By examining Lincoln's three most famous speeches the Gettysburg Address and the First and Second Inaugural Addresses in addition to a little known fragment on the Constitution, union, and liberty, students trace what these documents say regarding the significance of union to the prospects for American self-government.

Containing more than 50 articles from the award-winning Tar Heel Junior Historian magazine and over 40 lesson plans, this multidisciplinary Educator Notebook will enrich your exploration of North Carolina and American history with diverse perspectives. This resource's link takes you to a very short form that gives you free downloadable access to the complete PDF book.

Through decades of strife, and often at the risk of their lives, brave people joined forces as anti?slavery activists and fought for justice despite powerful opposition. In this lesson, students will explore the American abolitionist movement through reading, discussion, and analyzing various primary source documents.

In this activity, students will delve into some of the revolutionary documents and consider the ideas of "authority" and "power" from the perspectives of those who had such a great stake in America's revolutionary struggle.

With this digital collection, students will explore the actions taken by abolitionists in Illinois and their reactions to national policies. Students will consider the following questions as they review the documents: 1. What motivated the actions of abolitionists in Illinois? 2. How did abolitionists attempt to transform public opinion on the issue of slavery? 3. How did the abolitionist movement evolve and respond to national events that shook the nation in the 1850s?

Students compare their state's constitution to the U.S. Constitution, explain how the two documents illustrate federalism, and evaluate the need for state constitutions.

In this lesson, students attempt to formulate their own declaration before examining the Declaration of Independence. Through a close reading of the document, they come to an understanding of how its structure forms a coherent, lucid, and powerful argument for independence.

Students will analyze primary sources to understand the necessary and proper clause; and learn about the war debt and currency issues to better understand the national bank debate.

In this lesson, students will examine documents, narratives and maps to gain understanding of the significance of the battle of Trenton. By the end of this lesson, students will be able to write a BCR (single paragraph essay) explaining why the battle of Trenton was a turning point in the American Revolution, citing evidence from an eyewitness account of the battle and Thomas Paine's American Crisis.

In this interactive online lesson, students will examine primary sources to help them understand relationships among events. After each document or set of documents that relate to the Homestead Act of 1862, students will be asked to make the connection between the documents.

In this interactive online lesson, students will examine primary sources to help them understand relationships among events. After each document or set of documents that relate to the Homestead Act of 1862, students will be asked to make the connection between the documents.

In this lesson, students analyze primary source documents related to the creation of the U.S. Bill of Rights. Students cite evidence to explain how the location and the content of Madison's nine proposals presented on June 8th to Congress, to make alterations to the Articles of the Constitution, were altered by Congress and led to the creation of the U.S. Bill of Rights.

In this lesson, students analyse English and colonial documents and State Constitutions and justify if the rights within the U.S. Bill of Rights are more inherited from the English and/or Colonial traditions or created from the revoluntionary period (1776-1787) in the United States.

By exploring historical accounts of events surrounding the Boston Tea Party, students learn about the sources and methods that historians use to reconstruct what happened in the past.

In this lesson, students will see that the Civil War did not have clearly defined moral and political lines and that, like every war, there were multiple sides to the story. By the end of this lesson, students will be able to analyze primary source Civil War letters in order to determine whether or not the Civil War was about slavery prior to the Emancipation Proclamation by completing a BCR (Brief Constructed Response - a single paragraph essay).

In this lesson, students will analyze the United States' relations with Native Americans, including treaty relations, land acquisition, the policy of Indian Removal, and the Trail of Tears by close reading and sourcing primary source images, documents, and journals analyzing maps, and watching videos in order to evaluate if the treatment of the Cherokee supported democratic actions by writing a five paragraph essay.

In this lesson, students will analyze primary sources to identify the perspectives of various political parties regarding the Kansas Nebraska Act and Scott v. Sandford in order to write an ECR (multi-paragraph essay) which determines the impact these events had on national political unity.

Students will analyze several eighteenth-century documents to determine colonial opinions of Great Britain's attempts to tax the colonists in the 1760s.

This lesson focuses on John Winthrop's historic "Model of Christian Charity" sermon which is often referred to by its"City on a Hill" metaphor. Through a close reading of this admittedly difficult text, students will learn how it illuminates the beliefs, goals, and programs of the Puritans. The sermon sought to inspire and to motivate the Puritans by pointing out the distance they had to travel between an ideal community and their real-world situation.