Although they are a useful resource, textbooks provide students with only a terse account of facts and concepts. In contrast, historical literature allows students to experience a humanistic and detailed view of historical figures and important events. Historical fiction and nonfiction give children the opportunity to explore alternative…

The workbook is designed to accompany a textbook, "The Story of California," a Spanish-English bilingual history and geography of the state intended for classroom use by limited-English-proficient, native Spanish-speaking students in California's urban middle schools. The teacher's edition, presented here, consists of reproductions of 51…

This guide provides descriptions of the social studies courses that are offered in Florida schools for students in grades six through eight. Specifically, the guide presents broad guidelines for course content and outcomes and is intended to assist educators in developing specific instructional plans for given subject areas. The guide is designed…

The third volume of a newsletter for integrating folk music appreciation into elementary and secondary social studies, literature, and humanities courses, this publication contains three issues of the newsletter which together provide a compilation of folksongs from various historical periods and cultures. The first issue contains an article on…

This instructional media advisory list was compiled to support the teaching of U.S. founding documents in North Carolina schools. Many entries in the annotated bibliography focus directly on such works as the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, and Bill of Rights. Other items that are cited reflect contemporary applications of the…

This document describes a series of activities to teach 30 fifth grade students about history through fiction. Activities began with a prereading brainstorming session in which students came up with topics that they studied during the school year. Next, the school librarian introduced the children to the genre of historical fiction and instructed…

Designed to assist elementary school teachers, these materials present a series of lessons about the United States Constitution. Ten lesson plans and appropriate work sheets are included for grades K-3. The topics covered include the age of the Constitution, a constitutional convention, elected representatives, majority rule, voting, law making,…

Debates about how moral education ought to be provided have engaged many of the best minds in education and stirred public controversies throughout U.S. history. The vast array of European peoples who settled the American colonies brought a commitment to moral education and a variety of approaches to the task. While French and Spanish settlers…

This book, a revision and updating of a work first published under the same title in 1974, presents a detailed chronological history of African Americans in the United States. The description begins with the origins of Homo sapiens in Africa, and traces the African American story from slavery in North America through the U.S. Civil War, the…

This document consists of six lesson plans and primary source materials on the history of black people in the Illinois cities of Bloomington and Normal. The plans were developed for the Bloomington-Normal Black History Project which concentrates on recovering and recording the history of blacks in those two cities. These pilot editions are…

This document, from the lesson plan series, "Teaching with Historic Places," explores the Johnstown Flood of 1889. An introduction reviews the historical facts of the disaster that claimed over 2200 lives and produced 17 million dollars in property damage. The document sets out objectives for students and suggests teaching activities.…

This document, part of the lesson plan series, "Teaching with Historic Places," examines roadside attractions of the United States. Following introductory material the document sets out student objectives and teaching activities. Among the instructional suggestions are sections on "Setting the Stage"; "Locating the…

Intended for teachers of grades 5 and up, this unit provides 127 documents from California's history, 38 of which come from the California State Archives in Sacramento, one of the nation's largest and most sophisticated repositories for primary sources. The unit contains three elements: (1) a list of document descriptions, which includes a…

This guide is designed to introduce high school teachers of American history to the most recent scholarship dealing with the origins of the U.S. Constitution. Surveys of recent scholarship on constitutional origins are organized by the following topics: historiography of the Convention, the Anti-federalists, The Federalist Papers, ratification of…

Through the narratives of North American slaves a vivid picture of their lives, struggles, hopes, and aspirations emerges. The slave narrative arose as a response to, and a refutation of, claims that blacks could not write. Slave writings were often direct extensions of speech. Through a process of imitation and repetition, the black slave's…