Students will explore two NCSS Notable Trade Books and a newspaper advertisement to develop an understanding of what life was like for slaves in the nineteenth century. Students will use their understanding to write a narrative story about being a slave in the nineteenth century. Students will use the website MyStorybook to create and publish their stories. This lesson was created in partnership with the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

The realities of slavery and Reconstruction hit home in poignant oral histories from the Library of Congress. In these activities, students research narratives from the Federal Writers' Project and describe the lives of former African slaves in the U.S. -- both before and after emancipation. From varied stories, students sample the breadth of individual experiences, make generalizations about the effects of slavery and Reconstruction on African Americans, and evaluate primary source documents.

In this activity students compare an excerpt of a WPA interview with an ex-slave with a more famous statement by Frederick Douglass to arrive at their own interpretations of slave resistance. This lesson is designed to work with the film Doing As They Can, but parts of it can be completed without the film.

In this activity, students analyze documents to arrange events on a timeline of women's suffrage. The timeline and documents will help students understand the intersection of social movements and constitutional change. This activity can be modified by reducing the number of documents. An optional Smartboard Notebook file is included to facilitate the activity.

This collection uses primary sources to explore social realism in American art. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

In this activity students explore how Progressive Era reforms did not apply universally, but rather varied depending on issues like race and class. Students watch the 30-minute filmHeaven Will Protect the Working Girland read an article that explains tensions among immigrants and African Americans in the Progressive Era.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the history of Spanish missions in California. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This exhibition explores the Gold Rush—a group of related gold rushes to Western territories in the second half of the nineteenth century—and its impact on American history and culture. Catalyzed by the discovery of gold the Sierra Nevada in 1848, gold fever would persist for decades, attracting migrants looking to stake their claims to increasingly northern and eastern destinations—from the Rocky Mountains in present-day Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana to the Yukon Territory and present-day Alaska by the 1890s. This exhibition was created as part of the DPLA’s Digital Curation Program by the following students as part of Professor Krystyna Matusiak's course "Digital Libraries" in the Library and Information Science program at the University of Denver: Heidi Buljung, Chelsea Condren, Rachel Garfield-Levine, Sarah Martinez, Liz Slaymaker-Miller, Chet Rebman, and Brittany Robinson.

This is a Teacher's Guide for The State We're In Washington: Your guide to state, tribal and local government. These quides are developed by members of the Washington State Social Studies Cadre.

Chapter 2 of the State We're In: Washington explores the design of today's democracy. The resources here may be implemented separately or together to guide students toward a deeper understanding of the content therein and to develop important social studies skills.

This is a Teacher's Guide for The State We're In Washington: Your guide to state, tribal and local government. These quides are developed by members of the Washington State Social Studies Cadre.

Chapter 4 focuses on the significant amount of change the state of Washington experienced from 1900 to 2000. The resources here may be implemented separately or together to guide students toward a deeper understanding of the content therein and to develop important social studies skills.

While the French had kept their end of the bargain by completing the statue itself, the Americans had still not fulfilled their commitment to erect a pedestal. In this lesson, students learn about the effort to convince a skeptical American public to contribute to the effort to erect a pedestal and to bring the Statue of Liberty to New York.

Help clarify the nature of symbols for your students as they study the Statue of Liberty, complete research on a national symbol, and use their research to communicate a message of their own.

In this activity, students develop Common Core reading skills (eg. citing textual evidence, determining the central ideas, and determining meaning of words and phrases) through a study of the history of the second amendment to the U.S. Constitution and its significance today. First, students work independently, with some class discussion, to complete a close reading of the second amendment text and related primary and secondary documents. Then, students work in groups to prepare a presidential candidate for a debate in which he/she must defend a particular position, or claim, about the meaning of the second amendment and constitutionality of gun regulation.

The federal judiciary, which includes the Supreme Court as well as the district and circuit courts, is one of three branches of the federal government. This lesson provides an introduction to the Supreme Court.

This lesson will focus on American symbols. Students will identify American symbols and explain how they represent the United States of America. Symbols include the Liberty Bell, Bald Eagle, Statue of Liberty, United States Flag, Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial. Students will work in pairs and conduct research about American symbols and create a digital story about a symbol of their choosing. This lesson was created as part of a collaboration between Alabama Technology in Motion and ALEX.

Was the American Revolution inevitable? This lesson is designed to help students understand the transition to armed resistance and the contradiction in the Americans' rhetoric about slavery through the examination of a series of documents. While it is designed to be conducted over a several-day period, teachers with time constraints can choose to utilize only one of the documents to illustrate the patriots' responses to the actions of the British.

This chart presents historical thinking questions, historical thinking skills, and Common Core reading and writing skills that teachers should consider when planning activities and tasks for students in grades 11 and 12.

This chart presents historical thinking questions, historical thinking skills, and Common Core reading and writing skills that teachers should consider when planning activities and tasks for students in grades 9 and 10.

This chart presents historical thinking questions, historical thinking skills, and Common Core reading and writing skills that teachers should consider when planning activities and tasks for students in grades 6, 7, and 8.