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Exploring Race Through Literature
Diverse literary texts provide opportunities for making connections about race and hearing multiple voices and perspectives. In this activity, students read literature and poetry from different American writers, reflecting on the meaning and [...]
Active Viewing: Eyes on the Prize "Awakenings"
In this activity students analyze the reasons why the Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted so long and was successful. Students watch a short clip from the PBS documentary Eyes on the Prize about the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Then students analyze primary [...]
Active Viewing: Becoming American: The Chinese Experience
In this activity, students watch short clips of the PBS/A Bill Moyers Special production of Becoming American: The Chinese Experience (2003). The documentary clips and accompanying materials cover the arrival of Chinese in California, their work on [...]
Reading Historical Fiction: The Journal of Sean Sullivan: A Transcontinental Railroad Worker
In this activity, students are guided through a close reading of The Journal of Sean Sullivan: A Transcontinental Railroad Worker, a fictional book for young readers based on historical sources. Students will read a short excerpt from the beginning [...]
Active Viewing: Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided
PBS American Experience’s Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided is a 6 episode mini-series available as a 3 DVD set. The following activity focuses on the causes and consequences of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation through an active [...]
Claiming We the People: Political Participation in Revolutionary America
In this activity students will learn about how groups without political power—African Americans, women, and working-class men—sought to expand their political power in the Revolutionary era. Students will analyze primary sources to determine the [...]
Comparing Slaves and Servants in Colonial New York
In this activity students read a list of laws regulating Africans and African Americans and a servant's indenture contract from colonial New York. Then students find evidence in the primary sources to support a series of statements about the [...]
Two Views of the Slave Ship Brookes
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 [...]
Lessons in Looking: Contraband in Paintings
In this activity students analyze Theodor Kaufmann's 1867 painting On to Liberty. Students practice finding information and making inferences based on the painting by completing a graphic organizer. Then students read a descriptive paragraph of the [...]
Understanding the 1855 Census Database
This activity helps students navigate and make sense of the information available in the Five Points census database. In the activity, students use the database to test hypotheses about life and residents in the Five Points. For this activity, [...]