Activity
Read Works

Read Works: Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans Cuzco: City of Gold

For Teachers 4th - 6th
[Free Registration/Login Required] This nonfiction passage describes the ancient city of Cuzco, the center of activity during the Inca Empire. This passage reinforces essential reading comprehension skills. Opportunities for vocabulary...
Unit Plan
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Power: Taming the Octopus: The Image of the Octopus

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Six versions of the octopus, a pervasive image in late-nineteenth-century America, that illustrate the extensive and corrosive power held by corporations over American political and economic life. Reading guide with discussion questions.
Website
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Power: Taming the Octopus: The Octopus in the West

For Teachers 9th - 10th
A reading guide and discussion questions for Frank Norris' novel, "The Octopus," which outlines the unbridled power of the American railroads.
Unit Plan
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Assimilation and the Crucible of the City: Reading Guide to Yerzierska

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Two short stories from Polish immigrant, Anzia Yerzierska, about the challenges of Americanization that immigrants faced in the early-twentieth century. Includes questions for discussion.
Graphic
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University

Depaul University: Center for Urban Education: Evaluate Decisions [Pdf]

For Students 5th - 9th
A nonfiction graphic organizer is available to help students evaluate decisions of people. Students will analyze how characters interact and develop throughout the course of a nonfiction text.
Graphic
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University

Depaul University: Center for Urban Education: Evaluate Information [Pdf]

For Students 5th - 9th Standards
Links to graphic organizers, provided in English and Spanish, are provided to assist students as they work with nonfiction information. A nonfiction graphic organizer is available to help students evaluate decisions of people. Another...
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Reading Guide: Elizabeth Cady Stanton: "Seneca Falls Address"

For Students 9th - 10th
A powerful call for women's rights, particularly for suffrage, expressed in the "Declaration of Sentiments" and issued at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Includes discussion questions.
Unit Plan
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Assimilation and the Crucible of the City: Reading Guide: Two Stories

For Teachers 9th - 10th
An excerpt from Abraham Cahan's novel, "Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto," and Charles Chesnutt's short story, "The Wife of His Youth," that describe challenges of assimilation into American culture for both European immigrants and...
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Reading Guide: Henry David Thoreau, "Walden"

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Thoreau offers in this excerpt from Walden the Transcendentalist observation that each human must search for religious meaning within himself and not as a quest to glorify God.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Reading Guide: John C. Calhoun

For Teachers 9th - 10th
An essay by the South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun, outlining his belief in a "concurrent majority" and the power of individual majority groups to determine whether to follow a particular law that had been passed.
Website
Reading Rockets

Reading Rockets: Help Your Kids Do Great in School

For Teachers Pre-K - 1st
This article focuses on how parents can be more involved in their child's education. Teachers will benefit from this informative article and can pass it along to parent's as a valuable resource.
Website
Reading Rockets

Reading Rockets: Help Your Kids Do Great in School

For Teachers Pre-K - 1st
This article focuses on how parents can be more involved in their child's education. Teachers will benefit from this informative article and can pass it along to parent's as a valuable resource.
Article
Khan Academy

Khan Academy: Buddhist Monasteries

For Students 9th - 10th
The monastery typically becomes the spiritual focus of the nearest town or village. In early Buddhism, monastic complexes were created for the monks close enough to a town in order to receive alms or charity from the villagers, but far...
Unit Plan
CommonLit

Common Lit: u.s. Attacked; Hijacked Jets Destroy Twin Towers and Hit Pentagon

For Students 7th - 8th
In this article, N.R. Kleinfield reports on the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The article focuses on the destruction of the World Trade Center's Twin Towers in New York City after they were hit by two hijacked passenger jets....
Unit Plan
Department of Defense

Do Dea: Time

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
In this self-guided unit, you will be working with literature which is centered on the themes of past, present and future. You will experience several different literary perceptions of the past and the future by reading ancient...