Lesson Plans

523 Result(s)
Grade Range
6-12
Primary and Secondary Sources: Foundations of Historical Research

In this lesson plan, students will learn how to distinguish between primary and secondary sources and how to use them for historical research. The central type of primary sources used in this lesson plan are fugitive slave advertisements: short, concise, detailed, and engaging primary sources that convey the history of slavery and freedom seeking in striking terms.

Grade Range
9-12
Unveiling the Past: Analyzing Primary Documents on Harry Washington's Life

This lesson plan highlights the story of Harry Washington, a man formerly enslaved by George Washington. In a game of revealing mystery, students work intimately with a host of primary sources including maps, letters, ship manifests, and settlement records to develop a timeline of Harry’s life from enslavement to liberation.

Grade Range
9-12
In Her Shoes: Lois Weber and the Female Filmmakers Who Shaped Early Hollywood

Introduce students to the work of women filmmakers in early Hollywood with this comprehensive lesson plan developed by the American Film Institute. This curriculum has three objectives: for students to develop research skills by using the AFI catalog and other online databases; for students to critically analyze the film “Shoes” by Lois Weber (1916); and for students to explore the important role that women played in the development of the motion picture industry. 

Grade Range
9-12
Frontiers on the Big Screen

How does popular culture engage history? In this lesson plan, students will examine The Searchers, one of the most widely acclaimed Western movies of all time, to explore interpretations of race, gender, and family–both in the time period depicted by the film and the time period in which the film was produced.

Grade Range
6-12
Who Belongs on the Frontier: Cherokee Removal

Cherokee people faced a number of challenges to their sovereignty in the 18th and 19th centuries. In this lesson plan, students examine the geographic, political, and cultural frontiers Cherokees confronted and overcame during this time. 

Grade Range
6-12
Afro Atlantic: Exploring Emancipation

This lesson plan uses A. A. Lamb's painting Emancipation Proclamation and resources from BlackPast to explore the successes and shortcomings of the Emancipation Proclamation and the Reconstruction amendments, as well as the roles played by Black people in securing their own freedom.

Grade Range
6-12
Afro Atlantic: Paths from Enslavement

Use Aaron Douglas’s mural Into Bondage to introduce the stories of famous Harlem Renaissance figures, including Langston Hughes, and to explore the history and importance of Juneteenth, a holiday celebrating the end of Black enslavement in the United States.  

Grade Range
6-12
Afro Atlantic: Mapping Journeys

Kerry James Marshall's painting Voyager, depicting two partially obscured Black figures standing aboard a ship, refers to an actual ship, Wanderer, which was among the last slave ships in the United States, illegally transporting more than 400 individuals from West Africa to Georgia in 1858—even though the importation of enslaved people had been banned in 1808. Use the painting as an entry point to discuss the Transatlantic slave trade and introduce students to the NEH-funded database Slave Voyages project.