Lesson Plan Native American Cultures and the Impact of the Boarding Schools 3, 4, 5 Click to download this four-lesson unit.
Spotlight on: Primary Source Teddy Roosevelt campaigns for a third term, 1912 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 In February 1912, former president Theodore Roosevelt stunned the country by challenging President William Howard Taft for the Republican nomination. The move was not only a rejection of his friend Taft, it also violated an unwritten...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Theodore Roosevelt supports women’s suffrage, 1912 Government and Civics 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 In this letter written in July 1912, during his campaign for a thrid term as president, Theodore Roosevelt informs the state and county chairmen of the Progressive Party of his plan to support women’s suffrage. The document shows the...
Lesson Plan What Does Liberty Look Like? Government and Civics " We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ." Declaration of...
Lesson Plan Colonial Pennsylvania and the Paxton Massacre, 1763 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Click here to download this four-lesson unit. About This Lesson Plan Unit The four lessons in this unit explore a massacre in colonial Pennsylvania in which the Paxton Boys—immigrants from Ulster,...
Spotlight on: Primary Source The Doctrine of Discovery, 1493 Geography, Religion and Philosophy, World History 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ The Papal Bull "Inter Caetera," issued by Pope Alexander VI on May 4, 1493, played a central role in the Spanish conquest of the New World. The document supported Spain’s strategy to ensure its exclusive right to the lands...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Cotton Mather’s account of the Salem witch trials, 1693 Government and Civics, Literature, Religion and Philosophy Most Americans’ knowledge of the seventeenth century comes from heavily mythologized events: the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth, Pocahontas purportedly saving Captain John Smith from execution in early Virginia, and the Salem witch...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Henry Knox’s Order of March to Trenton, 1776 Geography, Government and Civics, World History 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ On Christmas Day in 1776 the American Revolution was on the verge of collapsing. Since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American forces had been driven from New York City to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and reduced...
Spotlight on: Primary Source George Washington on the abolition of slavery, 1786 Economics, Government and Civics 9 Of the nine presidents who were slaveholders, only George Washington freed all his own slaves upon his death. Before the Revolution, Washington, like most White Americans, took slavery for granted. At the time of the Revolution, one...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Two versions of the Preamble to the Constitution, 1787 Government and Civics 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ On May 25, 1787, the fifty-five delegates to the Constitutional Convention began meeting in a room, no bigger than a large schoolroom, in Philadelphia’s State House. They posted sentries at the doors and windows to keep their "secrets...