Through photographs, letters, reports, interviews, and other primary documents, students explore the forced acculturation of American Indians through government-run boarding schools.
American Indian Reservation Controversies
Reservation Controversies covers historic issues dealing with American Indian Reservations in the 1870s. This experience uses problem based learning (PBL), in which the student is confronted or faced with a real world problem which has no preconceived right or wrong answers. This scenario puts the student as prospective Indian Agent for the Comanche Indian reservation in 1873. Using various teaching/learning strategies, which include brainstorming, role playing, and oral presentations, the students access primary sources and other background sources to arrive at a recommendation, based on the information. The teacher, librarian, and other support staff act as guides or advisors through most of the process.
Native American-European Contact in Colonial Times
Drawing on the concept of worldview, students learn to think critically about the cultural differences between Europeans and Native Americans, and how those differences shaped interaction and potential misunderstandings between the groups as they negotiated trade and diplomatic relationships.
Early Encounters Between Native Americans and Europeans
Students may come to recognize how the later period of continued exploration, settlement, and interaction was influenced by these early encounters from the St. Lawrence River to Georgia. Free registration for students and teachers required to access resource.
Native American Housing
Native American housing is frequently assumed to be represented by one or two well-known styles such as the teepee or pueblo. While these do reflect distinct tribal designs, they are not all inclusive and students should be exposed to a wider range of design. The lesson should also help students understand the relationship between environment and housing. Free registration for students and teachers required to access resource.
Habeas Corpus: The Guantanamo Cases
One of our oldest human rights, habeas corpus safeguards individual freedom by preventing unlawful or arbitrary imprisonment. This documentary examines habeas corpus and the separation of powers in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks as the Supreme Court tried to strike a balance between the president’s duty to protect the nation and the constitutional protection of civil liberties in four major Guantanamo Bay cases: Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Rasul v. Bush, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and Boumediene v. Bush.
Closed captions available in English and Spanish.
Ida B. Wells and Her Crusade for Racial Justice
The abolition of slavery after the Civil War became the foundation for Ida B. Wells’s life work as a teacher, journalist, anti-lynching activist, community organizer, and woman suffragist.
Evaluating a Needlework Sampler as Historical Evidence
In this activity, students will explore a sampler (needlework) for historical evidence and determine if the creator was a historian.
The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850
In 1850, Southerners succeeded in getting a new federal law passed to return fugitive slaves who had escaped to the North. The U.S. government enforced this law, but some Northern states passed laws to resist it. Sometimes, free blacks and sympathetic whites joined to rescue captured fugitive slaves.
Documents and Debates in American History and Government – Vol. 1, 1493-1865
The Core Documents Collection – Documents and Debates is structured around a series of topics, each based on a question for debate. For each topic, there is a collection of documents that, together, form the basis of argument over that topic – from those who debated it at a given point in American history. Volume One covers 1493-1865, and Volume Two covers 1865-2009.
The goal is to explore a series of critical moments in American history by asking questions for which there are not simple yes/no answers, but instead call for informed discussion and rational debate. The Documents and Debates readers also include appendices of additional documents, and together are a perfect fit for any American History survey course, including AP U.S. History.