An American Ballad - Lesson 1

What were the conditions that led to the American Revolution? What are the conditions that lead to revolution in other times and places? Class members examine primary source materials and use evidence drawn from these documents to craft...

To launch a unit study of the concept of diversity in World Literature, class members compare Chinua Achebe's essay, "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness" and Richard Rodriguez's essay, "The Chinese in All of Us: A...

Is there such a thing as fate/luck? Can one fight destiny? As part of their study of Chinua Achebe's purpose in writing Things Fall Apart, class members answer these questions from Achebe's point of view and then from William Butler...

Readers learn about sharecropping in the South in a unit about Ernest J. Gaines's A Lesson Before Dying. Focusing on the period after Civil War Reconstruction but before the Civil Rights Movement, a set of handouts help to establish the...

Kick start Black History Month with a fantastic resource that blends a study of prominent African American leaders in history with information on different religions. Beginning with a brainstorm and then leading into a collaborative...

The history of women's education can be traced back to the delicate stitching of student samplers from the 19th century. Modern-day pupils examine and analyze four primary sources, three of which are images of embroidered samplers, which...

The poems of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson are the focus of a unit that asks readers to consider how an artist's life and changes in society influences his or her work. After careful study of Whitman's and Dickinson's perspectives on...

To conclude a three-part unit that examines how different writers express their views on the American Puritan tradition, class members compare the views of Ralph Waldo Emerson as expressed in his essay on "Self-Reliance" with those...

Was the House Un-American Activities Committee justified in investigating subversive influences in the entertainment industry? Part two of the three-part series of lessons that examine the anti-communism movement after World War II,...

History sleuths read articles for and against Uncle Tom's Cabin, examine visual images, print responses, and multi-media tomitudes to better understand the impact of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel on American culture prior to the Civil...