Curated OER
1900 America: Primary Sources and Epic Poetry
Using Walt Whitman's Song of Myself and Hart Crane's The Bridge as models, class groups first craft their own epic poems for 1900 and, using primary sources, create a multi-media presentation that captures the sights and sounds of life...
Curated OER
Primary Sources
Materials provided by The Lower East Side Tenement Museum, located in New York City, offer researchers an opportunity to examine primary sources and use these sources to understand the past. Class groups analyze different documents to...
Historic New Orleans Collection
Exploring Primary Sources: Music in New Orleans
Looking for a new and exciting way to teach young historians the art of primary source analysis? Jazz up your lesson with a resource that asks class members to analyze photos, travel documents, and letters written by some of New Orleans'...
PBS
Primary Source Set: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
What did Jo write her stories with? How did the March sisters dress? A primary source set designed for Louisa May Alcott's Little Women prompts learners to look over images of household items and clothes from the 1860s before engaging in...
Digital Public Library of America
Teaching Guide: Exploring Little Women
Louisa May Alcott's Little Women is a literary masterpiece as well as a timestamp of the formative mid-nineteenth century in America. Using a primary source set of photographs, letters, and portraits, readers discuss the ways...
Library of Congress
The Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance brought forth many American art forms including jazz, and the writings of Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes. Using a carefully curated set of documents from the Library of Congress, pupils see the cultural...
Digital Public Library of America
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the focus of a teaching guide that introduces readers to some of the many controversies surrounding the use of the novel in classrooms. The packet includes 15 primary source excerpts and...
Curated OER
Old Hobbits Are Hard to Break
Explore film adaptation of literature with this activity, which focuses on the world of film advertisements. Middle schoolers discuss various films (including The Lord of the Rings) and create advertisements for a pretend film based on a...
Digital Public Library of America
The Poetry of Emily Dickinson
Are you contemplating a poetry study featuring Emily Dickinson? Finding good primary sources to accompany the study can be a challenge—never fear, help is here! Check out this primary source set that includes manuscripts of several of...
Digital Public Library of America
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their eyes Were Watching God has been highly praised and severely criticized for its depiction of African American folk culture. A set of primary source materials, including photographs, articles, essays, and...
Curated OER
The Great Gatsby: Primary Sources from the Roaring Twenties
Students research the Roaring Twenties. In this 1920's America lesson, students analyze primary sources to develop an understanding of lifestyles and values of the era as they read F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.
Curated OER
The Dust Bowl
Use this presentation to discuss the causes and effects of The Dust Bowl, or to establish a historical context for the book, The Grapes of Wrath. Found here are images, eye-witness quotes, and some ideas as to the causes and effects of...
Curated OER
Chaucer: Text and Contexts
Compare the Wife of Bath's text to the biblical verses she references. Much of Chaucer's Wife of Bath's words are direct reflections of bible verses; this presentation matches the Old English to the biblical references and helps explain...
Digital Public Library of America
The Watsons Go To Birmingham—1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis
A primary source set of photographs, videos, newspaper articles, and FBI reports provides insight into race relations during the 1960s, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing, and the murder of Emmitt Till. Designed to be used to...
Santa Ana Unified School District
Lord of the Flies Unit
How does a society influence and shape individuals? Class members ponder this essential question as they read Lord of the Flies, as well as primary source materials about the historical background of the novel. As a final assessment,...
Santa Ana Unified School District
The Giver
Wouldn't it be great to live an a community without pain, without danger? Such a society is the goal of the community in The Giver. Using Lois Lowry's dystopian novel as the core text, class members read primary source materials about...
Curated OER
Indian Removal: Does History Always Reflect progress?
Students explore the idea that progress for some might not mean progress for all. In this Native American lesson, students recognize different viewpoints about historical events through the study of primary documents. Students decipher...
Green Hope High School
Close Readings from The Tempest + New World Readings
What was Shakespeare's intent? That is the question at the heart of a summer assignment designed for AP English Literature. Class members focus on five scenes from The Tempest and compare the interactions of Prospero, Caliban, and...
We are Teachers
Read Like a Detective
Encourage your young readers to become true detectives in their next literary adventure! Here you'll find an attractive display that will prompt your learners to constantly be looking for clues, asking questions, making cases about the...
Digital Public Library of America
Teaching Guide: Exploring To Kill a Mockingbird
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...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Frederick Douglass’s Narrative: Myth of the Happy Slave
The firsthand accounts of what it was like to be an enslaved person in the mid-1800s riveted a nation and the issue ultimately led to civil war. Using excerpts from Frederick Douglass's autobiography, budding historians examine what it...
Academy of American Poets
Teach This Poem: "Black Laws" by Roger Reeves
After investigating the Black Lives Matter movement, class members do a close read of Roger Reeves' "Black Laws." They write down words and phrases that rhyme, consider the kinds of rhymes used and their function in the poem. Scholars...
Simon & Schuster
Curriculum Guide to: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
A Tale of Two Cities is the core text for five lessons in a Curriculum Guide for Charles Dickens' famous novel. To begin, scholars examine Dickens' use of anaphora in the first line of the novel. Next, they compare the point of view in a...
Captioned Media
Creating Dramatic Monologues from The Grapes of Wrath
Set in Oklahoma in the 1930s, The Grapes of Wrath presents a powerful view of life during the Great Depression. An insightful lesson plan takes a closer look at the characters in John Steinbeck's classic novel, combining the descriptions...