Core Knowledge Foundation

The Civil War

For Students 3rd - 8th Standards
A student reader shares information about the history of slavery, the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln, women's contributions to the war, the Emancipation Proclamation, and reconstruction.
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Lesson Plan
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Learning for Justice

The Color of Law: Winners and Losers in the Job Market

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
The second lesson in "The Color of Law" shows how government policies supported economic inequality. Scholars read additional excerpts and respond to text-dependent questions from "The Color of Law" text, examine primary source documents...
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Lesson Plan
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Facing History and Ourselves

The Legacies of Reconstruction

For Teachers 9th - 12th
The final lesson in the seven-resource Reconstruction Era collection examines the legacies of Reconstruction. Class members investigate why the period has been called an "unfinished revolution," "a splendid failure," and "the second...
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Lesson Plan
Digital Public Library of America

Teaching Guide: Exploring To Kill a Mockingbird

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, considered by many to be a seminal piece of American literature, contains many complex literary themes that carry through United States history. Use a series of discussion questions and classroom...
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Lesson Plan
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Center for History and New Media

Growing Up in a Segregated Society, 1880s–1930s

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
What did segregation look like in the beginning of the 20th century? Middle and high schoolers view images of segregated areas, read passages by Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois, and come to conclusions about how the influence of...
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Lesson Plan
Alabama Department of Archives and History

Alabama Tenant Farmers and Sharecroppers, 1865 to Present

For Teachers 11th - 12th Standards
The tenant farming and sharecropping systems that developed in the South after the Civil War, the reasons for their development, and the eventual decline of these systems are the focus of this two-day plan.
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Lesson Plan
Alabama Department of Archives and History

African American Life After the Civil War - Sharecropping

For Teachers 4th - 5th Standards
What is the sharecropping system? What role did it play in the post-Civil War economy of the South? Who were the sharecroppers? Who employed them? How were they paid? To answer these questions, kids examine a series of sharecropper...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

The Sharecrop System , Yesterday and Today

For Teachers 11th
Eleventh graders are able to define sharecropping, wage labor and labor gangs. They identify races and economic classes of people involved in sharecropping. Students determine the economic and physical geographic circumstances that led...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Mexican-American Life in Texas

For Teachers 6th
Sixth graders examine the development of cotton farms in Texas and the use of Mexican-Americans as a labor force. They examine pictures of life on cotton farms and draw pictures of themselves performing one of their own daily chores. ...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Reconstruction

For Teachers 6th - 10th
Students describe the period of Reconstruction. Then students describe the concept of sharecropping. They complete a vocabulary prediction confirmation activity for the vocabulary words from the passage.
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Unit Plan
Bullock Texas State History Museum

Bullock Museum: Chapter Eight: Civil War to Centennial [Pdf]

For Teachers 4th - 8th
A teacher guide designed to support a visit to the Bullock Museum, but can be used on its own using available resources. Includes information, discussion questions, activities, and worksheets. This module looks at Texas from the time of...
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Website
PBS

Pbs: Slave to Sharecropper

For Students 9th - 10th
This collection of resources examines the life and work of freed slaves after the Civil War. Includes questions and answers on sharecropping in the American South, as well as a personal account from a former slave who became a sharecropper.
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Website
Other

University of Western Georgia: Reconstruction in the South

For Students 9th - 10th
An excellent distillation of the many issues addressed in the Reconstruction period in the South in the twelve years after the end of the Civil War.
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eBook
OpenStax

Open Stax: The Collapse of Reconstruction

For Students 11th - 12th
This section from a chapter on "The Era of Reconstruction" explains the reasons for the collapse of Reconstruction and describes the efforts of white southern "redeemers" to roll back the gains of Reconstruction.
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Lesson Plan
Stanford University

Sheg: Document Based History: Reading Like a Historian: Sharecropping

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
[Free Registration/Login Required] Learners solve a problem surrounding a historical question by reading primary source documents. This historical inquiry instructional activity allows students to critically evaluate their classroom...
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Primary
University of Illinois

University of Illinois: Modern American Poetry: A Photo Dossier on Sharecropping

For Students 9th - 10th
Photographs from the 1930s of both black and white sharecroppers, with some accompanying explanation.
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Website
Digital History

Digital History: From Slave Labor to Free Labor

For Students 9th - 10th
The most difficult task confronting many Southerners during Reconstruction was devising a new system of labor to replace the shattered world of slavery. Learn how plantation owners and freed slaves adapted to this massive shift in the...
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Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Reconstruction: African American Identity: 1865 1917

For Students 9th - 10th
An interview, government reports, two paintings, and a work song that explore the constraints placed upon African American freedom in the late-nineteenth century as a result of reconstruction.
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Handout
George Mason University

Chnm: The Sea Islands: An Experiment in Land Redistribution

For Students 9th - 10th
Tells about the Special Field Order #15 and the purpose of Sherman's order to provide land for freedmen. From the Center for History and New Media.
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Handout
Georgia Humanities Council and the University of Georgia Press.

New Georgia Encyclopedia: Reconstruction in Georgia

For Students 9th - 10th
After the Civil War ended, Georgia was in a state of chaos. Learn all about the Reconstruction in Georgia from 1865-1871 and how it changed the state politically, socially, and economically.
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Handout
Georgia Humanities Council and the University of Georgia Press.

New Georgia Encyclopedia: Sharecropping

For Students 9th - 10th
Features a detailed discussion of sharecropping, a labor system that developed in Georgia after the Civil War in which workers raised crops for someone else in exchange for a share of the crop.
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Handout
Khan Academy

Khan Academy: Ap Us History: 1865 1898: After the Civil War: The New South

For Students 9th - 10th
After the Civil War, there was some impetus to modernize the South's economy to make it more industrialized and less agrarian. It never gained traction while sharecropping and tenant farming did, ensuring the persistence of rural...
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Unit Plan
CommonLit

Common Lit: Text Sets: Reconstruction to Jim Crow

For Students 9th - 10th
After the Civil War and end of slavery, Americans had to decide how to integrate freed African Americans. Learn about the lives of African Americans from Reconstruction to the end of the prejudiced Jim Crow era. This collection includes...