This resource describes two primary sources that can be used in courses such as World History, African History, and the Atlantic World. 

This activity was produced in conjunction with The Library of Congress and the TPS at Metropolitan State University of Denver. This activity will allow learners toinvestigate and explain how different groups of people were treated in the past, and the ways in which that treatment changed over timeidentify injustice in multiple formsidentify ways in which groups become marginalizedThis lesson leads students through several major events in the history of the Cheyenne & Arapaho tribes, and asks that they use primary source documents to describe the ways in which the treatment and perception of the tribes changed over time in southern Colorado.

This workshop includes historical context, digitized primary sources, and follow-up discussion questions. Students are asked to make arguments for and against providing funding to programs and projects proposed to the Commonwealth Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. Taking on the role of program officers during the Cold War and working in small groups, students will read primary sources and articulate why a foundation should or should not provide funding to these proposed ideas. As a whole group, the studentswill participate in a debate as to which of the proposed ideas would be the most effective tool for furthering American Cold War interests. Students are encouraged to use this workshop as a springboard for further research into the role foundations played during the Cold War.

Docs Teach is the online tool for teaching with documents, from the National Archives.
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This resource is a collection of slides used to teach a unit on frontier and westward expansion. The slide deck contains a variety of lessons that focus on different primary sources including American Progress by John Gast. 

This resource is a document based activity that consists of eight primary sources related to the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The assignment asks students to consider how the trans-Atlantic slave trade impacted African civilizations using primary sources.  

This resource is a document based activity that consists of eight primary sources related to the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The assignment asks students to consider how the trans-Atlantic slave trade impacted African civilizations using primary sources.  

This resource is a document based activity that consists of eight primary sources related to the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The assignment asks students to consider how the trans-Atlantic slave trade impacted African civilizations using primary sources.  

Suggestions for unit or lesson plans that can be incorporated into social studies, history, and other middle- and high-school courses with a civic component. The suggestions are focused on the selection and close reading of sources, and aimed at encouraging students to think about why sources are valid and relevant, as well as how to use them as they think about and discuss civic issues.

The Beneath An Unknown Sky companion curriculum consists of six lesson plans designed for eighth through twelfth grades . Each lesson plan is inspired by monologues from the film and utilizes primary source materials to add historical context to the events and characters depicted in the film. Special attention is paid to developing historical research skills by asking the students to identify, analyze and evaluate primary sources, review secondary source material, transcribe primary source documents, design an oral history project, and to complete short research projects. The topics covered in the lesson plans include but are not limited to the following: the experience of Freedmen in the Mississippi Delta, Reconstruction, the Freedmen’s Bureau, Mississippi “Black codes”, Women’s history, the Reconstruction Amendments, Voting Rights, the Mississippi Constitution of 1868, Black political office holders from Mississippi, and the Mississippi Plan. The curriculum is intended to be flexible in its approach to better meet the needs of educators. The curriculum along with the film will be made available to educators as a free, open-source resource. Educators can use the curriculum in its entirety or can pick and choose between the lesson plans to fit the scope and time constraints of their individual classrooms.

The Beneath An Unknown Sky companion curriculum consists of six lesson plans designed for eighth through twelfth grades . Each lesson plan is inspired by monologues from the film and utilizes primary source materials to add historical context to the events and characters depicted in the film. Special attention is paid to developing historical research skills by asking the students to identify, analyze and evaluate primary sources, review secondary source material, transcribe primary source documents, design an oral history project, and to complete short research projects. The topics covered in the lesson plans include but are not limited to the following: the experience of Freedmen in the Mississippi Delta, Reconstruction, the Freedmen’s Bureau, Mississippi “Black codes”, Women’s history, the Reconstruction Amendments, Voting Rights, the Mississippi Constitution of 1868, Black political office holders from Mississippi, and the Mississippi Plan. The curriculum is intended to be flexible in its approach to better meet the needs of educators. The curriculum along with the film will be made available to educators as a free, open-source resource. Educators can use the curriculum in its entirety or can pick and choose between the lesson plans to fit the scope and time constraints of their individual classrooms.

The Beneath An Unknown Sky companion curriculum consists of six lesson plans designed for eighth through twelfth grades . Each lesson plan is inspired by monologues from the film and utilizes primary source materials to add historical context to the events and characters depicted in the film. Special attention is paid to developing historical research skills by asking the students to identify, analyze and evaluate primary sources, review secondary source material, transcribe primary source documents, design an oral history project, and to complete short research projects. The topics covered in the lesson plans include but are not limited to the following: the experience of Freedmen in the Mississippi Delta, Reconstruction, the Freedmen’s Bureau, Mississippi “Black codes”, Women’s history, the Reconstruction Amendments, Voting Rights, the Mississippi Constitution of 1868, Black political office holders from Mississippi, and the Mississippi Plan. The curriculum is intended to be flexible in its approach to better meet the needs of educators. The curriculum along with the film will be made available to educators as a free, open-source resource. Educators can use the curriculum in its entirety or can pick and choose between the lesson plans to fit the scope and time constraints of their individual classrooms.

Using the C3 Inquiry Design Model format, high school social studies and English students learn to understand lynching in Virginia in the Jim Crow South and discuss ways of taking informed action to move towards racial healing. Each inquiry is supported by the Virginia Standards of Learning and the Common Core Standards and is expected to take three-four 50-minute class periods. The inquiry time frame can expand if teachers think their students need additional instructional experiences (e.g., historical context, formative performance tasks, featured sources, writing, etc.). Teachers are encouraged to adjust the inquiry to meet the needs and interests of their students and school/community contexts. The inquiries lend themselves to differentiation and modeling of historical thinking skills while assisting students in reading a wide variety of sources and writing in a wide variety of genres.Use the next button or the drop down menu to navigate between pages. Please note, Social studies lessons are found at the bottom of page 2 and English lesson are found at the bottom of page 3.  For more information and/or access to the primary sources used in the lesson plans, please visit the Racial Terror: Lynching in Virginia website.

The primary sources in this set can
be used for inquiry-based learning exercises
and projects. Each document falls under the
umbrella topic of voter education, and students
are encouraged to annotate in the margins in order
to support the development of document analysis
and critical thinking skills. Suggested projects that
make use of this set’s primary sources are also
included for the educator as a springboard for
research-based projects.

The following unit offers multiple entry points into developing an understanding of media literacy. The unit framework and primary sources can be integrated into classrooms of grades 4-12. Each lesson has student objectives that can be accomplished within 40 minute periods over the course of several weeks. A midpoint writing assessment, whole class capstone debate, and final independent writing assessment are included. Support materials are integrated into the lessons, and the primary source document pages can be found at the end of the unit guide.

This article summarizes inquiry-based approaches to the use of the U.S. Census Records to teach historical thinking. These suggestions focus on the analysis of primary source documents found in the Census archive, the contextualization of these documents with evidence, and the use of questioning to drive research.