Focused Learning Lesson: American History

Researchers combine music, narration, photos, and text to form a presentation for their classmates about a time period in American History. Proper research and documentation techniques are emphasized. The lesson, created by Apple...

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...

Prepare your class for a unit on A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines with an excellent set of materials. The first lesson of ten comes with an audio guide about the work as well as an interview of Gaines in a 30-minute video. Young...

Can you boil the historical, cultural, and political events and movements from the last 150 years into a descriptive study guide? You don't have to—it's right here! A thorough resource includes informative text, discussion questions,...

Is the modern American identity an outgrowth of European civilization, or is it a unique result of westward expansion? Frederick Jackson Turner's The Significance of the Frontier in American History raises an important question about the...

Complete with territory maps, photos, and interesting anecdotes, this video covers the major events of American History, roughly from 1754 to 1865. Plymouth and Jamestown are mentioned in the beginning of the video, but the speaker...

Groups of high school learners conduct research on a particular era of African-American history, focusing on events, people, and places important to that era. Next, they review children's literature in four different genres. As a...

Just exactly what is social dancing? What does social dancing have to do with the African American community and African American history? The narrator of this short video explains how social dancing can support the culture of a...

Students describe issues or problems facing African Americans following Reconstruction. They explain possible solutions to these problems suggested in the sources you find, and cite arguments for and against these solutions.

Lynchings, race riots, and Jim Crow laws were just a few examples of antagonism that African Americans faced after Emancipation. Class groups investigate these and other events, and prepare a presentation to inform the class about the...