Curated OER
Understanding the Influence of the Media
Critically analyze advertising techniques, such as circular reasoning, bandwagon, testimonial, and repetition, with worksheets that effectively discuss and illustrate how the media aims to influence.
National Park Service
The Power of Remembrance
On every July 4th, we watch fireworks and celebrate our independence, but how is the history of the American Revolution preserved? Four social studies lesson guide learners through different memorials, commemorative objects, and restored...
Stanford University
What Is History?
Five important tenets of any social studies class are available for young historians with a poster that defines history as an account of the past. It encourages learners to question reliability of an author's perspective, as well as...
PBS
Democracy in Action: Freedom Riders
This is a must-have resource for every social studies teacher covering the civil rights movement. Through an engaging video and detailed viewing guide, young historians learn about the Freedom Riders, and discover how everyday...
Social Skills Central
Photo Cartoons: How To Give A Compliment
Help learners develop the ability to offer appropriate, meaningful compliments to others—an essential social skill. Here you'll find a quick photo cartoon illustrating a right and wrong way to give a compliment, as well as a brief...
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Youth and Tobacco Use
There are a number of social, emotional, and physiological reasons why teenagers start smoking, and why they continue smoking into adulthood. Help class members understand why smoking begins in youth—and how to protect themselves from...
National Park Service
Making Choices
What factors go into a decision to enter a war? Use a collection of primary source documents and images to prompt a discussion about the American Revolution and the reasons for entering a war against Britain.
Penguin Books
Up Close: Ella Fitzgerald
A reading of Tanya Lee Stones' biography of Ella Fitzgerald lets middle schoolers get up close and personal with the First Lady of Jazz. Stone recounts details of Fitzgerald's life from her early days through her experiences as a teenage...
Center for Civic Education
Ronald Reagan and Executive Power
Article II of the United States Constitution grants Presidents executive powers in areas of international conflict, domestic and foreign policy. Using examples drawn from Ronald Reagan's presidency, class members are asked to consider...
Civil War Trust
Civil War Personalities Lesson Plan
Caring, trustworthiness, and responsibility—these are only a few character traits in focus of a lesson based on stories from the Civil War era. Class members explore several influential lives while reading biographies that highlight...
Conneticut Department of Education
Instructional Strategies That Facilitate Learning Across Content Areas
Imagine 28 instructional strategies, appropriate for all subject areas and all grade levels. Directed Reading-Thinking Activities (DRTA), Question-Answer Relationship (QAR) activities, KWL charts, comparison matrixes, classification...
Museum of Tolerance
Cultural Research Activity
Class members explore cultural diversity through a variety of texts that showcase the importance of traditions. Then, they interview their family members to research their own cultural background and write their findings on quilt...
Wyatt Bingham
Comparative Essay: Tips for Timed Writing
This site provides a guideline for writing a comparative essay for the AP World History Test. It also provides practice exercises and samples.
Museum of Tolerance
Family Tree Activity
Discover the family histories that make the classroom with a family tree activity. Scholars locate information about their family, construct a family tree, and work together to tally where family members are born.
Middle Tennessee State University
Fights, Freedom, and Fraud: Voting Rights in the Reconstruction Era
As part of a study of post Civil War era, young historians investigate the changes in voting rights during the Reconstruction Era (1863-1876), the fraud involved in the Hayes-Tilden presidential election of 1876, and efforts by Pap...
PBS
The Diary of Anne Frank
While designed to supplement a viewing of the PBS Masterpiece Classic The Diary of Anne Frank, this resource can also serve as an excellent informational text and activity source for your students on the historical context and timeline...
ISTE
The New Digital Citizenship
Boost digital citizenship with an engaging infographic that promotes the importance of being a positive digital agent, self, and interactor.
Other
Small Planet: Social Darwinism,reason or Rationalization?
This site clearly explains the concept of Social Darwinism, then asks students to evaluate its implications in an example. Good lesson in critical thinking and philosophy.
Other
In Time: Tenets of Democracy: Critical Thinking and Decision Making
This critical thinking exercise and checklist is designed for teachers and students. A lesson plan can be developed here that illustrates decision-making skills and a teacher can use examples of common problems that get in the way when...
City University of New York
Postmodernism and Critical Theory
Explanation of Postmodernism as a theory of study. Rather intellectual.
PBS
Pbs: The American Novel: Literary Timeline: Authors: Ayn Rand
Brief biography of American author and social critic Ann Rand, including personal history and information on her literary career.
The History Cat
The History Cat: The New Deal
Discusses Franklin D. Roosevelt's First and Second New Deals and the different programs that got people back to work and put food on their tables. Looks at the successes and failures of these programs and the criticisms leveled at...
PBS
Pbs: The American Novel: Literary Timeline: Authors: James Fenimore Cooper
Brief biography of American novelist and social critic James Fenimore Cooper.
University of California
Ucla: Cultural Studies, and Multiculturalism
In the last third of this professor's article from UCLA dealing with how media culture helps to "forge our very identities," he considers MTV as a way of making cultural studies "multiperspectival" and therefore more varied and valid.