Benjamin Franklin was the only man to help shape all the major documents that established the United States. Young scholars will review those documents and match the correct document to its description. Upon completion, students will...

View George Washington's annotated draft of the Constitution while discussing the ratification process. Specifically, the young scholars will analyze changes to the Preamble of the Constitution. Critical thinking questions are provided.

Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark to explore the land annexed in the Louisiana Purchase knowing that his area was already inhabited and politically complicated. Students will explore documents related to the purchase and use the map to...

Was the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo a fair compromise to end the Mexican-American War? Students will dissect sections of the treaty to summarize and formulate a conclusion to that question.

Students will review the Amistad case and use passages from the case explore the concept of jurisdiction and how a case travels through the federal court system. Also, included are links to the background of the Amistad case, a...

The Dred Scott case decided that African Americans were not citizens of the United States. However, 18 years later they would have citizenship and many other rights. Learners will examine the following documents to understand how and why...

Upon being freed, the formerly enslaved people had many challenges to overcome. The Freedmen's Bureau was established to assist the newly free people. Students will examine the following documents and formulate an opinion about the...

"Will you please let me know if I am free?" wrote Annie Davis. Annie Davis was a slave who wrote this letter to President Lincoln 20 months after the Emancipation Proclamation. To understand her confusion, examine the following documents...

What would your life be like if you had to always be running from people who wanted to capture you and make you their slave? The following documents tell the story of William and Ellen Craft who fled from slavery in 1848. View the...

Learners will surmise what life was like for soldiers fighting in the Civil War by viewing photographs from that time period. Students will answer questions in small groups and reconvene for a whole class discussion.

Should Reconstruction be viewed as a revolution or not? Using primary source documents, students can weigh the evidence and come up with their conclusion. This lesson can be used as a whole class, small group, or individual activity.

This is a continuation of part 1 of the lesson "To What Extent was Reconstruction a Revolution?". Students will study the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to see if their opinion changes from the previous lesson. Included are whole class...

Was prohibition necessary to protect family values or was it an over-reach by the government? Young scholars will debate this question while analyzing documents from this era. Documents include political cartoon, photos, letters from...

The passage of the 15th Amendment sparked the Women's Suffrage Movement. Students will analyze documents pertaining to the Suffrage Movement such as letters from prominent suffragists, anti-suffrage postcards, photos from parades, and...

How have Amercian's views on immigration changed over the course American history? What causes the shifts in acceptance? Students will view documents spanning the 19th and 20th century to answer those questions. They will examine...

African Americans were not able to take advantage of the booming industries as Americans were mobilizing for WWII. The FEPC was established to make sure Roosevelt's executive order providing for equal opportunities in defense industries...

Students will look at documents and cases throughout American history to understand the effects of the First Amendment on our nation.

How can you actually bring history to life? Here are some tools from the National Archives that allow students to create their own projects using primary-source based activities that develop historical thinking skills. Special historical...

Unlock the digital vault in the U.S. National Archives' collections. Once inside this portal, use visual resources to make archival connections, view related teacher resources, or simply follow the interconnected pathways of historical...

This activity can be used during a unit on the U.S. Constitution. Students will analyze the Senate Journal of the First Congress and identify how the document demonstrates content contained within Article II of the Constitution in...

What if you lived in the colonies during in the years preceding the Revolution? Would you be a loyalist or join the Sons of Liberty? Students will analyze a picture of a tax collector being tarred and feathered and answer critical...

Use this lesson in the middle of a Revolutionary War unit. Students will analyze sections of the Declaration of Independence to answer critical thinking questions. Upon completion of the unit, students will reevaluate their responses to...

Solomon Northup was a free man of color who was sold into slavery. Learners will read excerpts from his autobiography and analyze documents based on his life. These documents included slave manifests and census documents.

Increasing pressures on the Union army led to the recruitment of African Americans to fight in the Civil War. Middle schoolers will analyze the following recruitment poster for freed slaves and decide how important the black soldiers...