The Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery is often presented as an exciting adventure story of discovery, friendship, and patriotism. However, this same period in U.S. history can be understood quite differently when viewed through an anticolonial lens and the Doctrine of Discovery. How might educators critically interrogate the assumptions that…

Learn how to design history lessons that foster students' knowledge, skills, and dispositions for civic engagement. Each section of this practical resource introduces a key element of civic engagement, such as defending the rights of others, advocating for change, taking action when problems are observed, compromising to promote reform, and…

This article presents two lessons. The first one is "Carved in Stone: The Preamble to the Constitution" by Steven S. Lapham. In 1937, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) commissioned artist Lenore Thomas to create some sculptures for the planned community of Greenbelt, Maryland. Part of her work consisted of bas-relief friezes on the…

This article describes a lesson plan that encouraged the usage of digital tools to enhance inquiry as a key tool in teaching elementary social studies. The lesson revolved around a field trip to the home of Civil War Governor Oliver P. Morton (Centerville, Indiana). The active, investigative, and questioning nature of inquiry in social studies…

This lesson plan is based on Suzanne Collins's book, "The Hunger Games." Katniss and Gale know about District 12 and the surrounding woods. Additionally, from television coverage, they know that there are twelve districts and the Capitol. District 13 used to exist until the rebellion. But where are these districts now that the geography…

Presents a lesson plan designed to make students empathize with early twentieth-century native Americans as they draft a provisional statement of goals for the nation's first secular inter-tribal native organization, the Society of American Indians, founded in 1911. (Author/AEM)

"Lessons in American Music," by Debra Kay Robinson Lindsay, is a collection of lessons covering William Billings, Stephen Foster, Scott Joplin, and "The Star-Spangled Banner." This book is an all-in-one resource for teachers, offering lesson plans, activities, sheet music, and assessments. The set of lessons on William Billings will let your…

This curriculum guide for teaching the history of Florida is designed as a teaching unit in the Social Studies program for fourth graders in the Duval County Public Schools (Jacksonville). The central theme is "Our Widening World," and the primary idea is how conflict and interdependence brought about the growth and development of…

A part of the Social Studies program for third graders in Duval County Public Schools (Jacksonville, Florida) is represented in this curriculum guide. The guide focuses on Jacksonville's history and emphasizes the relationship between people and their environment at various times in history and changes occurring in those relationships. The central…

This eighth grade teacher's guide with student activities is designed to create greater awareness of Indiana, its geography, history, government, and future and is designed to be used as a supplement to the study of the U.S. Constitution and the Indiana Constitution. In the first section, entitled "Geography of Indiana," the lessons…

When Morris Dees was a young man in Alabama, the law said that black people couldn't drink from the same water fountain as white people, or sit at the same lunch counter. Back then, the government created and sanctioned divisions between human beings. The Civil Rights Movement changed all of that, of course, and ended state-mandated apartheid in…

In 1860, 226,000 (47 percent) of the US' 478,000 free blacks lived in free states, and thus totaled over five percent of the black population in America. Though oppressed by popular prejudice and a range of legal and institutional constraints--in 1847, blacks at a convention labeled themselves "slaves of the community"--African Americans outside…

This scope and sequence guide to Social Studies, grades 1 through 5, for the Duval County Public Schools (Jacksonville, Florida) deals with three categories: (1) a scope and sequence listing states, for each grade, a central theme with primary and secondary ideas; (2) performance objectives are based on the primary and secondary ideas; and (3) a…

Presents a lesson for secondary students which teaches that the U.S. Constitution has changed in a variety of ways and that it has a direct effect upon the lives of citizens. Provides a worksheet and a lecture outline covering three methods of constitutional change and Supreme Court cases such as Dred Scott and Brown vs. Board of Education. (GEA)

A lesson plan involves high school students in examining incidents in U.S. history as acts of political behavior, including an examination of the resources the participants possessed and the political techniques they employed. A list of 25 issues/events to investigate is presented. (AM)