Heritage: Seeking Land or Gold

Designed for Hard Gold, a novel in Avi's I Witness series, this teaching guide includes a summary of the story and information about the writer as well as chapter-by-chapter vocabulary lists, text-based reading questions, activities,...

When Christopher Columbus landed, he found many things to comment on. Have your class read this letter that he wrote to Luis de Sant Angel in 1493. The text is split up into sections. Each section is paired with two to three...

What were the driving forces behind American expansion in the nineteenth century, and what were its effects? Scholars watch a video, read biographies, engage in discussion, write journals and poetry, draw, and create a multimedia...

This is a fantastic resource designed for learners to envision what it was like for the three million African-Americans who migrated to urban industrial centers of the northern United States between 1910 and 1940. After reading a...

Help writers recognize how word order affects meaning, discover new words, and confirm or check meaning writing. They will explore how punctuation helps a reader understand what is written and the connections between punctuation,...

Students examine art of the California Gold Rush. In this visual arts lesson, students analyze the photography and art of Isaac Wallace Baker. Students also conduct further research about the miners of the era in order to create...

What is family? Challenge your scholars to write an encompassing definition of what this word means to them. After reading "It May Be a Family Matter, But Just Try to Define Family," class members discuss the emotional issues surrounding...

Analyze various excerpts from Hamlet and read articles to develop an argument about his sanity. Middle and high schoolers write an argument essay defending whether or not they believe Hamlet is insane. You could modify this assignment...

Students discuss the importance of land ownership and the purpose of land surveying in the eighteenth century. They interpret a transcript of an eighteenth-century land survey. They survey and area of land. They create a written or...

Students, in groups, work together to develop a five-paragraph essay that defends the group's viewpoint on an assigned topic. Each student in the group writes one paragraph.