This lesson focuses on The Great Gatsby and its portrayal of the disintegration of the American Dream. It features a student response question asking students to consider their own American Dream and a link to a Great Gatsby Treasure...

This is a collection of five videos of Novel Reflections on the American Dream including Fitzgerald's Gatsby, Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath," Ann Petry's "The Street," and Gish Jen's "Traditional American."

Read inspiring quotes from famous Americans about how they perceive the concept of the "American Dream."

Learn how Jim Crow laws impacted home ownership and the pursuit of the American Dream in this series of videos from the American Masters film, Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart. Lorraine Hansberry's family was at the...

This unique online lesson explores the term "The American Dream," and applies it to Hansberry's play "A Raisin in the Sun." Students define what they believe is "The American Dream," and then modify that belief based on a thorough study...

Using music, video and readings, students will explore their views of the American Dream, and use this information to create "Animoto" videos that express a personal opinion or take on the dream. Students will develop and support their...

Analyze the argument in articles about the American dream.

This is an introduction to Act I of "A Raisin in the Sun" by Lorraine Hansberry which focuses on "how the social, educational, and political climate of the 1950s affected African Americans' quest for 'The American Dream.'" It features...

With the help of digitized primary documents -- pictures, photograph, recordings, and written accounts -- students will explore and define what the "American Dream" meant for people over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth...

Students learn about the American Dream through various texts. They explore how foundational American literature treats the topic and consider different perspectives.

A learning module that begins with "American Dream Faces Harsh New Reality" by Ari Shapiro, accompanied by guided reading questions, assessment questions, and discussion questions. The text can be printed as a PDF or assigned online...

Information and analysis on the central concerns, characteristics, and distinguishing features of American literature, presented in timeline format. With synopses of classic works, biographical sketches, overviews of literary movements,...

Use quotes from people in 1965 to talk about culture, the 1960s, and the American Dream. Students write about them and discuss their ideas in groups. The quotes are included on a handout, and there is a link that explains who said each...

Looks at the policies of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, both at home and abroad. Also examines changing gender roles in the 1950s, and the impact of suburbanization on America.

Has the American Dream become jaded? Has it turned into a materialistic nightmare? The New American Dream center has information to keep the Dream alive and healthy.

Read personal dreams for America's future, and share one of your own. Hundreds of dreams from across the country and around the world, all in hope for a better tomorrow.

Includes facts on Social Security, its history, problems, and possible solutions for the program.

This site provides a wealth of information about the American songwriter, Stephen Foster. This link leads you to the biographical information which is divided into five sections: beginnings, his life's work, the legend, the problems, and...

Use Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech to talk about the American Dream, word choice, and persuasion.

PBS American Portrait is a national storytelling project that invites individuals to participate in a conversation about what it really means to be an American today. To answer this question, PBS and its partners are collecting photos,...

This lesson focuses on Native American myths including the creation myth "The Earth on Turtle's Back." It includes links to the above myth, a self-assessment quiz, and an assignment for a mini-report over a Native American tribe.

Five primary source materials on African American history: I Have a Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr., My Bondage and Freedom by Frederick Douglass, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth, The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois, Up From...

Discover the African American Culture and share the information through these lessons with your students. Choose from several different lesson plans and grade levels to help students learn about the African American Culture.

[Free Registration/Login Required] This is a film guide for the film West Side Story (1961), the musical adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, which is set in 1950s New York and incorporates themes around street crime,...