This lesson plan addresses the ways people learn about events from the past and discusses how historical accounts are influenced by the perspective of the person giving the account. To understand that history is made up of many people's stories of the past, students interview family members about the same event and compare the ifferent versions, construct a personal history timeline and connect it to larger historical events, and synthesize eyewitness testimony from different sources to create their own "official" account.

In this curriculum unit, students will learn about the origins of four major types of British surnames. They will consult lists to discover the meanings of specific names and later demonstrate their knowledge of surnames through various group activities. They will then compare the origins of British to certain types of non-British surnames. In a final activity, the students will research the origins and meanings of their own family names.

When you visit an art museum and enter one of the halls filled with paintings, drawings, photographs and sculptures your eye falls on the image closest to you and you wonder what is that picture about? This lesson plan focuses on helping students to answer that question by investigating the subject of works of art.

After an overview of the events surrounding Paul Revere's famous ride, this lesson challenges students to think about the reasons for that fame. Using both primary and secondhand accounts, students compare the account of Revere's ride in Longfellow's famous poem with actual historical events, in order to answer the question: why does Revere's ride occupy such a prominent place in the American consciousness?

Published in 1929, The Sound and the Fury is often referred to as William Faulkner's first work of genius. Faulkner's style is characterized by frequent time shifts, narrator shifts, unconventional punctuation and sentence structure, as well as a stream-of-consciousness technique that reveals the inner thoughts of characters to the reader. This curriculum unit will examine narrative structure and time, narrative voice/point of view, and symbolism throughout The Sound and the Fury.

William Golding's Lord of the Flies is a novel that engages middle school students in thought-provoking discussion, and provides practice in literary analysis skills. The three lessons in this unit all stress textual evidence to support observations and generalizations uncovering the novel's central character traits, symbols and themes.

In this lesson, students will learn that enslaved people resisted their captivity constantly. Because they were living under the domination of their masters, slaves knew that direct, outright, overt resistance"”such as talking back, hitting their master or running away"“"“could result in being whipped, sold away from their families and friends, or even killed.

In this lesson, students explain the methods Penn used to attract settlers to his colony and evaluate the effectiveness of Penn's ability to attract settlers to the colony. Students will also compare and contrast Penn's account of the colony with Daniel Pastorius' account.

Students trace Joan of Arc's history from childhood, through her death, and on to her nullification trial. Reading the words of laborers, pages, knights and clerics, students gain authentic historical context for a charismatic and complicated figure and better understand Joan's place in the history of the Hundred Years' War.

This lesson plan explores the contributions of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) during World War II, and their aviation legacy.

Set in the Dominican Republic during the rule of Rafael Trujillo, In the Time of the Butterflies fictionalizes historical figures in order to dramatize the Dominican people's heroic efforts to overthrow this dictator's brutal regime. In the following activities, students will examine the actions of the characters in the novel and discuss an all encompassing definition for courage.

Students analyze archival cartoons, posters, magazine humor, newspaper articles and poems that reflect the deeply entrenched attitudes and beliefs the early crusaders for women's rights had to overcome.

With 2020 marking one hundred years since ratification of the 19th Amendment that gave some women the right to vote in the United States, women's history is about more than just looking back. Our Teacher's Guide provides compelling questions, lesson activities, and resources for integrating women's perspectives and experiences throughout the school year.

Last week's blog post introduced Chronicling America, a deep repository of historic American newspapers covering the years 1836"“1922. Students can use newspapers available through Chronicling America to expose the rich texture of the women's rights movement and its many milestones, meetings, and debates right from the beginning and in a way that few other resources can. As an added bonus, they will be working with the kind of complex informational texts that the Common Core English Language Standards recommends. In what follows, we'll be suggesting articles written from a variety of points of view that make arguments based on appeals to evidence.

Students compile information to examine hypotheses explaining why the first nine states to grant full voting rights for women were located in the West.

The influence of President Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) on American foreign policy has been profound and lasting. In this curriculum unit, students will study the formation, application, and outcomes--successes and failures alike--of Wilson's foreign policy. Ultimately, students will evaluate the legacy of Wilsonianism in U.S. foreign relations and its extension into contemporary U.S. history.

Since 1995, Rhode Islanders have come together each February to read and celebrate the life of one of America's finest poets and writers, Langston Hughes (1902-1967). Made possible through a grant from the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, an independent state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the annual Langston Hughes Poetry Reading is a shining example of what public humanities can pass on to communities far and wide. In addition to videos of readings given by participants at the annual event, this page includes resources and related materials for teaching about Langston Hughes.

Explore the traditions and conventions of haiku and compare this classic form of Japanese poetry to a related genre of Japanese visual art.

This lesson invites students to reconfigure Meg’s journey into a board game where, as in the novel itself, Meg’s progress is either thwarted or advanced by aspects of her emotional responses to situations, her changing sense of self, and her physical and intellectual experiences.