"Native American history leaps boldly off the colorful quilts and patchwork designs." Learners discuss Native American identity and symbolism by reading about a variety of Native quilters and their unique art process, and participate in...

How do you rebuild a language that has been banned for years? A short video introduces high schoolers to Marie Wilcox, A Wukchumni Native American from Central California who, for over 20 years, worked on comprising a dictionary of the...

Young learners discover how the Sioux and Assiniboine tribes preserved native culture through the making of traditional dresses, identifying the resources used to make the dresses and discussing behind the meaning behind some...

How did the founding of the American colonies lead to a revolution? Use the essential question and sample activities to guide learners through a series of history lessons. Additionally, the packet includes effective strategies to...

The Navajo people build their dwellings with the doors facing the rising sun in the east to welcome wealth and fortune. Pupils learn about the traditions of the Navajo people in the first part of a 16-part unit. They explore American...

How do nineteenth-century texts by African American and Native American writers contribute to the country's ideals of freedom and individuality? Learners explore the topic by watching and discussing a video, reading biographies, writing...

Discover how writers express identity in their writing. Learners explore how issues of identity surface in the literature of minority writers. Scholars watch a video, read and discuss biographies, conduct research, engage in creative...

Scholars learn all about the Puritans in the third installment of a 16-part lesson series. After watching a video, they read and discuss biographies of Puritans and Quakers from American history, write journal entries and poetry, and...

A film showcases a Native American woman and her hard work to create a dictionary detailing her tribe's language. While viewing, scholars reflect upon and discuss the importance of language and sustaining cultural identity. 

The attitudes of European settlers toward the American wilderness, as reflected in art and literature, is the focus of this resource packet designed for teachers. Included in the unit overview you will find lists or paintings and...

Celebration or protest song? The full text of Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" opens a study of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the Louisiana Purchase, and Western Expansion from various perspectives. Middle schoolers examine...

What does a true American represent? Scholars investigate the equal rights era of the 1960s and 1970s in the 20th installment of a 22-part series on American history. Using photographic, magazine, written, and video evidence, groups...

What were the driving forces behind American expansion in the nineteenth century, and what were its effects? Scholars watch a video, read biographies, engage in discussion, write journals and poetry, draw, and create a multimedia...

"What's in a name?" Is it irrelevant, as Juliet suggests in Shakespeare's play, or is nomenclature deeply significant? Young scholars weigh in on the debate by examining the controversy over the NFL's Washington, D.C. Redskins. Groups...

Middle schoolers consider languages as representations of cultures and the importance of preserving various languages, especially the rapidly disappearing languages of indigenous peoples, in a lesson that tells the story of Marie Wilcox...