This resource introduces students to primary source documents associated with the Battle of Concord. Associated learning activities extend students' knowledge through analysis and interpretation of the documents.
This interactive site provides primary resources and curator interviews designed to focus on the Jefferson Desk as an object in historical context. Also provided are a lesson plan and annotated links to other online resources to expand student understanding of the topic.
In this activity, students will analyze both the historical facts of the Old South Meeting House and January Gill O'Neil's exploration in the poem "Old South Meeting House." Students will discuss and interpret the meaning of the poem in both its figurative language and its historical context.
With this digital collection, students will learn about the Copperheads. The provided documents offer perspectives on the Northern wing of the Democratic Party, which opposed the Civil War. The collection documents were both published in New York and indicate the Copperheads’ prominence in that city. Students will consider the following questions as they review the documents: 1. Describe the characters and symbols in the Harper’s Weeklycartoon. Who do they represent? 2. Explain the cartoon’s title. How does the title contrast with the image in the cartoon? According to the cartoonist, how are the Copperheads’ attempting to achieve peace? 3. Examine The Copperhead Catechism. What is a catechism? How is it used? 4. What are the beliefs of the Copperheads, as outlined in this catechism? 5. Does the author of this catechism support the Copperhead cause? Explain.
Students will examine several documents related to the life of Solomon Northup, whose life story is told in his autobiography Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841 and Rescued in 1853, from a Cotton Plantation Near the Red River in Louisiana.
The corrupting influence of slavery on marriage and the family is a predominant theme in Solomon Northup's narrative Twelve Years a Slave. In this lesson, students are asked to identify and analyze narrative passages that provide evidence for how slavery undermined and perverted these social institutions. Northup collaborated with a white ghostwriter, David Wilson. Students will read the preface and identify and analyze statements Wilson makes to prove the narrative is true.
In this activity students compare an eighteenth-century print of a slave ship and a table of data about the voyages of the slave ship to draw facts and make inferences about the transatlantic slave trade. This activity was designed for the Smartboard, but it can be completed without a Smartboard.
This lesson uses "Uncle Tom’s Cabin & American Culture: A Multimedia Archive" (www.iath.virginia.edu/utc) to examine the sectional crisis of the 1850s, as well as slavery and the mindset of Southern planters during the Antebellum Era. In completing the assignment, students are required to analyze not only traditional text documents but also a selection of audio and visual sources.
In this lesson, students analyze primary source documents from the case of a newspaper editor who published a broadside that was sharply critical of the Prseident and therefore violated the Alien and Sedition Acts. A set of discussion questions is provided. In a series of extension activities, students will list the items in the broadside document that could be considered seditious and then examine Cooper's defense. Students will also extrapolate this case to current events by evaluating current news media.
In this lesson, students analyze a primary source document from the case of a printer who printed an essay against the government and therefore violated the Alien and Sedition Acts. A set of discussion questions is provided. In a series of extension activities, students will consider other times when the rights of American citizens have been infringed upon by the government. Students will debate whether or not the curtailment of the Bill of Rights is ever justified. They will also search current media news reports for negative comments about the current President and determine if the comments could be considered seditious.
In this lesson, students examine the Statute for Religious Freedom that Virginia passed in 1786 and how it served as a model for the First Amendment. A set of discussion questions is provided. In an associated activity, students role play as James Madison and Patrick Henry and debate which person's bill should be supported.
Throughout this inquiry students investigate the complex interconnected roles of individuals and groups as well as the economic, social, and geographical forces that contributed to the American Revolution. Students consider issues concerning historical determinism as they move toward an evidence-based argument as to whether or not the war was avoidable.
In this lesson, students discuss reasons for joining an army and the differences between a regular army and a militia of volunteers. Then they review and discuss U.S. and Mexican perspectives on regular and volunteer soldiers.
A sample lesson from the Center for Civic Education's "We the People," which focuses on the ideas that influenced the founding fathers. Critical Thinking Exercises are included at the end of the chapter.
What combination of experience, strategy, and personal characteristics enabled Washington to succeed as a military leader? In this unit, students will read the Continental Congress's resolutions granting powers to General Washington; analyze some of Washington's wartime orders, dispatches, and correspondence in terms of his mission and the characteristics of a good general.
In this activity, students complete a graphic organizer to help guide high school students in analyzing and evaluating secondary source material as historic resources. This worksheet was created to accompany a 20-minute video about Yorktown, the last major battle of the Revolutionary War.
Discover the first shots of the American Revolution and the battles that occurred before the Declaration of Independence.