Complex, disturbing, and challenging, Beloved is the focus of a lesson that provides three activities to guide a close reading of Toni Morrison's novel. Readers create chapter titles based on key plot elements or themes,...

To conclude a study of One Hundred Years of Solitude, class members analyze Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Nobel Prize in Literature acceptance speech. After a whole-class discussion of the main ideas in the speech, individuals draft a...

National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman's "The Hill We Climb," featured at the 2021 inauguration of President Joseph Biden, is the focus of a six-page guide. The guide includes before reading, during reading, and after reading...

Ethics, emotion, reason—scholars investigate advertisers' persuasive techniques to attract buyers. After examining the techniques used in infomercials, writers craft a persuasive essay on a topic of their choice.

Scholars, high schoolers, class members! With the help of this lesson, you too can identify the three persuasive appeals (ethos, pathos, and logos) the characters in William Shakespeare's tragedy Julius Caesar used to convince...

Young orators demonstrate what they have learned about persuasion and persuasive devices throughout the unit by analyzing a persuasive speech and then crafting their persuasive essays. Class members engage in a role-play exercise, use...

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech provides the text for a activity that introduces scholars to the significance of syntax. After examining several types of clauses, phrases, and structures, class members use the...

Young historians watch a video of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivering his "I Have a Dream" speech and answer questions that test their knowledge of the event. After discussing the fact sheet, they reread the speech, select a phrase or...

Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is, among other things, the study of a ruler's ambitions. Young scholars watch videos, read articles, and keep a Commonplace Book while studying the play. At the end of Act III, pupils stage the play that...

In "How We Researched and Wrote this Book," the final essay in Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science, authors Aronson and Budhos discuss their research methods and purpose in writing the text....

Learners analyze slavery and its effects on humanity using Frederick Douglass' autobiography. For this slavery instructional activity, students analyze instances of reality and romanticized myth using a slave narrative. Learners explore...

High schoolers use the Internet to read a brief description of Magna Carta (link provided). They "walk through" the document with the teacher, identifying four major themes. Students read and discuss "The Rhetoric of Rights: Americans...

Franklin D. Roosevelt's April 14, 1938 Fireside Chat on economic conditions provides young historians an opportunity to polish their primary source comprehension skills. A great resource to add to you curriculum library.

A respected source of local and global news, you can trust this app to provide breaking stories and current events. The interface is highly visual and easy to navigate.

Talk about a timely resource! As part of a series of primary source exercises, individuals read and respond to questions about Theodore Roosevelt's "The Square Deal" speech. Roosevelt reminds us of what our social system should be.

"Equal opportunity . . . is not enough." Johnson's 1965 commencement address to the students at Howard University provides an opportunity for participants to see how education was a key element in his vision for civil rights.

Young historians will learn not to fear primary source materials (or fear itself, for that matter) thanks to this resource that uses Franklin D. Roosevelt's March 4, 1933 Inaugural Address to model how to conduct a close reading of such...

Although Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X both work for equal rights, social change, and political empowerment, their approaches were radically different. To better understand these contrasts, class members compare King's "I...

The United States—specifically John F. Kennedy—played a large role during the Cuban Missile Crisis. A history resource poses questions that encourage critical thinking as well as in-depth analysis of images from the time period.

"Much has been given us, and much will rightfully be expected from us." As part of a series of worksheets that provide readers with an opportunity to develop their primary source comprehension skills, kids examine an excerpt from...

Young historians examine Lyndon Johnson's vision for a rich, powerful, and upward society as detailed in this excerpt from his famous "Great Society" speech presented at the University of Michigan in 1964.

Political ads as primary source documents? But of course. Viewers analyze the strategies involved in the Republican Party's 1984 advertisement in support of Ronald Reagan's reelection. 

"I want to be the president who educated young people to the wonders of their world." Readers examine the vision Lyndon B. Johnson presented for his presidency in this excerpt from his "The American promise" message delivered to Congress...

Class members choose a current social, political, environmental, or economic problem presented in Tyson Miller's Dream of a Nation: Inspiring Ideas for a Better America, research this problem and a variety of suggested solutions, before...