Lesson Plan How We Elect a President: The Electoral College (Grades 4–6) Government and Civics 4, 5, 6 Click to download this lesson plan.
Lesson Plan How We Elect a President: The Electoral College (Grades 7–9) Government and Civics 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Objective This lesson on the Electoral College is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based teaching resources. These resources were written to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original...
Lesson Plan How We Elect a President: The Electoral College (Grades 10–12) Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Objective This lesson on the Electoral College is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based teaching resources. These resources were written to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Harry S. Truman responds to McCarthy, 1950 Government and Civics In February 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy alleged in a speech in West Virginia that more than 200 staff members at the Department of State were known to be members of the Communist Party. During Harry Truman’s press conference on...
Spotlight on: Primary Source The British evacuation of Boston, 1776 Art, Government and Civics 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 On March 25, 1776, only eight days after the British evacuation of Boston, the Continental Congress authorized a medal, “George Washington before Boston,” to commemorate the event. During the war, Congress commissioned eleven medals...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Campaigning for the African American vote in Georgia, 1894 Economics, Government and Civics In the gubernatorial and local elections of 1894, the Democrats and the newly formed People’s Party or Populist Party vied for black votes in Georgia. Neither the Democrats nor the Populists called for racial equality in their...
Spotlight on: Primary Source William Jennings Bryan and the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, 1895 Government and Civics In 1895, Williams Jennings Bryan wrote to I. J. Dunn, an Omaha lawyer and president of the Jackson Club, to decline an invitation to speak at the local Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner, an annual event held by the Democratic Party. Bryan,...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Dragging cannon from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston, 1775 Geography On March 17, 1776, George Washington stood on Dorchester Heights alongside fifty-nine captured cannon high above the city of Boston, Massachusetts, and watched as British troops peacefully evacuated the city after an eleven-month...
Spotlight on: Primary Source A plan for a new government, 1775 Government and Civics More than a decade before the Constitutional Convention in 1787—and months before the United States declared independence—John Adams wrote a plan for a new form of government for the American colonies. In it Adams described the basic...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Confederate reaction to "Beast" Butler's orders, 1862 In April 1862 Union forces led by Captain David G. Farragut steamed past the weak Confederate defenses and captured New Orleans. During the occupation of the city Union troops were repeatedly insulted by New Orleans women and one...