In this lesson on the Spanish American War from Historical Thinking Matters, students will explore sources, webquests, and activities designed to help in answering the following essay question: "The explosion of the U.S.S. Maine caused the United States to invade Cuba in 1898. Use the documents provided and your own knowledge to evaluate this statement. Do you agree with this explanation of the causes of the Spanish American War? Why or why not? Use and cite evidence from the documents to support your analysis of this statement.”

This lesson alerts students to the fallacies that surround them every day. In this lesson, students deconstruct fallacious images and messages in advertisements and demonstrate their understanding of the fallacies through multimedia presentations.

This article examines the ideological differences between Stalin and Truman as a cause of the Cold War. It includes a comparison chart of Russia and the US. At the end of the article, there are reflection questions and a quiz for students to assess their knowledge.

In this three day lesson, students will participate in text-centered discussions and use evidence to support their points.

In this lesson, students will use documents from 1865 to 1902 to examine the impact of Reconstruction on African American Rights. It is the student’s role to determine the extent to which this impact resulted more broadly in change or continuity for African Americans. By the end of this lesson, students will be able to evaluate the impact of Reconstruction on African American rights by analyzing documents and completing a Brief Constructed Response (BCR).

Students will learn basic information about the Incan empire and its downfall through selected readings and discussion activities. Students will futher their understanding regarding the clash of Spanish and Incan society by creating newspapers detailing the events, people, and places during the Spanish conquest of the Incan Empire.

This lesson explores the essay Self Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson, focusing on an analysis of individualism. It includes background information on Emerson, sectional analysis of the text, accompanying reading questions and activities, vocabulary terms, and a suggested follow-up assignment.

In this lesson, students will understand the economic, environmental, societal effects that various inventions had upon the population by researching key figures, events, documents, maps, photos, videos, and recordings. This project-based learning lesson plan attempts to develop collaborative and communicative skills as well as higher order thinking by having students work together on teams to research the industrial revolution using primary and secondary sources. They will then create a product or presentation that answers the driving question and present their work to the class.

Students will explore, the development of the textile industry in Great Britain, focusing on the invention of various machines. They will understand the link between rapid growth in both the textile industry and in coal mining in Great Britain to the development of social ills and the political push to alleviate some of the atrocious conditions under which people worked. Lastly, students will connect the process of industrialization to the expansion of male suffrage through the various reform bills of the 1800s in Great Britain.

A series of worksheets with answer keys to help students of differing levels make inferences from selcted texts.

The Inquiry Chart (I-Chart) is a strategy that enables students to generate meaningful questions about a topic and organize their writing. Students integrate prior knowledge or thoughts about the topic with additional information found in several sources. The I-Chart procedure is organized into three phases: (1) Planning, (2) Interacting, and (3) Integrating/Evaluating. Each phase consists of activities designed to engage students in evaluating a topic.

In this 3 day lesson of 4 activities, students will learn how to summarize and explain what they have learned from their reading, questioning, and analyzation.

In this detailed, extensive, Common Core aligned teacher's guide to Into the Wild by John Krakauer, the curriculum framework is organized around an extended text, shorter texts and guiding questions. Teachers can choose from several charts of materials and activities to build a solid, challenging unit of study utilizing film, research, and complex but high interest text.

In the 1800s Irish immigrants to the United States faced intense discrimination. The treatment of the Irish raises the historical question of whether the Irish were considered "white" in the 19th century. In this lesson, students examine political cartoons, a Know-Nothing party speech, and a historian's account to consider how racial categories may be ambiguous and change over time.

This literacy assessment includes an excerpt from an 1873 speech, seven text-dependent questions, one constructed response writing prompt, and explanatory information for teachers regarding alignment to the CCSS.

In this lesson, students read primary and secondary source documents about the Supreme Court case J.E.B. v. Alabama and the 6th and 14th amendments. Students then answer analysis questions about the case. There is a teacher answer key included in the lesson.

Students will be able to describe three specific moments in the Civil Rights Movement: the Freedom Rides, the 1963 Birmingham Movement, and the 1963 March on Washington; contrast the different roles of activists such as the Freedom Riders, demonstrators in Birmingham, and leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X; analyze and evaluate the relationship between civil rights activists and the Federal Government, specifically the Kennedy Administration.

In this lesson, students will evaluate the extent to which Andrew Jackson deserves to be celebrated as champion of democracy by selecting evidence to support one's assigned position. Students will complete a DBQ (document-based question) essay using the documents they select.

This multi-day lesson asks students to consider their own concepts of class and social status before diving into an analysis of those concepts in the novel, Pride and Prejudice. It concludes with students comparing the portrayal in the novel to a nonfiction text.

In this lesson, students will gain historical reasoning skills by studying primary sources and
comparing them to secondary sources. They will become more familiar with the conditions in Japanese American concentration camps through the personal writings of Stanley Hayami, a high school student who was incarcerated in the Heart Mountain camp in Wyoming.