Locating Lesson Plans: History

The following curriculum units are designed to help students of US history, government, and economics to understand the process by which history is written and to develop analytical skills. Here are Document Analysis worksheets you can use when using primary documents or resources in your class.

For educators who are looking for engaging and relevant ways to present the events of the world to their students, the Learning Network is a dynamic blog devoted to teaching and learning. Instructional items include lessons plans, syllabi, short videos, discussion questions, and other powerful teaching resources.

In the Teaching Activities section, educators may choose from two dozen compelling classroom activities on topics from The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to the Integration of the U.S. Armed Forces to the Assimilation of American Indians.

This site uses digital media and computer technology to democratize history. The Teaching + Learning category will be of interest to educators searching for ways to incorporate digital resources, tools, and strategies into their history lesson plans.

These educational materials include activities and games, which are designed for classrooms ranging from elementary school to high school, seek to bring history and culture to life through engaging educational pursuits.

Lesson plans for history, civics, geography and social studies using the National Register of Historic Places.

Teachinghistory.org is designed to help K–12 history teachers access resources and materials to improve U.S. history education in the classroom. Includes a section on using Primary Sources with Lesson Plan ideas.

Each object is accompanied by a brief annotation, as well as additional categories, such as About the object, A bigger picture, Teaching ideas, and For the Classroom. Each category is packed with information, ideas, and suggestions for bringing history to life. The resources available on this website will be useful to educators the world over.

For educators who are looking for a progressive supplement to the current mainstream high school or college history courses, this site, based on the writings and inspirations of historian Howard Zinn. Zinn, who died in 2010, was best known for his book, A People's History of the United States, which focused its analysis on the experiences of less powerful people in American history, rather than elite politicians and businessmen. Readers can Explore by Theme (African American, Art & Music, Democracy & Citizenship, Disability, Math, Media, and many others) or Explore by Time Period (Colonization, Revolution & Constitution, Early 19th Century, Civil War Era, and others).

The Southern Poverty Law Center also has a long history of developing educational programs that seek to promote tolerance. These classroom resources address a wide range of social justice and tolerance issues, and are designed for students from kindergarten through their senior year of high school.

This section contains reproducible copies of primary documents from the holdings of the National Archives of the United States, teaching activities correlated to the National History Standards and National Standards for Civics and Government, and cross-curricular connections.

Teaching with Historic Places offers a series of more than 160 classroom-ready lesson plans that use historic sites as a means for exploring American history. Educators and their students can work through these online lesson plans directly on the computer or print them out and photocopy them for distribution.

An online application that allows teachers and students to create snappy, stimulating timelines in minutes.

This site from Scholastic offers over 30 lessons plans, activities, news stories, videos, and book lists "to help students comprehend the 9/11 attacks and their lasting impact on the United States and the world." For instance, the lesson plan, "Encountering History," is designed for 6th to 8th graders, but includes an extension for grades nine through 12.

Educators may be particularly drawn to the section titled For Teachers and Students, which links to educational sites around the web, such as Tutorials on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

For educators who are looking for online resources to supplement their lesson plans on the essential civil rights victory.

This lesson plan provides educators with content and instruction tips to introduce high school students to the woman suffrage movement resulting in the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The lesson draws from nine related primary source documents that date between 1868 and 1920.

The Resources and Curriculum section includes a teacher's guide, resource guide and primary source documents under the Resource Guide.