# data[].attributes.body
Inquiry based learning is a method that students learn through questioning the information and then finding the answers. I implement this when introducing a complex event in history because they ask themselves the questions they don't understand instead of trying to memorize information.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The key to success for students is making sure they are engaged with any material they are learning.

Sometimes, that's easier said than done.

For many students, the traditional classroom approach leaves them bored and unengaged. As a result, they aren't effectively learning (or understanding) the material being taught.

That's where inquiry-based learning comes in.

What Is Inquiry-Based Learning?

Inquiry-based learning is an approach to learning that emphasizes the student's role in the learning process. Rather than the teacher telling students what they need to know, students are encouraged to explore the material, ask questions, and share ideas.

Inquiry-based learning uses different approaches to learning, including small-group discussion and guided learning. Instead of memorizing facts and material, students learn by doing. This allows them to build knowledge through exploration, experience, and discussion.

Is Inquiry-Based Learning Effective?

Just like experiential learning, inquiry-based learning actively engages students in the learning process. Students aren't just hearing or writing what they are learning. Instead, students get the chance to explore a topic more deeply and learn from their own first-hand experiences.

We retain 75% of what we do compared to 5% of what we hear and 10% of what we read. Inquiry-based learning allows students to better understand and recall material by actively engaging with it and making their own connections.

The Benefits Of Inquiry-Based Learning

Now that you know more about this learning approach, let's take a look at the advantages and benefits of inquiry-based learning.

1. Enhances learning experiences for children

Sitting in a classroom taking notes isn't always the most effective (or fun) way to learn. Rather than memorizing facts from the teacher, inquiry-based learning enhances the learning process by letting students explore topics themselves.

2. Teaches skills needed for all areas of learning

As they explore a topic, students build critical thinking and communication skills. The cognitive skills that students develop can be used to improve comprehension in every subject, as well as in day-to-day life.

3. Fosters curiosity in students

An inquiry-based learning approach lets students share their own ideas and questions about a topic. This helps foster more curiosity about the material and teaches skills students can use to continue exploring topics they are interested in.

4. Deepens students' understanding of topics

Rather than simply memorizing facts, students make their own connections about what they are learning. This allows them to gain a better understanding of a topic than they would get by just memorizing and recalling facts.

5. Allows students to take ownership of their learning

Students have the opportunity to explore a topic, giving them more of a sense of ownership over their learning. Instead of the teacher telling them what they should know, students are able to learn in a way that works for them.

6. Increases engagement with the material

As a form of active learning, this approach encourages students to fully engage in the learning process. By allowing students to explore topics, make their own connections, and ask questions, they are able to learn more effectively.

7. Creates a love of learning

Inquiry-based learning is designed to teach students a love of learning. When students are able to engage with the material in their own way, not only are they able to gain a deeper understanding-they are able to develop a passion for exploration and learning.

At GradePower Learning, we believe in an active, engaging learning experience. Learn more about our approach to learning and how we can get your child on the path to success.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What is Inquiry-Based Learning (And How Is It Effective)? | GradePower Learning

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Can inquiry-based learning actually help students? Learn more about this approach, including what inquiry-based learning is, its importance in the classroom and the benefits inquiry-based learning has for students.

# data[].attributes.body
This website goes to a page listing weekly anthropology podcasts called AnthroPod. I would use this to get ideas for anthropology lessons and learning how to teach sensitive subjects within anthropology.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This is the third and final episode in a special AnthroPod trilogy highlighting three anthropologists of outer space and coauthors of More...

This is the second episode in a special AnthroPod trilogy highlighting three anthropologists of outer space and coauthors of "Relational More...

This is the first episode in a special AnthroPod trilogy highlighting three anthropologists of outer space and coauthors of "Relational Space: More...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
AnthroPod: The SCA Podcast - Cultural Anthropology

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This is the third and final episode in a special AnthroPod trilogy highlighting three anthropologists of outer space and coauthors of More... This is the second episode in a special AnthroPod trilogy highlighting three anthropologists of outer space and coauthors of "Relational More...

# data[].attributes.body
This website goes to a page created by an economics teacher that has his lesson plans and videos. I would use this in class for students that arent picking up a concept. The videos explain economic lessons in detail and gives good examples.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
ACDCLeadership- Jacob Clifford's ultimate tool for all your economics teaching and learning needs! ACDCecon

# data[].attributes.body
The resources tab at the top of this website gives options like Ebooks, lesson plans, activities, and games to play that revolve around government. This would be helpful when in need of an alternative reading source for students.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
the center specializes in civic/citizenship education

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
and international educational exchange programs for developing democracies. programs focus on the u.s. constitution and bill of rights; american political traditions and institutions at the federal

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
and local levels; constitutionalism; civic participation; and the rights and responsibilities of citizens. 

today

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
the center administers a wide range of critically acclaimed curricular

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
and community-based programs. the principal goals of the center's programs are to help students develop (1) an increased understanding of the institutions of american constitutional democracy and the fundamental principles and values upon which they are founded

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
(2) the skills necessary to participate as effective and responsible citizens

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
and (3) the willingness to use democratic procedures for making decisions and managing conflict.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Center for Civic Education is a nonprofit, nonpartisan educational corporation dedicated to promoting an enlightened and responsible citizenry committed to democratic principles and actively engaged in the practice of democracy in the United States and other countries.

# data[].attributes.body
This link is a free US history course textbook for college classes. I could still use this for information or if I feel the need to challenge any of my higher level students.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Native Americans long dominated the vastness of the American West. Linked culturally and geographically by trade, travel, and warfare, various indigenous groups controlled most of the continent west of the Mississippi River deep into the nineteenth century. Spanish, French, British, and later American traders had integrated themselves into many regional economies, and American emigrants pushed ever westward, but no imperial power had yet achieved anything approximating political or military control over the great bulk of the continent. But then the Civil War came and went and decoupled the West from the question of slavery just as the United States industrialized and laid down rails and pushed its ever-expanding population ever farther west.

Indigenous Americans had lived in North America for over ten millennia and, into the late nineteenth century, perhaps as many as 250,000 Natives still inhabited the American West. But then unending waves of American settlers, the American military, and the unstoppable onrush of American capital conquered all. The United States removed Native groups to ever-shrinking reservations, incorporated the West first as territories and then as states, and, for the first time in its history, controlled the enormity of land between the two oceans.

The history of the late-nineteenth-century West is many-sided. Tragedy for some, triumph for others, the many intertwined histories of the American West marked a pivotal transformation in the history of the United States.

In the decades after the Civil War, Americans poured across the Mississippi River in record numbers. No longer simply crossing over the continent for new imagined Edens in California or Oregon, they settled now in the vast heart of the continent.

Many of the first American migrants had come to the West in search of quick profits during the midcentury gold and silver rushes. As in the California rush of 1848-1849, droves of prospectors poured in after precious-metal strikes in Colorado in 1858, Nevada in 1859, Idaho in 1860, Montana in 1863, and the Black Hills in 1874. While women often performed housework that allowed mining families to subsist in often difficult conditions, a significant portion of the mining workforce were single men without families dependent on service industries in nearby towns and cities. There, working-class women worked in shops, saloons, boardinghouses, and brothels. Many of these ancillary operations profited from the mining boom: as failed prospectors found, the rush itself often generated more wealth than the mines. The gold that left Colorado in the first seven years after the Pikes Peak gold strike-estimated at $25.5 million-was, for instance, less than half of what outside parties had invested in the fever. The 100,000-plus migrants who settled in the Rocky Mountains were ultimately more valuable to the region's development than the gold they came to find.

Others came to the Plains to extract the hides of the great bison herds. Millions of animals had roamed the Plains, but their tough leather supplied industrial belting in eastern factories and raw material for the booming clothing industry. Specialized teams took down and skinned the herds. The infamous American bison slaughter peaked in the early 1870s. The number of American bison plummeted from over ten million at midcentury to only a few hundred by the early 1880s. The expansion of the railroads allowed ranching to replace the bison with cattle on the American grasslands.

The nearly seventy thousand members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (more commonly called Mormons) who migrated west between 1846 and 1868 were similar to other Americans traveling west on the overland trails. They faced many of the same problems, but unlike most other American migrants, Mormons were fleeing from religious persecution.

Many historians view Mormonism as a "uniquely American faith," not just because it was founded by Joseph Smith in New York in the 1830s, but because of its optimistic and future-oriented tenets. Mormons believed that Americans were exceptional-chosen by God to spread truth across the world and to build utopia, a New Jerusalem in North America. However, many Americans were suspicious of the Latter-Day Saint movement and its unusual rituals, especially the practice of polygamy, and most Mormons found it difficult to practice their faith in the eastern United States. Thus began a series of migrations in the midnineteenth century, first to Illinois, then Missouri and Nebraska, and finally into Utah Territory.

Once in the west, Mormon settlements served as important supply points for other emigrants heading on to California and Oregon. Brigham Young, the leader of the Church after the death of Joseph Smith, was appointed governor of the Utah Territory by the federal government in 1850. He encouraged Mormon residents of the territory to engage in agricultural pursuits and be cautious of the outsiders who arrived as the mining and railroad industries developed in the region.

It was land, ultimately, that drew the most migrants to the West. Family farms were the backbone of the agricultural economy that expanded in the West after the Civil War. In 1862, northerners in Congress passed the Homestead Act, which allowed male citizens (or those who declared their intent to become citizens) to claim federally owned lands in the West. Settlers could head west, choose a 160-acre surveyed section of land, file a claim, and begin "improving" the land by plowing fields, building houses and barns, or digging wells, and, after five years of living on the land, could apply for the official title deed to the land. Hundreds of thousands of Americans used the Homestead Act to acquire land. The treeless plains that had been considered unfit for settlement became the new agricultural mecca for land-hungry Americans.

The Homestead Act excluded married women from filing claims because they were considered the legal dependents of their husbands. Some unmarried women filed claims on their own, but single farmers (male or female) were hard-pressed to run a farm and they were a small minority. Most farm households adopted traditional divisions of labor: men worked in the fields and women managed the home and kept the family fed. Both were essential.

Migrants sometimes found in homesteads a self-sufficiency denied at home. Second or third sons who did not inherit land in Scandinavia, for instance, founded farm communities in Minnesota, Dakota, and other Midwestern territories in the 1860s. Boosters encouraged emigration by advertising the semiarid Plains as, for instance, "a flowery meadow of great fertility clothed in nutritious grasses, and watered by numerous streams." Western populations exploded. The Plains were transformed. In 1860, for example, Kansas had about 10,000 farms; in 1880 it had 239,000. Texas saw enormous population growth. The federal government counted 200,000 people in Texas in 1850, 1,600,000 in 1880, and 3,000,000 in 1900, making it the sixth most populous state in the nation.

The "Indian wars," so mythologized in western folklore, were a series of sporadic, localized, and often brief engagements between U.S. military forces and various Native American groups. The more sustained and more impactful conflict, meanwhile, was economic and cultural. The vast and cyclical movement across the Great Plains to hunt buffalo, raid enemies, and trade goods was incompatible with new patterns of American settlement and railroad construction. Thomas Jefferson's old dream that Indian groups might live isolated in the West was, in the face of American expansion, no longer a viable reality. Political, economic, and even humanitarian concerns intensified American efforts to isolate Indians on reservations. Although Indian removal had long been a part of federal Indian policy, following the Civil War the U.S. government redoubled its efforts. If treaties and other forms of persistent coercion would not work, more drastic measures were deemed necessary. Against the threat of confinement and the extinction of traditional ways of life, Native Americans battled the American army and the encroaching lines of American settlement.

In one of the earliest western engagements, in 1862, while the Civil War still consumed the nation, tensions erupted between Dakota Sioux and white settlers in Minnesota and the Dakota Territory. The 1850 U.S. census recorded a white population of about 6,000 in Minnesota; eight years later, when it became a state, it was more than 150,000. The influx of American farmers pushed the Sioux to the breaking point. Hunting became unsustainable and those Sioux who had taken up farming found only poverty. Starvation wracked many. Then, on August 17, 1862, four young men of the Santees, a Sioux tribe, killed five white settlers near the Redwood Agency, an American administrative office. In the face of an inevitable American retaliation, and over the protests of many members, the tribe chose war. On the following day, Sioux warriors attacked settlements near the Agency. They killed thirty-one men, women, and children. They then ambushed a U.S. military detachment at Redwood Ferry, killing twenty-three. The governor of Minnesota called up militia and several thousand Americans waged war against the Sioux insurgents. Fighting broke out at New Ulm, Fort Ridgely, and Birch Coulee, but the Americans broke the Indian resistance at the Battle of Wood Lake on September 23, ending the so-called Dakota War, also known as the Sioux Uprising.

More than two thousand Sioux had been taken prisoner during the fighting. Many were tried at federal forts for murder, rape, and other atrocities. Military tribunals convicted 303 Sioux and sentenced them to hang. At the last minute, President Lincoln commuted all but thirty eight of the sentences. Terrified Minnesota settlers and government officials insisted not only that the Sioux lose much of their reservation lands and be removed farther west, but that those who had fled be hunted down and placed on reservations as well. The American military gave chase and, on September 3, 1863, after a year of attrition, American military units surrounded a large encampment of Dakota Sioux. American troops killed an estimated three hundred men, women, and children. Dozens more were taken prisoner. Troops spent the next two days burning winter food and supply stores to starve out the Sioux resistance, which would continue to smolder. Farther south, tensions flared in Colorado. In 1851, the Treaty of Fort Laramie had secured right-of-way access for Americans passing through on their way to California and Oregon. But a gold rush in 1858 drew approximately 100,000 white gold seekers, and they demanded new treaties be made with local Indian groups to secure land rights in the newly created Colorado Territory. Cheyenne bands splintered over the possibility of signing a new treaty that would confine them to a reservation. Settlers, already wary of raids by powerful groups of Cheyennes, Arapahos, and Comanches, meanwhile read in their local newspapers sensationalist accounts of the Sioux uprising in Minnesota. Militia leader John M. Chivington warned settlers in the summer of 1864 that the Cheyenne were dangerous savages, urged war, and promised a swift military victory. Sporadic fighting broke out. Although Chivington warned of Cheyenne savagery, the aged Cheyenne chief Black Kettle, believing that a peace treaty would be best for his people, traveled to Denver to arrange for peace talks. He and his followers traveled toward Fort Lyon in accordance with government instructions, but on November 29, 1864, Chivington ordered his seven hundred militiamen to move on the Cheyenne camp near Fort Lyon at Sand Creek. The Cheyenne tried to declare their peaceful intentions but Chivington's militia cut them down. It was a slaughter. About two hundred men, women, and children were killed.

The Sand Creek Massacre was a national scandal, alternately condemned and applauded. News of the massacre reached other Native groups and the American frontier erupted into conflict. Americans pushed for a new "peace policy." Congress, confronted with these tragedies and further violence, authorized in 1868 the creation of an Indian Peace Commission. The commission's study of American Indians decried prior American policy and galvanized support for reformers. After the inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant the following spring, Congress allied with prominent philanthropists to create the Board of Indian Commissioners, a permanent advisory body to oversee Indian affairs and prevent the further outbreak of violence. The board effectively Christianized American Indian policy. Much of the reservation system was handed over to Protestant churches, which were tasked with finding agents and missionaries to manage reservation life. Congress hoped that religiously minded men might fare better at creating just assimilation policies and persuading Indians to accept them. Historian Francis Paul Prucha believed that this attempt at a new "peace policy . . . might just have properly been labelled the 'religious policy.'"

Many female Christian missionaries played a central role in cultural reeducation programs that attempted to not only instill Protestant religion but also impose traditional American gender roles and family structures. They endeavored to replace Indians' tribal social units with small, patriarchal households. Women's labor became a contentious issue because few tribes divided labor according to the gender norms of middle- and upper-class Americans. Fieldwork, the traditional domain of white males, was primarily performed by Native women, who also usually controlled the products of their labor, if not the land that was worked, giving them status in society as laborers and food providers. For missionaries, the goal was to get Native women to leave the fields and engage in more proper "women's" work-housework. Christian missionaries performed much as secular federal agents had. Few American agents could meet Native Americans on their own terms. Most viewed reservation Indians as lazy and thought of Native cultures as inferior to their own. The views of J. L. Broaddus, appointed to oversee several small Indian tribes on the Hoopa Valley reservation in California, are illustrative: in his annual report to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1875, he wrote, "The great majority of them are idle, listless, careless, and improvident. They seem to take no thought about provision for the future, and many of them would not work at all if they were not compelled to do so. They would rather live upon the roots and acorns gathered by their women than to work for flour and beef."

If the Indians could not be forced through kindness to change their ways, most agreed that it was acceptable to use force, which Native groups resisted. In Texas and the Southern Plains, the Comanche, the Kiowa, and their allies had wielded enormous influence. The Comanche in particular controlled huge swaths of territory and raided vast areas, inspiring terror from the Rocky Mountains to the interior of northern Mexico to the Texas Gulf Coast. But after the Civil War, the U.S. military refocused its attention on the Southern Plains.

The American military first sent messengers to the Plains to find the elusive Comanche bands and ask them to come to peace negotiations at Medicine Lodge Creek in the fall of 1867. But terms were muddled: American officials believed that Comanche bands had accepted reservation life, while Comanche leaders believed they were guaranteed vast lands for buffalo hunting. Comanche bands used designated reservation lands as a base from which to collect supplies and federal annuity goods while continuing to hunt, trade, and raid American settlements in Texas.

Confronted with renewed Comanche raiding, particularly by the famed war leader Quanah Parker, the U.S. military finally proclaimed that all Indians who were not settled on the reservation by the fall of 1874 would be considered "hostile." The Red River War began when many Comanche bands refused to resettle and the American military launched expeditions into the Plains to subdue them, culminating in the defeat of the remaining roaming bands in the canyonlands of the Texas Panhandle. Cold and hungry, with their way of life already decimated by soldiers, settlers, cattlemen, and railroads, the last free Comanche bands were moved to the reservation at Fort Sill, in what is now southwestern Oklahoma.

On the northern Plains, the Sioux people had yet to fully surrender. Following the troubles of 1862, many bands had signed treaties with the United States and drifted into the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies to collect rations and annuities, but many continued to resist American encroachment, particularly during Red Cloud's War, a rare victory for the Plains people that resulted in the Treaty of 1868 and created the Great Sioux Reservation. Then, in 1874, an American expedition to the Black Hills of South Dakota discovered gold. White prospectors flooded the territory. Caring very little about Indian rights and very much about getting rich, they brought the Sioux situation again to its breaking point. Aware that U.S. citizens were violating treaty provisions, but unwilling to prevent them from searching for gold, federal officials pressured the western Sioux to sign a new treaty that would transfer control of the Black Hills to the United States while General Philip Sheridan quietly moved U.S. troops into the region. Initial clashes between U.S. troops and Sioux warriors resulted in several Sioux victories that, combined with the visions of Sitting Bull, who had dreamed of an even more triumphant victory, attracted Sioux bands who had already signed treaties but now joined to fight.

In late June 1876, a division of the 7th Cavalry Regiment led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer was sent up a trail into the Black Hills as an advance guard for a larger force. Custer's men approached a camp along a river known to the Sioux as Greasy Grass but marked on Custer's map as Little Bighorn, and they found that the influx of "treaty" Sioux as well as aggrieved Cheyenne and other allies had swelled the population of the village far beyond Custer's estimation. Custer's 7th Cavalry was vastly outnumbered, and he and 268 of his men were killed.

Custer's fall shocked the nation. Cries for a swift American response filled the public sphere, and military expeditions were sent out to crush Native resistance. The Sioux splintered off into the wilderness and began a campaign of intermittent resistance but, outnumbered and suffering after a long, hungry winter, Crazy Horse led a band of Oglala Sioux to surrender in May 1877. Other bands gradually followed until finally, in July 1881, Sitting Bull and his followers at last laid down their weapons and came to the reservation. Indigenous powers had been defeated. The Plains, it seemed, had been pacified.

Plains peoples were not the only ones who suffered as a result of American expansion. Groups like the Utes and Paiutes were pushed out of the Rocky Mountains by U.S. expansion into Colorado and away from the northern Great Basin by the expanding Mormon population in Utah Territory in the 1850s and 1860s. Faced with a shrinking territorial base, members of these two groups often joined the U.S. military in its campaigns in the southwest against other powerful Native groups like the Hopi, the Zuni, the Jicarilla Apache, and especially the Navajo, whose population of at least ten thousand engaged in both farming and sheep herding on some of the most valuable lands acquired by the United States after the Mexican War.

Conflicts between the U.S. military, American settlers, and Native populations increased throughout the 1850s. By 1862, General James Carleton began searching for a reservation where he could remove the Navajo and end their threat to U.S. expansion in the Southwest. Carleton selected a dry, almost treeless site in the Bosque Redondo Valley, three hundred miles from the Navajo homeland.

In April 1863, Carleton gave orders to Colonel Kit Carson to round up the entire Navajo population and escort them to Bosque Redondo. Those who resisted would be shot. Thus began a period of Navajo history called the Long Walk, which remains deeply important to Navajo people today. The Long Walk was not a single event but a series of forced marches to the reservation at Bosque Redondo between August 1863 and December 1866. Conditions at Bosque Redondo were horrible. Provisions provided by the U.S. Army were not only inadequate but often spoiled; disease was rampant, and thousands of Navajos died.

By 1868, it had become clear that life at the reservation was unsustainable. General William Tecumseh Sherman visited the reservation and wrote of the inhumane situation in which the Navajo were essentially kept as prisoners, but lack of cost-effectiveness was the main reason Sherman recommended that the Navajo be returned to their homeland in the West. On June 1, 1868, the Navajo signed the Treaty of Bosque Redondo, an unprecedented treaty in the history of U.S.-Indian relations in which the Navajo were able to return from the reservation to their homeland.

The destruction of Indian nations in California and the Pacific Northwest received significantly less attention than the dramatic conquest of the Plains, but Native peoples in these regions also experienced violence, population decline, and territorial loss. For example, in 1872, the California/Oregon border erupted in violence when the Modoc people left the reservation of their historic enemies, the Klamath Indians, and returned to an area known as Lost River. Americans had settled the region after Modoc removal several years before, and they complained bitterly of the Natives' return. The U.S. military arrived when fifty-two remaining Modoc warriors, led by a man called Captain Jack, refused to return to the reservation and holed up in defensive positions along the state border. They fought a guerrilla war for eleven months in which at least two hundred U.S. troops were killed before they were finally forced to surrender. Four years later, in the Pacific Northwest, a branch of the Nez Percé (who, generations earlier, had aided Lewis and Clark in their famous journey to the Pacific Ocean) refused to be moved to a reservation and, under the leadership of Chief Joseph, attempted to flee to Canada but were pursued by the U.S. Cavalry. The outnumbered Nez Percé battled across a thousand miles and were attacked nearly two dozen times before they succumbed to hunger and exhaustion, surrendered, and were forced to return. The flight of the Nez Percé captured the attention of the nation, and a transcript of Chief Joseph's surrender, as recorded by a U.S. Army officer, became a landmark of American rhetoric. "Hear me, my chiefs," Joseph was supposed to have said, "I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."

The history of Indian-American relations in California typified the decline of the western Indians. The treaties that had been signed with numerous Native nations in California in the 1850s were never ratified by the Senate. Over one hundred distinct Native groups had lived in California before the Spanish and American conquests, but by 1880, the Native population of California had collapsed from about 150,000 on the eve of the gold rush to a little less than 20,000. A few reservation areas were eventually set up by the U.S. government to collect what remained of the Native population, but most were dispersed throughout California. This was partly the result of state laws from the 1850s that allowed white Californians to obtain both Native children and adults as "apprentice" laborers by merely bringing the desired laborer before a judge and promising to feed, clothe, and eventually release them after a period of "service" that ranged from ten to twenty years. Thousands of California's Natives were thus pressed into a form of slave labor that supported the growing mining, agricultural, railroad, and cattle industries.

As Native peoples were pushed out, American settlers poured in. Aside from agriculture and the extraction of natural resources-such as timber and precious metals-two major industries fueled the new western economy: ranching and railroads. Both developed in connection with each other and both shaped the collective American memory of the post-Civil War "Wild West."

As one booster put it, "the West is purely a railroad enterprise." No economic enterprise rivaled the railroads in scale, scope, or sheer impact. No other businesses had attracted such enormous sums of capital, and no other ventures ever received such lavish government subsidies (business historian Alfred Chandler called the railroads the "first modern business enterprise"). By "annihilating time and space"-by connecting the vastness of the continent-the railroads transformed the United States and made the American West.

No railroad enterprise so captured the American imagination-or federal support-as the transcontinental railroad. The transcontinental railroad crossed western plains and mountains and linked the West Coast with the rail networks of the eastern United States. Constructed from the west by the Central Pacific and from the east by the Union Pacific, the two roads were linked in Utah in 1869 to great national fanfare. But such a herculean task was not easy, and national legislators threw enormous subsidies at railroad companies, a part of the Republican Party platform since 1856. The 1862 Pacific Railroad Act gave bonds of between $16,000 and $48,000 for each mile of construction and provided vast land grants to railroad companies. Between 1850 and 1871 alone, railroad companies received more than 175,000,000 acres of public land, an area larger than the state of Texas. Investors reaped enormous profits. As one congressional opponent put it in the 1870s, "If there be profit, the corporations may take it; if there be loss, the Government must bear it."

If railroads attracted unparalleled subsidies and investments, they also created enormous labor demands. By 1880, approximately four hundred thousand men-or nearly 2.5 percent of the nation's entire workforce-labored in the railroad industry. Much of the work was dangerous and low-paying, and companies relied heavily on immigrant labor to build tracks. Companies employed Irish workers in the early nineteenth century and Chinese workers in the late nineteenth century. By 1880, over two hundred thousand Chinese migrants lived in the United States. Once the rails were laid, companies still needed a large workforce to keep the trains running. Much railroad work was dangerous, but perhaps the most hazardous work was done by brakemen. Before the advent of automatic braking, an engineer would blow the "down brake" whistle and brakemen would scramble to the top of the moving train, regardless of the weather conditions, and run from car to car manually turning brakes. Speed was necessary, and any slip could be fatal. Brakemen were also responsible for coupling the cars, attaching them together with a large pin. It was easy to lose a hand or finger and even a slight mistake could cause cars to collide.

The railroads boomed. In 1850, there were 9,000 miles of railroads in the United States. In 1900 there were 190,000, including several transcontinental lines. To manage these vast networks of freight and passenger lines, companies converged rails at hub cities. Of all the Midwestern and western cities that blossomed from the bridging of western resources and eastern capital in the late nineteenth century, Chicago was the most spectacular. It grew from two hundred inhabitants in 1833 to over a million by 1890. By 1893 it and the region from which it drew were completely transformed. The World's Columbian Exposition that year trumpeted the city's progress and broader technological progress, with typical Gilded Age ostentation. A huge, gleaming (but temporary) "White City" was built in neoclassical style to house all the features of the fair and cater to the needs of the visitors who arrived from all over the world. Highlighted in the title of this world's fair were the changes that had overtaken North America since Columbus made landfall four centuries earlier. Chicago became the most important western hub and served as the gateway between the farm and ranch country of the Great Plains and eastern markets. Railroads brought cattle from Texas to Chicago for slaughter, where they were then processed into packaged meats and shipped by refrigerated rail to New York City and other eastern cities. Such hubs became the central nodes in a rapid-transit economy that increasingly spread across the entire continent linking goods and people together in a new national network.

This national network created the fabled cattle drives of the 1860s and 1870s. The first cattle drives across the central Plains began soon after the Civil War. Railroads created the market for ranching, and for the few years after the war that railroads connected eastern markets with important market hubs such as Chicago, but had yet to reach Texas ranchlands, ranchers began driving cattle north, out of the Lone Star state, to major railroad terminuses in Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. Ranchers used well-worn trails, such as the Chisholm Trail, for drives, but conflicts arose with Native Americans in the Indian Territory and farmers in Kansas who disliked the intrusion of large and environmentally destructive herds onto their own hunting, ranching, and farming lands. Other trails, such as the Western Trail, the Goodnight-Loving Trail, and the Shawnee Trail, were therefore blazed.

Cattle drives were difficult tasks for the crews of men who managed the herds. Historians estimate the number of men who worked as cowboys in the late-nineteenth century to be between twelve thousand and forty thousand. Perhaps a fourth were African American, and more were likely Mexican or Mexican American. Much about the American cowboys evolved from Mexican vaqueros: cowboys adopted Mexican practices, gear, and terms such as rodeo, bronco, and lasso."

While most cattle drivers were men, there are at least sixteen verifiable accounts of women participating in the drives. Some, like Molly Dyer Goodnight, accompanied their husbands. Others, like Lizzie Johnson Williams, helped drive their own herds. Williams made at least three known trips with her herds up the Chisholm Trail.

Many cowboys hoped one day to become ranch owners themselves, but employment was insecure and wages were low. Beginners could expect to earn around $20-$25 per month, and those with years of experience might earn $40-$45. Trail bosses could earn over $50 per month. And it was tough work. On a cattle drive, cowboys worked long hours and faced extremes of heat and cold and intense blowing dust. They subsisted on limited diets with irregular supplies.

But if workers of cattle earned low wages, owners and investors could receive riches. At the end of the Civil War, a steer worth $4 in Texas could fetch $40 in Kansas. Although profits slowly leveled off, large profits could still be made. And yet, by the 1880s, the great cattle drives were largely done. The railroads had created them, and the railroads ended them: railroad lines pushed into Texas and made the great drives obsolete. But ranching still brought profits and the Plains were better suited for grazing than for agriculture, and western ranchers continued supplying beef for national markets.

Ranching was just one of many western industries that depended on the railroads. By linking the Plains with national markets and rapidly moving people and goods, the railroads made the modern American West.

As the rails moved into the West, and more and more Americans followed, the situation for Native groups deteriorated even further. Treaties negotiated between the United States and Native groups had typically promised that if tribes agreed to move to specific reservation lands, they would hold those lands collectively. But as American westward migration mounted and open lands closed, white settlers began to argue that Indians had more than their fair share of land, that the reservations were too big, that Indians were using the land "inefficiently," and that they still preferred nomadic hunting instead of intensive farming and ranching.

By the 1880s, Americans increasingly championed legislation to allow the transfer of Indian lands to farmers and ranchers, while many argued that allotting Indian lands to individual Native Americans, rather than to tribes, would encourage American-style agriculture and finally put Indians who had previously resisted the efforts of missionaries and federal officials on the path to "civilization."

Passed by Congress on February 8, 1887, the Dawes General Allotment Act splintered Native American reservations into individual family homesteads. Each head of a Native family was to be allotted 160 acres, the typical size of a claim that any settler could establish on federal lands under the provisions of the Homestead Act. Single individuals over age eighteen would receive an eighty-acre allotment, and orphaned children received forty acres. A four-year timeline was established for Indian peoples to make their allotment selections. If at the end of that time no selection had been made, the act authorized the secretary of the interior to appoint an agent to make selections for the remaining tribal members. To protect Indians from being swindled by unscrupulous land speculators, all allotments were to be held in trust-they could not be sold by allottees-for twenty-five years. Lands that remained unclaimed by tribal members after allotment would revert to federal control and be sold to American settlers.

Americans touted the Dawes Act as an uplifting humanitarian reform, but it upended Indian lifestyles and left Indian groups without sovereignty over their lands. The act claimed that to protect Indian property rights, it was necessary to extend "the protection of the laws of the United States . . . over the Indians." Tribal governments and legal principles could be superseded, or dissolved and replaced, by U.S. laws. Under the terms of the Dawes Act, Native groups struggled to hold on to some measure of tribal sovereignty.

The stresses of conquest unsettled generations of Native Americans. Many took comfort from the words of prophets and holy men. In Nevada, on January 1, 1889, Northern Paiute prophet Wovoka experienced a great revelation. He had traveled, he said, from his earthly home in western Nevada to heaven and returned during a solar eclipse to prophesy to his people. "You must not hurt anybody or do harm to anyone. You must not fight. Do right always," he exhorted. And they must, he said, participate in a religious ceremony that came to be known as the Ghost Dance. If the people lived justly and danced the Ghost Dance, Wovoka said, their ancestors would rise from the dead, droughts would dissipate, the whites in the West would vanish, and the buffalo would once again roam the Plains.

Native American prophets had often confronted American imperial power. Some prophets, including Wovoka, incorporated Christian elements like heaven and a Messiah figure into indigenous spiritual traditions. And so, though it was far from unique, Wovoka's prophecy nevertheless caught on quickly and spread beyond the Paiutes. From across the West, members of the Arapaho, Bannock, Cheyenne, and Shoshone nations, among others, adopted the Ghost Dance religion. Perhaps the most avid Ghost Dancers-and certainly the most famous-were the Lakota Sioux.

The Lakota Sioux were in dire straits. South Dakota, formed out of land that had once belonged by treaty to the Lakotas, became a state in 1889. White homesteaders had poured in, reservations were carved up and diminished, starvation set in, corrupt federal agents cut food rations, and drought hit the Plains. Many Lakotas feared a future as the landless subjects of a growing American empire when a delegation of eleven men, led by Kicking Bear, joined Ghost Dance pilgrims on the rails westward to Nevada and returned to spread the revival in the Dakotas.

The energy and message of the revivals frightened Indian agents, who began arresting Indian leaders. Then Chief Sitting Bull and with several other whites and Indians, were killed in December 1890 during a botched arrest, convincing many bands to flee the reservations to join the fugitive bands farther west, where Lakota adherents of the Ghost Dance were preaching that the Ghost Dancers would be immune to bullets.

Two weeks later, an American cavalry unit intercepted a band of 350 Lakotas, including over 100 women and children, under Chief Spotted Elk (later known as Bigfoot). They were escorted to Wounded Knee Creek, where they camped for the night. The following morning, December 29, the American cavalrymen entered the camp to disarm Spotted Elk's band. Tensions flared, a shot was fired, and a skirmish became a massacre. The Americans fired their heavy weaponry indiscriminately into the camp. Two dozen cavalrymen had been killed by the Lakotas' concealed weapons or by friendly fire, but when the guns went silent, between 150 and 300 Native men, women, and children were dead.

Wounded Knee marked the end of sustained, armed Native American resistance in the West. Individuals continued to resist the pressures of assimilation and preserve traditional cultural practices, but sustained military defeats, the loss of sovereignty over land and resources, and the onset of crippling poverty on the reservations marked the final decades of the nineteenth century as a particularly dark era for America's western tribes. But for Americans, it became mythical.

"The American West" conjures visions of tipis, cabins, cowboys, Indians, farm wives in sunbonnets, and outlaws with six-shooters. Such images pervade American culture, but they are as old as the West itself: novels, rodeos, and Wild West shows mythologized the American West throughout the post-Civil War era.

In the 1860s, Americans devoured dime novels that embellished the lives of real-life individuals such as Calamity Jane and Billy the Kid. Owen Wister's novels, especially The Virginian, established the character of the cowboy as a gritty stoic with a rough exterior but the courage and heroism needed to rescue people from train robbers, Indians, and cattle rustlers. Such images were later reinforced when the emergence of rodeo added to popular conceptions of the American West. Rodeos began as small roping and riding contests among cowboys in towns near ranches or at camps at the end of the cattle trails. In Pecos, Texas, on July 4, 1883, cowboys from two ranches, the Hash Knife and the W Ranch, competed in roping and riding contests as a way to settle an argument; this event is recognized by historians of the West as the first real rodeo. Casual contests evolved into planned celebrations. Many were scheduled around national holidays, such as Independence Day, or during traditional roundup times in the spring and fall. Early rodeos took place in open grassy areas-not arenas-and included calf and steer roping and roughstock events such as bronc riding. They gained popularity and soon dedicated rodeo circuits developed. Although about 90 percent of rodeo contestants were men, women helped popularize the rodeo and several popular female bronc riders, such as Bertha Kaepernick, entered men's events, until around 1916 when women's competitive participation was curtailed. Americans also experienced the "Wild West"-the mythical West imagined in so many dime novels-by attending traveling Wild West shows, arguably the unofficial national entertainment of the United States from the 1880s to the 1910s. Wildly popular across the country, the shows traveled throughout the eastern United States and even across Europe and showcased what was already a mythic frontier life. William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody was the first to recognize the broad national appeal of the stock "characters" of the American West-cowboys, Indians, sharpshooters, cavalrymen, and rangers-and put them all together into a single massive traveling extravaganza. Operating out of Omaha, Nebraska, Buffalo Bill launched his touring show in 1883. Cody himself shunned the word show, fearing that it implied an exaggeration or misrepresentation of the West. He instead called his production "Buffalo Bill's Wild West." He employed real cowboys and Indians in his productions. But it was still, of course, a show. It was entertainment, little different in its broad outlines from contemporary theater. Storylines depicted westward migration, life on the Plains, and Indian attacks, all punctuated by "cowboy fun": bucking broncos, roping cattle, and sharpshooting contests.

Buffalo Bill, joined by shrewd business partners skilled in marketing, turned his shows into a sensation. But he was not alone. Gordon William "Pawnee Bill" Lillie, another popular Wild West showman, got his start in 1886 when Cody employed him as an interpreter for Pawnee members of the show. Lillie went on to create his own production in 1888, "Pawnee Bill's Historic Wild West." He was Cody's only real competitor in the business until 1908, when the two men combined their shows to create a new extravaganza, "Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Pawnee Bill's Great Far East" (most people called it the "Two Bills Show"). It was an unparalleled spectacle. The cast included American cowboys, Mexican vaqueros, Native Americans, Russian Cossacks, Japanese acrobats, and an Australian aboriginal.

Cody and Lillie knew that Native Americans fascinated audiences in the United States and Europe, and both featured them prominently in their Wild West shows. Most Americans believed that Native cultures were disappearing or had already, and felt a sense of urgency to see their dances, hear their song, and be captivated by their bareback riding skills and their elaborate buckskin and feather attire. The shows certainly veiled the true cultural and historic value of so many Native demonstrations, and the Indian performers were curiosities to white Americans, but the shows were one of the few ways for many Native Americans to make a living in the late nineteenth century.

In an attempt to appeal to women, Cody recruited Annie Oakley, a female sharpshooter who thrilled onlookers with her many stunts. Billed as "Little Sure Shot," she shot apples off her poodle's head and the ash from her husband's cigar, clenched trustingly between his teeth. Gordon Lillie's wife, May Manning Lillie, also became a skilled shot and performed as "World's Greatest Lady Horseback Shot." Female sharpshooters were Wild West show staples. As many as eighty toured the country at the shows' peak. But if such acts challenged expected Victorian gender roles, female performers were typically careful to blunt criticism by maintaining their feminine identity-for example, by riding sidesaddle and wearing full skirts and corsets-during their acts.

The western "cowboys and Indians" mystique, perpetuated in novels, rodeos, and Wild West shows, was rooted in romantic nostalgia and, perhaps, in the anxieties that many felt in the late nineteenth century's new seemingly "soft" industrial world of factory and office work. The mythical cowboy's "aggressive masculinity" was the seemingly perfect antidote for middle- and upper-class, city-dwelling Americans who feared they "had become over-civilized" and longed for what Theodore Roosevelt called the "strenuous life." Roosevelt himself, a scion of a wealthy New York family and later a popular American president, turned a brief tenure as a failed Dakota ranch owner into a potent part of his political image. Americans looked longingly to the West, whose romance would continue to pull at generations of Americans.

In 1893, the American Historical Association met during that year's World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The young Wisconsin historian Frederick Jackson Turner presented his "frontier thesis," one of the most influential theories of American history, in his essay "The Significance of the Frontier in American History."

Turner looked back at the historical changes in the West and saw, instead of a tsunami of war and plunder and industry, waves of "civilization" that washed across the continent. A frontier line "between savagery and civilization" had moved west from the earliest English settlements in Massachusetts and Virginia across the Appalachians to the Mississippi and finally across the Plains to California and Oregon. Turner invited his audience to "stand at Cumberland Gap [the famous pass through the Appalachian Mountains], and watch the procession of civilization, marching single file-the buffalo following the trail to the salt springs, the Indian, the fur trader and hunter, the cattle-raiser, the pioneer farmer-and the frontier has passed by."

Americans, Turner said, had been forced by necessity to build a rough-hewn civilization out of the frontier, giving the nation its exceptional hustle and its democratic spirit and distinguishing North America from the stale monarchies of Europe. Moreover, the style of history Turner called for was democratic as well, arguing that the work of ordinary people (in this case, pioneers) deserved the same study as that of great statesmen. Such was a novel approach in 1893.

But Turner looked ominously to the future. The Census Bureau in 1890 had declared the frontier closed. There was no longer a discernible line running north to south that, Turner said, any longer divided civilization from savagery. Turner worried for the United States' future: what would become of the nation without the safety valve of the frontier? It was a common sentiment. Theodore Roosevelt wrote to Turner that his essay "put into shape a good deal of thought that has been floating around rather loosely."

The history of the West was many-sided and it was made by many persons and peoples. Turner's thesis was rife with faults, not only in its bald Anglo-Saxon chauvinism-in which nonwhites fell before the march of "civilization" and Chinese and Mexican immigrants were invisible-but in its utter inability to appreciate the impact of technology and government subsidies and large-scale economic enterprises alongside the work of hardy pioneers. Still, Turner's thesis held an almost canonical position among historians for much of the twentieth century and, more importantly, captured Americans' enduring romanticization of the West and the simplification of a long and complicated story into a march of progress.
Chief Joseph on Indian Affairs (1877, 1879) A branch of the Nez Percé tribe, from the Pacific Northwest, refused to be moved to a reservation and attempted to flee to Canada but were pursued by the U.S. Cavalry, attacked, and forced to return. The following is a transcript of Chief Joseph's surrender, as recorded by Lieutenant Wood, Twenty-first Infantry, acting aide-de-camp and acting adjutant-general to General Oliver O. Howard, in 1877. William T. Hornady on the Extermination of the American Bison (1889) William T. Hornady, Superintendent of the National Zoological Park, wrote a detailed account of the near-extinction of the American bison in the late-nineteenth century. Chester A. Arthur on American Indian Policy (1881) The following is extracted from President Chester A. Arthur's First Annual Message to Congress, delivered December 6, 1881. Frederick Jackson Turner, "Significance of the Frontier in American History" (1893) Perhaps the most influential essay by an American historian, Frederick Jackson Turner's address to the American Historical Association on "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" defined for many Americans the relationship between the frontier and American culture and contemplated what might follow "the closing of the frontier." Tom Torlino (1882, 1885) Tom Torlino, a member of the Navajo Nation, entered the Carlisle Indian School, a Native American boarding school founded by the United States government in 1879, on October 21, 1882 and departed on August 28, 1886. Torlino's student file contained photographs from 1882 and 1885. Frances Densmore and Mountain Chief (1916) American anthropologist and ethnographer Frances Densmore records the Blackfoot chief Mountain Chief in 1916 for the Bureau of American Ethnology.
This chapter was edited by Lauren Brand, with content contributions by Lauren Brand, Carole Butcher, Josh Garrett-Davis, Tracey Hanshew, Nick Roland, David Schley, Emma Teitelman, and Alyce Webb.

Recommended citation: Lauren Brand et al., "Conquering the West," Lauren Brand, ed., in The American Yawp, eds. Joseph Locke and Ben Wright (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018).

Recommended Reading

Aarim, Najia. Chinese Immigrants, African Americans, and Racial Anxiety in the United States, 1848-1882. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2006.

Andrews, Thomas. Killing for Coal: America's Deadliest Labor War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.

Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970.

Cahill, Cathleen. Federal Fathers and Mothers: A Social History of the United States Indian Service, 1869-1933. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011.

Cronon, William. Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. New York: Norton, 1991.

Gordan, Linda. The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.

Hämäläinen, Pekka. The Comanche Empire. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008.

Hine, Robert V. The American West: A New Interpretive History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000.

Huhndorf, Shari M. Going Native: Indians in the American Cultural Imagination. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001.

Isenberg, Andrew C. The Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750-1920. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Jacobs, Margaret D. White Mother to a Dark Race: Settler Colonialism, Maternalism, and the Removal of Indigenous Children in the American West and Australia, 1880-1940. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009.

Johnson, Benjamin Heber. Revolution in Texas: How a Forgotten Rebellion and Its Bloody Suppression Turned Mexicans into Americans. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003.

Kelman, Ari. A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling over the Memory of Sand Creek. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.

Krech, Shepard. The Ecological Indian: Myth and History. New York: Norton, 1999.

Limerick, Patricia Nelson. The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West. New York: Norton, 1987.

Marks, Paula Mitchell. In a Barren Land: American Indian Dispossession and Survival. New York: Morrow, 1998.

Montejano, David. Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836-1986. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1987.

Pascoe, Peggy. Relations of Rescue: The Search for Female Moral Authority in the American West, 1874-1939. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Prucha, Francis Paul. The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984.

Schulten, Susan. The Geographical Imagination in America, 1880-1950. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.

Shah, Nayan. Stranger Intimacy: Contesting Race, Sexuality, and the Law in the North American West. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011.

Smith, Henry Nash. Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth. New York: Vintage Books, 1957.

Taylor, Quintard. In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528-1990. New York: Norton, 1999.

Warren, Louis S. Buffalo Bill's America: William Cody and the Wild West Show. New York: Knopf, 2005.

White, Richard. "It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own": A New History of the American West. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.

Notes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Native Americans long dominated the vastness of the American West. Linked culturally and geographically by trade, travel, and warfare, various indigenous groups controlled most of the continent west of the Mississippi River deep into the nineteenth century.

# data[].attributes.body
This page has a selection of US history videos to show in class. My online class's professor just sent it to us and it will be helpful when I need to find video sources for lessons.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Video on Demand - A Biography of America - The New City

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
distance learning license. All Video on Demand files are protected by copyright law . Downloading, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited. Offenders will be subject to civil and/or criminal liability under applicable laws.

# data[].attributes.body
Exit tickets are forms of assessment to check for understanding at the end of a lesson. Students are asked to answer a question or give information on a slip of paper that is then their "ticket" out the door. This method is helpful to check for understanding after you've completed a lesson. If a lot of students answer the question wrong or can't give accurate information the teacher can recognize that additional instruction is needed.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Use this technique to show you what students are thinking and what they have learned at the end of a lesson. Before students leave (for recess, lunch, the end of the day, their next class, or are transitioning to another subject area), they have to hand you a "ticket" filled out with an answer to a question, a solution to a problem, or a response to what they've learned.

# data[].attributes.body
Text sets are a collection of different sources that all focus on a specific topic. To make a text set several different methods of material are collected, for example, primary sources, annotated reviews, articles, and videos. The goal is that if a student doesn't understand the content by reading it through one method, they will be able to understand it when its shown in a different perspective.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Editor's note: This article is part of the series The Right Tool for the Job: Improving Reading and Writing in the Classroom that provides in-depth reviews of several promising digital tools for English language arts classrooms.

The shift to the Common Core State Standards has ushered in a renewed focus on effective instructional techniques for reading instruction. As Common Core's reading standards state, "To build a foundation for college and career readiness, students must read widely and deeply from among a broad range of high-quality, increasingly challenging literary and informational texts." In this vein, teachers are seeking how best to engage their students in text analysis, ways to develop and utilize text-dependent questions and methods for integrating more complex texts, and for other effective strategies to strengthen students' reading comprehension.

One promising instructional strategy, developed based on reading-comprehension research showing the importance of background knowledge and vocabulary, is text sets. Text sets are collections of texts tightly focused on a specific topic. They may include varied genres (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and so forth) and media (such as blogs, maps, photographs, art, primary-source documents, and audio recordings).

Text sets can be organized in many different ways. Although all high-quality text sets are designed to build knowledge of an academic topic, some are arranged as series of texts (and other media) that become progressively more advanced, while others have a central or "anchor" text with supplementary texts that support the themes and content of the central text. No matter the organization, effective text sets are usually presented in a specific order with attention to text complexity, vocabulary development, content knowledge, and conceptual understanding. In other words, "the focus of study becomes concepts rather than the content of one particular book. Students gain both a broad perspective and an in-depth sense of the subject matter from reading many texts on the same topic."

Research has shown the use of conceptually coherent text sets to be effective in building knowledge and vocabulary, as well as preparing students for new texts on the same topic. Both broad knowledge and topic-specific knowledge are essential for reading comprehension. In turn, background knowledge allows readers to make inferences, which aids in comprehension, thinking, and memory. Studies have also shown that prior knowledge of a topic has a greater impact on reading comprehension than generalized reading ability. As educators, we must recognize the power of prior knowledge!

One drawback is that it takes considerable time and effort to plan an effective text set. Teachers must consider text complexity, vocabulary, and content knowledge in the context of a specific set of students. Though there are many books and articles available that walk through the process of planning text sets, it is often difficult for teachers to find the time to engage in this process. Luckily, there are websites out there that can help.

Newsela, Readworks, and Achieve the Core all have online text-set resources for educators. Over the next few weeks, I will review each of these text-set tools, their usability and organization, and overall strengths and weaknesses.

Stay tuned!
Shannon Garrison is a fourth- and fifth-grade teacher in California with two decades of teaching experience. She holds a National Board Certification, serves on the National Assessment Governing Board, and was also recently selected as a Los Angeles County Teacher of the Year.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What are "text sets," and why use them in the classroom?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Editor's note: This article is part of the series The Right Tool for the Job: Improving Reading and Writing in the Classroom that provides in-depth reviews of several promising digital tools for English language arts classrooms. The shift to the Common Core State Standards has ushered in a renewed focus on effective instructional techniques for reading instruction.

# data[].attributes.body
Scaffolding is the method of slowly withdrawing assistance with each chunk of progress. This is practiced when introducing a new topic, the teacher will provide a lot of instruction at first and when comprehension is shown provide less assistance. This article shows six different ways to practice scaffolding in the classroom.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
6 Scaffolding Strategies to Use With Your Students

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Support every student by breaking learning up into chunks and providing a concrete structure for each.

# data[].attributes.headline
Teaching Strategy #4 ALTERNATIVE ASSESSMENTS

# data[].attributes.subject
Teaching Strategy #4 ALTERNATIVE ASSESSMENTS

# data[].attributes.body
Alternative assessments are options other than the traditional testing methods. The method of alternative assessment is chosen based on the students strengths. This method develops test taking skills for students and can take the anxiety out of test taking.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Alternative Assessment Strategies | Center for Educational Innovation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Collaborative testing. Some instructors have students take multiple choice tests in pairs or small groups. This approach which allows students to discuss the materials and 'teach each other' usually increases the students' grasp of the material. There are several alternative ways to use collaborative testing.

# data[].attributes.body
Learning contracts is the method of making goals with students for their education in the class. This article has specific instructions on the necessary aspects of a learning contract. It also has examples of student contracts on the next page.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learning contracts are generally constructed by the student and reviewed by the teacher, with the final version being negotiated and signed by both parties. Learning contracts can be created in a few simple steps.

# data[].attributes.headline
Teaching Resources #6 POSITIVE DISCIPLINE 

# data[].attributes.subject
Teaching Resources #6 POSITIVE DISCIPLINE 

# data[].attributes.body
Positive discipline is a classroom management strategy that focuses on rewarding good behavior or actions with positive reinforcement. Practicing positive discipline sets a standard for the students in the classroom that they want to follow. This would be helpful for attention-seeking students because it ignores disruptive behavior and rewards the positive.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Positive discipline is an effective way for teachers to use classroom management to deal with misbehaving students. Many teachers choose this classroom management approach because they feel that it allows students to learn and adapt to the behaviors and expectations that they have set. It essentially allows teachers to focus on the students' good behaviors. However, whenever you have a "New" approach to classroom discipline, you will have a few naysayers. These are the parents and teachers from the previous generation that were brought up thinking that the positive approach to discipline meant being "Too soft" on the children. They were brought up thinking that children need to be scared in order to behave appropriately. In today's classrooms, many teachers are trying to open the minds of their students and teaching them to make good choices. They are focusing their attention on the positives of each unique student, and rewarding them for the good choices that they make. If you're still on the fence on whether to try the positive discipline classroom management approach with your students, then here are a few more reasons why positive disciplining is still disciplining.

Classroom Management: Fear Teaches Students to React Negatively

When we sense danger, our survival instincts kick in, and we respond by either hiding, running away, or fighting back. If you punish a student for her unwanted behavior by scaring her, it doesn't mean that you are helping them to become a better person, it just means you are scaring them into acting the way you want them to act.

If respect is what you are after, then fear will not get you that. Respect has to be earned. Fear will not help develop students' self-esteem, it will only make them retreat or fight back. Positive discipline allows you to reinforce the students' good behavior, and snuff out the bad behavior, all while maintaining respect without having the student fear you.

Teachers are mentors, and when a student fears you, then they will no longer come to you for guidance and support. A positive discipline approach teaches to make better choices, which will in turn help them succeed and thrive in school.

Focusing on the Positive Brings Positive Results

Logically, when you focus on something positive, then you will get positive results. Think about the last time that you had a bad day. It most likely started out with one little thing like stubbing your toe, then as you kept thinking about it, your day started to snowball and turn from one bad thing to another. If you focus on the negative, more negative things will happen. However, if you focus on the positive, then more positive things will happen.

Positive discipline works in the same way. When you place your student expectations high, then the student will more than likely try to meet them. However, if you place them low, then the student will also try and match them. The positive approach teaches students that they are worth it, and that they can do anything. A student who has self-worth is a student who will behave to your expectations.

Positive Discipline Teaches Logic

When children make a mistake or when they misbehave, you as the teacher have the option to help the child learn from their mistakes. Students can think about their choices and what effect they had on the outcome. This will help them understand the cause and effect of the decisions that they made. When you use a positive discipline approach, one where you help the student understand the logic and reasoning behind their actions, you are helping them understand their actions.

Rewarding Students for a Good Choice is Positive

The goal of many educators is to get their students to be intrinsically motivated. However, while this is a fantastic goal to have, every now and then it's OK to be rewarded for a good choice. Think back to when you were a student in school. Did you ever get a pat on the back or get a special treat for making a good choice in school? If so, how did that make you feel? When someone rewards you for making a good choice then that is a form of positive discipline. They are reassuring you that you made a good decision.

Focusing on Students' Behavior Teaches Good Choice Making

The positive discipline approach focuses on the students' behavior and not who they are as a person. It uses language that gives students the chance to think about their actions. For example, you don't tell a student they are "Bad," but you may say that their actions are not a good choice. Children have to make decisions pretty much every minute of the day, and when you use a positive approach, you are allowing that child to have the chance to modify the choices they make so they can feel good about them.

The goal of using the positive discipline approach is to produce students who can think critically and make good decisions on their own. It allows students to learn and adapt from their behaviors in order to meet the expectations of their teacher. By teaching students (in a positive way) to make better choices, we are leading them on the path to success.
Do you use a positive discipline approach in your classroom management techniques? Feel free to share your thoughts and experiences with this topic in the comment section below, we would love to hear your thoughts.
Janelle Cox is an education writer who uses her experience and knowledge to provide creative and original writing in the field of education. Janelle holds Masters of Science in Education from the State University of New York College at Buffalo. She is a contributing writer to TeachHUB.com, TeachHUB Magazine, and Hey Teach. She was also the Elementary Education Expert for About.com for five years. You can follow her on Twitter @empoweringed, on Facebook at Empowering K12 Educators, or contact her at Janellecox78@yahoo.com.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Classroom Management: Try Positive Discipline

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Positive discipline is an effective way for teachers to use classroom management to deal with misbehaving students. Many teachers choose this classroom management approach because they feel that it allows students to learn and adapt to the behaviors and expectations that they have set. It essentially allows teachers to focus on the students' good behaviors.

# data[].attributes.body
Differentiation is the method of teaching based on a students strengths and weaknesses. Knowing how a student learns best or how a student works best allows the teacher to assign roles and assessments to match that. This blog gives examples of different situations that call for differentiation.

# data[].attributes.body
Collaboration is when students have group discussions in the classroom. This article gives ideas on how to encourage participation in group discussions and collaboration during class. It gives different methods of collaboration with descriptions on how they work and their benefits.

# data[].attributes.body
This link goes to a video explaining what visualization is and how to teach it to students. This would be helpful when practicing differentiation in students who learn differently. Visualization is when students picture images in their head as they read something. This method helps students who have trouble reading a texts.

# data[].attributes.body
This link goes to a page specific for teaching economics to students. The page it goes to is how to play Minecraft within a economics lesson. Has two free lesson plans with how to use it.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Lesson Plans Archives - Council for Economic Education

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Council for Economic Education (CEE) is excited to announce new educational content released for Mojang and Microsoft's Minecraft: Education Edition. CEE released two free Minecraft lesson plans providing teachers, grades 3-5 nationwide the opportunity to further engage their students on the subject of economics via one of the most popular games in the world.

# data[].attributes.body
This site has a search bar to go through lesson plans for economics for any concept. This would be helpful when I need ideas for lesson plans or want to find activities for the class.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Lesson Plans - Foundation For Teaching Economics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
To find FTE activities and lessons, please select from the different search options. Search by FTE program, topic, FTE economic reasoning proposition, Voluntary National Content Standard, or History Content Standard.

# data[].attributes.body
This site has different experiments and games for students to play that involve economics. These ideas for activities would be helpful when planning lessons. Has individual player games and activities for groups.

# data[].attributes.body
This link goes to a economic strategy game called "Island" that can be played in the classroom. This would be a good game to play to engage students in economics and show it in an engaging/fun way.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Objectives

· Analyze the advantages and disadvantages of different systems in the process of designing an ideal economy.

· Engage in problem-solving activities with others that focus on questions that are central to the organization of the ideal economy.

Materials

Time

Three to four class periods

Evaluation

Group record sheets can be turned in and group presentations can be evaluated.

For a more individual evaluation, students can respond to the questions on the handout, "Evaluation of Your Island Economy." This can be used as a test or assessment covering basic economic concepts, including many from Lesson 1 and 2.

Vocabulary

natural resources land, labor and capital socio-economic goals

trade-offs opportunity costs scarcity

Suggested Procedure

1) Divide students into groups of four.

2) Read the Island scenario to the whole class. Have students select roles in their groups.

3) Have each group discuss the questions on the handout Setting up Your Island Economy and record their answers.

4) Then have each group draw one (or more) of the Problem Solving cards from a hat and work out a solution.

5) Ask each group to record their decisions and report back to the whole class how they set up their economy, what their issue was, and how they proposed to deal with it. Use this as a time to facilitate whole class discussion on the questions.

6) Have students prepare for and then individually perform the "Evaluation of Your Island Economy."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Objectives · Analyze the advantages and disadvantages of different systems in the process of designing an ideal economy. · Engage in problem-solving activities with others that focus on questions that are central to the organization of the ideal economy. Materials Time Three to four class periods Evaluation Group record sheets can be turned in and group presentations can be evaluated.

# data[].attributes.body
This article explains the circular flow model in detail and has examples. It shows three teachers strategies for introducing the circular flow model. This would be good to show students who arent understanding the first time it is introduced.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Do your students want to own the latest technological gadget, trendy/hipster clothes, and, if they are driving, a set of wheels to liberate themselves? If they are like many teenagers, the answer is yes to all these. How many young consumers ponder the economic relationships that exist between businesses and households? How many understand that this interaction is essential for market economies to function? Do they think about the source of the income necessary to buy these coveted items, the incentives motivating businesses and households to interact, or the role that ownership of the factors of production plays in the flow of economic exchanges? Three Atlanta-area teachers share lessons and strategies for teaching the simple model of the circular flow of economic activity.

Dr. Elfi Funk, an AP macroeconomics teacher at Peachtree Ridge High School in Suwanee, Ga., has developed a lesson plan on the circular flow model that moves from concrete examples to abstract concepts. She puts her students in groups of four and assigns each group a short case scenario along with the basic layout of the circular flow model (factor and product market, and households and firms/businesses). Students read the case scenarios, and each group transfers the information onto the arrows of the model. When groups solve their first scenarios, they go on to pick a second one. Each scenario-four in all-adds new components to the puzzle. By the end of the exercise, students see the interdependence of all the players in a circular flow model. Dr. Funk uses a simple circular flow for this lesson, omitting the government in the model. She adds this component later, when she teaches about government revenue and spending. This process allows her to review the model throughout the course.

Like Dr. Funk, Gary Petmecky, an AP economics teacher at Parkview High School in Lilburn, Ga., uses laminated pieces of the circular flow model glued to magnets to allow students to actively engage with the model as a puzzle. Mr. Petmecky describes the model, then places one of the pieces on the whiteboard. (The magnets allow placement on the whiteboard.) He asks a few students to come to the whiteboard to put the remaining pieces in the correct order. The exercise gives students practice at making the model. Students can also correct their peers if they make mistakes, which reinforces everyone's understanding. Teachers can switch the position of one of the magnets, then have the students rearrange the other pieces to accommodate this change. The kinesthetic nature of this activity reinforces learning.

Dr. Pamela Roach, an AP macroeconomics teacher at North Cobb High School in Kennesaw, Ga., presents the circular flow model at the end of her unit on economic fundamentals. She uses the lesson she developed as a springboard for the unit on microeconomics. Dr. Roach begins her lesson by having a conversation with the students about supply and demand, as well as how people earn money. She leads a simulation of a series of potential exchanges. Student volunteers play shoppers (consumers), a store manager (product market), a CEO (business/headquarters), and a factory manager (factor/resource market). After the simulation, students draw the circular flow model based on the simulation of the exchanges that took place. The students later draw the model using textbooks' terms such as households, businesses, factor market, and product market rather than the examples from their simulated exchanges. The students may draw another model using a product they choose. (This will be a homework assignment.) Teachers can use the rubric to assess the students' models. Finally, students fill in the blanks on the model with the product market and factor market reversed.

Related Links Related Links on Other Sites

September 6, 2011

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Share the Wealth: Three teachers' strategies for presenting circular flow

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Do your students want to own the latest technological gadget, trendy/hipster clothes, and, if they are driving, a set of wheels to liberate themselves? If they are like many teenagers, the answer is yes to all these. How many young consumers ponder the economic relationships that exist between businesses and households?

# data[].attributes.body
This site has multiple webinars on economics and the history of economics. This would be great research tools for students because it has information on economics.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
EconEdLink - The "Not So Great" Depression

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This webinar demonstrates how popular works of historical fiction, set during the Great Depression, can be used to teach economic concepts such as scarcity, opportunity cost, and economic choice. Featured titles include Dave at Night, Esperanza Rising, Bud, Not Buddy and Out of the Dust. Session includes classroom ready lessons and a topical bibliography.

# data[].attributes.body
This word document has the objectives and enduring understandings of economics. I would use this along with the state standards to come up with essential questions and other objectives for lesson plans.

# data[].attributes.body
This goes to a lesson plan showing the differences between capitalism, socialism, and communism.  This shows a full lesson which I could imitate in my class or use for ideas when planning activities. It shows the candy game that shows how the three systems work.

# data[].attributes.body
This goes to a website with lesson plan instructions that describes Karl Marx and his theories. I would use this as a resource for lesson ideas and for videos that express the economic content we are discussing.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Students will learn about the Theory of Karl Marx. Students will analyze and distinguish the differences between Communism, Capitalism, and Socialism.

# data[].attributes.body
This source leads to an infographic about the supply and demand chain. It has multiple lesson plans and activities linked to it at the bottom of the page. Students could use this in class to go through the infographic at their own pace.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Classroom Activity to Accompany the Supply and Demand Infographic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Considered by many to be the "heart and soul" of economics, the concepts of supply and demand lie at the foundation of the field. Extra Credit provides teachers with an activity to accompany the new infographic from the Atlanta Fed on supply and demand.

# data[].attributes.body
This page goes to Ted talk videos that are based on anthropology topics. I would use this because Ted Talks are something that students are familiar with and they are engaging. It also allows teacher to create lesson plans that revolve around the videos.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Build a lesson around any TED-Ed Original, TED Talk or YouTube video

# data[].attributes.body
This link goes to the Project Archaeology page that was discussed during our anthropology lecture. Even if we don't have the booklets that can be ordered there are links to PDFs and other information that can be used for lesson and student research.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Project Archaeology: Investigating Shelter is a supplementary science and social studies curriculum unit for grades 3 through 5 and easily adaptable for middle and high school U.S. History classes. It consists of nine comprehensive lessons guiding students through the archaeological study of shelter including geography, historic photos, oral histories, a toolkit of scientific concepts, and a final performance of understanding. The lessons connect students to the human past through discovery. Students learn how archaeologists study the past and investigate a real archaeological site! Explore a slave cabin, farm house, colonial home, and several Native American shelters right from your classroom!

Project Archaeology: Investigating Shelter "Investigating a Neolithic Dwelling at Jarmo"

Discover the past through evidence from an archaeological site in Iraq! In this investigation students will use geography, history, and archaeology to learn about a Neolithic dwelling and the lives of people in ancient Mesopotamia.

Examine primary sources, artifacts, and maps of the Jarmo site to understand the Neolithic Revolution. Students "uncover" a real archaeological site, classify artifacts, and infer how the geographic area of the Middle East shaped the dwellings.

Explore the use of traditional mudbrick architecture today with Professor Salma Samar Damluji, an Iraqi architect. Engage students in a debate on a current civic dilemma involving archaeology and preservation.

Includes informational texts on the Neolithic Revolution

Supports Common Core State Standards/li>

Incorporates authentic data for students to analyze

"The content presented is high level and addresses critical thinking skills." - Chicago Teacher, 2014
Available now on our shop.
New Curriculum Guide

Project Archaeology: Investigating the First Peoples, the Clovis Child Burial includes texts by and about American Indians, supports Common Core State Standards, and integrates Indian Education For All Understandings. The guide is a perfect first unit for United States History (Grades 8-12) with two lessons and a final performance of understanding. Students will read current news reports, write an Archaeology Discovery Report, debate ethics of studying ancient human remains, write a persuasive essay, and join students from across the nation in creating memorials to the Clovis Child. Included in the resource section is a collection of relevant news articles on this amazing discovery in an easy to print and distribute newspaper, Clovis Chronicle (pdf).
Download the guide for free!
Project Archaeology Videos

Leadership Academy

Project Archaeology is offering a select few the opportunity to take the lead in helping to protect our cultural heritage. Social Studies and Science teachers are encouraged to apply for this unique opportunity which will teach them Project Archaeology's acclaimed Investigating Shelter, an inquiry-based Social Studies and Science curriculum, and empower them with educating their peers on how to implement the curriculum in the classroom.

Professional Development

Join us for an exciting trip back in time to investigate archaeology! You will use this virtual workshop to practice the basics of scientific inquiry (observation, inference, evidence, and classification) using authentic archaeological data. This is absolutely a 'must-do' course that will not only enhance your own understanding of archaeology, but also provide you with a comprehensive set of lessons that you can use right in your own classroom!

Wow, I already have plans for your curriculum! I love it! During our PIR days, our school had two main objectives - Incorporating Native American studies across the curriculum, and writing. Your work covers BOTH...Our theme for the month of September is a "persuasive" paper. I have been struggling to come up with a meaningful topic for sixth graders... until now. This is perfect and so meaningful and relevant to our study of ancient civilizations...my recent exposure to the Anzick site has touched me deeply and inspired me to learn more! I'm truly excited about what lies ahead, and am so grateful for your collection of work that you have shared with me and other educators."

6th grade teacher, Montana

Common Core State Standards

Project Archaeology materials align well with Common Core State Standards for grades 3 through 5 as well as Next Generation Science Standards (Practices).

See documents for complete alignments for Project Archaeology: Investigating Shelter.

Investigating Shelter Database

Online Investigations

Many of the shelters include an Online Investigation for students to interact with each shelter by excavating a site, building a shelter, and meeting a descendent community member.

Shelters Coming Soon...

Teaching Materials

Project Archaeology Publications

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Project Archaeology: Investigating Shelter is a supplementary science and social studies curriculum unit for grades 3 through 5 and easily adaptable for middle and high school U.S. History classes. It consists of nine comprehensive lessons guiding students through the archaeological study of shelter including geography, historic photos, oral histories, a toolkit of scientific concepts, and a final performance of understanding.

# data[].attributes.body
This website links to the instructions to host a mock congress in class.  I would use this in a government class to assess the students understanding of how a bill is cycled and how laws are made in congress. It also has connections to the "We The People" activity and program.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Let me start off by saying that this is a non-technology related post. This past week, our government classes were starting their unit on the Legislative Branch. In years past, I focused on comparing the two Houses and doing flow charts for "How a Bill Becomes a Law."

This year with the help of my fellow government teacher, our freshman classes conducted a Mock Congress or a simulation of How a Bill Becomes a Law.

I wanted to take a moment to share the experience with any fellow social studies teachers out there.

Step 1: Draft Bills for Potential Laws

The first step for us was to have students create a bill that they think should become a law. Students came up with some really good laws and controversial ones as well. We had Bills related to immigration, abortion, same sex marriage, driving laws, education, etc. It was great seeing the students take something they had an opinion about and run with it.

Step 2: Divide into Political Parties

The process for the simulation was to first split students up into political party's based on a political spectrum assignment that we did earlier. This allowed students to elect a Speaker of the House, Party Leaders, and Party Whips. We then had the Party Leaders assign students to 6 designated committees based on the Bills that the students wrote.

While this was going on, the Speaker of the House looked at the Bills and decided which ones to pass on to committees and which ones to ignore.

Step 3: Present & Debate Bills

In committees, Chairpersons were appointed by the Speaker of the House and then looked through the Bills. They had three options:

Pigeonhole it, which means not discuss it,

send it back to Bill sponsor for changes, or

discuss and decide whether to pass it on to the floor for a vote, or defeat it.

Once the Bills left the committee, the Speaker of the House will put them in the order that they will be discussed on the floor. As Bills were discussed on the floor and debated, the Speaker of the House would call on people in the order they see fit.

Step 4: Voting & Presidential Review

For voting purposes, they could have a vocal vote, a standing vote, and roll call. We made sure to use all the different kinds. If Bills passed, they were sent to the President (myself and the other teacher). We would either sign off on the Bill or veto it. In every class we vetoed a Bill to allow students the opportunity to see that process and see if they could still pass the bill with a 2/3 vote. No vetoes were overturned.

Step 5: Follow-up Writing Assignments

After the experience was over students were still talking about it. We concluded the simulation by having students complete an On-Demand Writing assignment where they picked a Bill that passed or didn't pass and write a Senator or Representative from our state describing why they should consider the Bill or not consider one that did not pass.

I also included the process for How a Bill Becomes a Law as an essay on the summative assessment.

Want to know more? Just comment and get in touch with me on Twitter. I plan on uploading all the documents we used to my school website in the future and linking the story from our district website when it is published. I also will get a picture from our local newspaper who I contacted about doing a story on the project.

It was a very rigorous and relevant assignment for our students and something we will do in the future.
Share your outside-the-box assignments in the comments section!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Let me start off by saying that this is a non-technology related post. This past week, our government classes were starting their unit on the Legislative Branch. In years past, I focused on comparing the two Houses and doing flow charts for "How a Bill Becomes a Law."

# data[].attributes.body
This website is focused on the freedom of expression and follows issues involving freedom of expression all over the world. I would use this for students to find current events involving the first amendment and to research court cases throughout history.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Content Attribution Policy

Global Freedom of Expression is an academic initiative and therefore, we encourage you to share and republish excerpts of our content so long as they are not used for commercial purposes and you respect the following policy:

Attribute Columbia Global Freedom of Expression as the source.

Link to the original URL of the specific case analysis, publication, update, blog or landing page of the down loadable content you are referencing.

Attribution, copyright, and license information for media used by Global Freedom of Expression is available on our Credits page.

Case Analysis

Case Summary and Outcome

The United States Supreme Court upheld a conviction for burning a military draft registration certificate on the steps of a courthouse. The Court found that the prohibition against destroying or mutilating draft registration certificates was narrowly tailored to further a substantial governmental interest, and thus was a permissible restriction on expressive conduct under the United States Constitution.

Facts

David Paul O'Brien (O'Brien) and three other people burned their registration certificates for the Selective Service in front of the South Boston Courthouse on March 31, 1966. A sizable crowd that witnessed the card-burning demonstration "began attacking O'Brien and his companions." (at 369.) O'Brien told an FBI agent that "he had burned his registration certificate because of his beliefs." The United States was involved in the Vietnam War at the time of O'Brien's demonstration, and the burning of Selective Service registration certificates (or "draft cards") was a common form of protest.

The Selective Service is a United States government agency that registers and maintains information on people (mostly men) eligible for conscription into the armed forces, such as via a military draft. Men are required to register with their local draft board upon reaching the age of 18. Two important documents related to the administration of the Selective Service are the registration certificate and the classification certificate. The registration certificate is issued soon upon registration, and contains the individual's Selective Service identification number. The classification certificate denotes eligibility for conscription or the draft. Both certificates have information important to the administration and management of the Selective Service.

Section 462 of the Universal Military Training and Service Act of 1948 made it illegal to forge, alter, or change Selective Service registration certificates. In 1965, Congress amended this section to further forbid knowingly destroying or mutilating registration certificates ("Section 462" or the "card-destruction statute"). There was also a regulation subject to criminal felony penalties which required Selective Service registrants to have both certificates "in their personal possession at all times."

For burning his registration certificate, O'Brien faced criminal penalties. The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts indicted, tried, convicted, and sentenced O'Brien under Section 462. O'Brien argued to the jury that he had publicly burned his registration certificate to "influence others to adopt his antiwar beliefs ... so that other people would reevaluate their positions with Selective Service, with the armed forces, and reevaluate their place in the culture of today, to hopefully consider my position." (at 370.) O'Brien further argued that the law was unconstitutional "because it was enacted to abridge free speech, and because it served no legitimate legislative purpose." (at 370.)

The district court sentenced O'Brien "to the custody of the Attorney General for a maximum period of six years for supervision and treatment." (at 369-70 n.2.) On appeal, the First Circuit Court of Appeals held the card-destruction statute unconstitutional for abridging free speech in violation of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. There was also a secondary dispute concerning conviction under the regulation requiring personal possession of registration certificates at all times. The U.S. government petitioned for certiorari, which the Supreme Court granted.

Decision Overview

Chief Justice Warren delivered the opinion of the United States Supreme Court. O'Brien argued that the card-destruction statute was unconstitutional as applied to him as restricting protected "symbolic speech," and alternatively that the purpose or motivation of Congress's prohibition on destroying cards was an unlawful suppression of speech.

First, the Court considered whether the card-destruction statute was an unconstitutional restriction on symbolic speech. On its face, the statute does not restrict speech itself. The statute bans forging, altering, destroying, and mutilating Selective Service registration certificates, making no mention of any manner of speaking. Enforcement of the statute is also unaffected by any potentially expressive content in the destruction of registration cards; it is applied indiscriminately. O'Brien argued that symbolic speech, the "communication of ideas by conduct," is protected, and that he was communicating his objections to the military draft by his public burning of his registration certificate.

Although the Court conceded that symbolic speech is protected to an extent, it could not "accept the view that an apparently limitless variety of conduct can be labeled 'speech' whenever the person engaging in the conduct intends thereby to express an idea." (at 376.) Supreme Court jurisprudence demonstrated that "that when 'speech' and 'nonspeech' elements are combined in the same course of conduct, a sufficiently important governmental interest in regulating the nonspeech element can justify incidental limitations on First Amendment freedoms." (at 376.) Although the Court's characterization of the interest the government must demonstrate has varied from "compelling," to "substantial," "paramount," and "cogent," the Court found "it clear that a government regulation is sufficiently justified if:
1. It is within the constitutional power of the Government;
2. It furthers an important or substantial governmental interest;
3. The governmental interest is unrelated to the suppression of free expression; and
4. The incidental restriction on alleged First Amendment freedoms is no greater than is essential to the furtherance of that interest." (at 376-77.)

According to the Court, the creation of Selective Service was clearly within Congress's power to raise and support armies, which it found "broad and sweeping." (at 377.) Further, the second factor was met because the "issuance of certificates indicating the registration and eligibility classification of individuals is a legitimate and substantial administrative aid in the functioning of this [registration] system. And legislation to insure the continuing availability of issued certificates serves a legitimate and substantial purpose in the system's administration." (at 377-78.) Summarily, the Court characterized the government's interest as "substantial." (at 381.)

To satisfy the third requirement, the government's interest in the smooth functioning of the Selective Service had nothing to do with suppressing speech. Again, the enforcement of the card-destruction statute was not inherently related to speech, but strictly related to non-communicative conduct. Finally, the law was sufficiently narrowly drawn to preserve the availability and integrity of the certificates maintaining the Selective Service system. The destruction or mutilation of certificates would frustrate or defeat the purpose of the registration system implemented by the Selective Service. Furthermore, requirements that registrants have the certificates in their possession at all times were insufficient to preserve these important documents: "the essential elements of nonpossession are not identical with those of mutilation or destruction," "they protect overlapping but not identical governmental interests, and ... they reach somewhat different classes of wrongdoers." (at 380-81.)

Basically, the ban on conduct regulated by the card-destruction statute was necessary to ensure a smooth functioning of the registration system. In conclusion, the law was an appropriately narrow tool to protect the government's sufficient and "substantial interest in assuring the continuing availability of issued Selective Service certificates." Because it met all four requirements, the law was a permissible regulation on symbolic speech and did not overly burden O'Brien's expressive conduct.

O'Brien's second argument was that the card-destruction statute was unconstitutional because the purpose was to suppress the freedom of speech. However, the Court held that it is "a familiar principle of constitutional law that [the U.S. Supreme] Court will not strike down an otherwise constitutional statute on the basis of an alleged illicit legislative motive." (at 383.) The courts may look to legislative history and intent when interpretation of the law is at issue. But in O'Brien's case, the interpretation of the card-destruction statute was straight-forward. For this reason, the purpose of the 1965 amendment was irrelevant, though the Court indicated there was scant evidence supporting O'Brien's argument that the motivation of the statute was to suppress speech.

Because the card-destruction statute met all four requirements for laws that indirectly impact symbolic speech, and because the motivation for the statute is largely irrelevant under U.S. principles of judicial review, the Court upheld O'Brien's conviction. The Court vacated the judgment of the Court of Appeals, and reinstated the district court's conviction of O'Brien under the card-destruction statute. Because of its ruling, the Court did not consider the secondary argument regarding the possession regulation.

Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration of the case.

Justice Harlan wrote a concurring opinion to clarify that the four-prong O'Brien test does not prevent review in cases in which a speaker is effectively prevented from reaching a significant audience.

Justice Douglas wrote a dissenting opinion. He did not dispute the validity of the O'Brien test, or most of the Court's application of that test. Justice Douglas primarily argued that the Court should request reargument from the government and O'Brien to discuss the constitutionality of a peacetime draft when there has been no declaration of war from Congress (as there had not been in the ongoing Vietnam War). The Court's decision on that issue would impact the breadth of Congress's powers to raise and support armies, and thus the Court's interpretation of the first prong of the O'Brien test.

Decision Direction

Quick Info

Decision Direction indicates whether the decision expands or contracts expression based on an analysis of the case.

Contracts Expression

O'Brien set forth the test under which laws indirectly restricting symbolic speech are evaluated under the United States Constitution. The test permits laws burdening expressive conduct as long as they are narrowly tailored to further a substantial governmental interest.

The case did not necessarily shift the law drastically in one direction or another. However, it did uphold a law under which a young man was convicted for burning his Selective Service registration certificate, a prevalent political protest during the Vietnam War and a powerfully symbolic anti-war statement. Even if it is true that the prohibition on the mutilation or destruction of draft cards is appropriately drawn to further the government's important interest in a smoothly functioning draft registration system, the outcome of the case restricts symbolic speech and contracts expressive conduct.

Global Perspective

Quick Info

Global Perspective demonstrates how the court's decision was influenced by standards from one or many regions.

Table of Authorities

National standards, law or jurisprudence

U.S., Stromberg v. California, 283 U.S. 359 (1931)

U.S., NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415 (1963)

U.S., Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963)

U.S., NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449 (1958)

U.S., Thomas v. Collins 323 U.S. 516 (1945)

U.S., Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U.S. 233 (1936)

U.S., Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U.S. 144 (1963)

U.S., Musser v. Utah, 333 U.S. 95 (1948)

U.S., Bates v. Little Rock, 361 U. S. 516 (1960)

U.S., Milanovich v. United States, 365 U.S. 551 (1961)

U.S., Heflin v. United States, 358 U.S. 415 (1959)

U.S., Prince v. United States, 352 U.S. 322 (1957)

U.S., Lichter v. United States, 334 U.S. 742 (1948)

U.S., Selective Draft Law Cases, 245 U.S. 366 (1918)

U.S., Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942)

U.S., Gore v. United States, 357 U.S. 386 (1958)

U.S., NLRB v. Fruit & Vegetable Packers, 377 U.S. 58 (1964)

U.S., McCray v. United States, 195 U.S. 27 (1904)

U.S., Arizona v. California, 283 U.S. 423 (1931)

U.S., Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339 (1960)

U.S., United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303 (1946)

U.S., Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86 (1958)

U.S., Sherman v. United States, 356 U.S. 369 (1958)

U.S., Abel v. United States, 362 U.S. 217 (1960)

U.S., Lustig v. United States, 338 U.S. 74 (1949)

U.S., Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383 (1914)

U.S., Byars v. United States, 273 U.S. 28 (1927)

U.S., Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25 (1949)

U.S., Donaldson v. Read Magazine, 333 U.S. 178 (1948)

Case Significance

Quick Info

Case significance refers to how influential the case is and how its significance changes over time.

The decision establishes a binding or persuasive precedent within its jurisdiction.

U.S. Supreme Court cases are binding and mandatory authority on all lower courts in the United States. That it was a 7-1 decision in favor of the government enhances the persuasive authority espoused by the Court.

The decision was cited in:

Official Case Documents

Official Case Documents:

Reports, Analysis, and News Articles:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
United States v. O'Brien - Global Freedom of Expression

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to advance understanding of the international and national norms and institutions that best protect the free flow of information and expression in an inter-connected global community with major common challenges to address.

# data[].attributes.body
This website is a very reliable source for any court case throughout history. It has the cases process and all the information the students would need to research court cases. I used this in the political science lesson plan to give students examples of court cases to analyze.

# data[].attributes.body
This link goes to a page revolving around the importance of geography education in classrooms. It has a list of ten activities with instructions that revolve around geography and teach mapping skills.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
All Over the Map: 10 Ways to Teach About Geography

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We have created 10 activities for teaching about geography using Times content, all related to the National Geography Standards.

# data[].attributes.body
This website gives instructions for how to play world history activities in class.  The specific activity I have it linked to is an activity for students that has them promote tourism in a specific country. I would use this for students researching specific countries because they would be collecting information on the country through trying to promote tourism

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We explore the world in search of those that helped form it. These lessons are outstanding.

# data[].attributes.body
This page shows a map of specific nuclear targets the US used during the Cold War and is color-coded to show certain dates. We used this when discussing the nuclear program during the Cold War. This shows students the geographical factor in developing nuclear arms.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Even though today's nuclear targets list is classified, it probably doesn't look dramatically different. The United States still has about 1,900 nuclear warheads deployed on missiles and bombers (with thousands more on reserve), ready to be launched at a moment's notice and able to hit their targets within 30 minutes. This unstable situation is extremely risky and has repeatedly come close to triggering nuclear war by accident. Moreover, many of today's hydrogen bombs are hundreds of times more powerful than the two atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If a nuclear war were to break out today, nuclear winter might kill most people on Earth.

This leads to an important question: Just how many nuclear weapons do we actually need? Seven of the nine nuclear nations have determined that deterrence requires fewer than 300 nuclear weapons, and none of them have been attacked. Yet, not only do the United States and Russia each have approximately 7,000 nuclear warheads - accounting for 90% of the world's arsenal - both countries are currently escalating the situation, making massive investments to enhance their arsenals with more accurate and lethal nuclear weapons. Many military analysts agree that the U.S. and Russia could easily meet their deterrence needs with much fewer nuclear weapons. Even the Pentagon has stated that the U.S. needs no more than 1,000 nukes to deter a nuclear attack. But don't take their word for it: play with the map yourself and see just how destructive nuclear weapons can be!

1100 Nuclear Targets, Radioactive Fallout, and Weather

While the maps above show a general radius of nuclear destruction, weather patterns would play a role in how many people would be affected by nuclear fallout. Given that weather can change day to day, if we drop a nuclear bomb near a border in one country on the wrong day, innocent people in a neighboring country could also suffer the effects of radioactive fallout. How far and in which direction the radioactive materials travel would depend on the size of the bomb and the local weather. In the following graphics, Alex Wellerstein simulates two terrifying possibilities ( We recommend viewing the following slideshows in the full-screen option to more easily see where the radioactive material will travel.):

1) What would have happened if all 1,100 nuclear targets were struck by a nuclear weapon of a given size on April 29, 2016?

In this slideshow, the bombs grow larger, and the nuclear fallout spreads farther from the target in a direction that's dictated by the local weather patterns. Note that this slideshow doesn't yet show the effect of nuclear winter: if enough smoke from nuclear fires rises high into the stratosphere, it can spread across our planet and trigger a decade-long mini-ice-age and farming collapse, potentially killing most of Earth's 7 billion people.

2) How would the direction of radioactive fallout change if the bombs were dropped on three different days?

In this case, we use weather data from April 29, April 30 and May 1 of 2016 to see how the direction of nuclear fallout changes if 100 kt bombs were dropped on the 1,100 nuclear targets (typical bombs today are many times more powerful). Different weather patterns would send nuclear fallout in different directions on each day. Pay close attention to countries like Germany, Denmark and Finland, which could get hit with radioactive fallout if the nuclear targets were struck on the wrong day.

This map was also featured in:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Declassified US Nuclear Targets - Future of Life Institute

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Even though today's nuclear targets list is classified, it probably doesn't look dramatically different. The United States still has about 1,900 nuclear warheads deployed on missiles and bombers (with thousands more on reserve), ready to be launched at a moment's notice and able to hit their targets within 30 minutes.

# data[].attributes.body
This link goes to a page with multiple games based on geography lessons. This could be used in class for students to study specific continents or countries. There is a game for each continent and they have the option to record results.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
World Geography Games Online - Let's play and learn Geography!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Brain-engaging geography map games: learn countries of the world, capitals, flags, US States, continents, oceans, mountains, rivers, islands and much more.

# data[].attributes.body
This website focuses on the oral history of cultures and events from the past. It has video interviews of people a story from their perspective and how it effected them. I would use this to get students to focus on the different perspectives from different groups.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Calling All Former Telling Their Stories Participants

# data[].attributes.body
This website has multiple sections for different types of maps showing different information on voting. The maps can be used for students to identify voting patterns throughout history and analyze changes in the voting patterns.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Voting America: United States Politics, 1840 - 2008

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Voting America encourages users to think about US political history by allowing two types of comparison. Animations of a single type of map--say, measuring the winner of presidential elections at the county level--allow for comparisons across time.

# data[].attributes.body
This website is an interactive map that can show either the Holocaust history or WWII history. I would use this as a visual for students to see where battles were taking place. WWII has so many events happening in different places around the world and this will help students identify those places.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Page Not Found — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We recently redesigned and enhanced our website. As a result, previous links to some pages may no longer work. We apologize for any inconvenience.

# data[].attributes.body
This site goes to an interactive map that has different options like states, EU history, oceans, continents, and capitals. I would use this as a study tool before geography tests and can also be an engaging learning method for students.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Usa - United States Map - Geography - Maps, States, Capitals, Flags, Presidents, Do You Know About US geography ? ....

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Usa - United States Map - Interactive US Geography Activities - Geography - Interactive games - States, Capitals, Flags, Presidents,....

# data[].attributes.body
This link takes you to a page of listed geography options like states, countries, capitals, and ocean locations. I would use this in the classroom to help students learn geographic locations in an engaging way. It gives a blank map and asks you to pin the location of the given capital/state/country.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Geography games for Tablets/iPads (HTML5)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Free to use online kids' games for learning countries/geography. Designed for iPad/tablet use. HTML5 geography games.

# data[].attributes.body
This website allows you to type in any specific area and it'll show you the details about the area and the culture is has. This would give students a good idea of demographics within the US and where past civilizations used to concentrate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Social Explorer provides easy access to demographic information about the United States. We provide thousands of interactive data maps going back to 1790.

# data[].attributes.body
This website is interactive and has the history of any place in the world that you click on. Wherever you click, people have placed pins that shares the history of the location. It has guided tours that I could pre-select for students to ensure they are getting the information I want them to.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Please add a little information about your project.

# data[].attributes.body
This page is a collection of teachers that share their methods of teaching anthropology. The specific link goes to a blog about how to use low-tech games in teaching anthropology in the classroom. I would use this as a resource when planning my own low-tech games or when I need lesson ideas.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In part one of this two-part series, Krista Harper (UMass Amherst) provides insight into her successful Fall 2014 course, "Anthropology of/through Games." There is so much here that is useful for instructors (as well as gamers). Enjoy!
I teach in rural New England, where we have long winters. When the snow piles up, we stay inside and make our own fun. So perhaps it's no accident that the top three American board game companies started here, or that there is a flourishing community of independent game designers hidden in the hill towns of western Massachusetts. Growing up in California, I always enjoyed playing games, but when I moved east, games became a part of my winter survival strategy.

Society-and social science-is starting to take games seriously. Game designer Eric Zimmerman recently proclaimed the twenty-first century to be the "Ludic Century." Jane McGonigal argues that "reality is broken" and games may be the solution for social problems. New journals such as Game Studies and Games and Culture have gained footing, and MIT, NYU, and many other universities now offer degree programs in Game Studies and Design. In education, the shift to active classroom pedagogies is renewing interest in games for learning. Can students learn complex anthropological theories through playing, studying, discussing, and designing games?

I first developed my idea for a course on "Anthropology of/through Games" when I joined a workshop on "Designing Low-Tech Games for the Classroom" offered by Sam Anderson of the University of Massachusetts Amherst Information Technologies. I was intrigued, but I also worried that teaching through games could lead students into the kinds of reductionistic thinking that anthropologists deplore. Sam presented theories of learning design and walked us through the process of taking a specific teaching goal and working it into a game activity for students to play in the classroom. He invited UMass librarian and historian Kate Freedman to present her experiences teaching the Reacting to the Past curriculum in which students play a role-playing game that requires them to use primary documents to inform their game-play. We also heard from game designer Meguey Baker, who shared her work as part of a participatory design team that developed a suite of social justice youth development games in collaboration with the Yegna initiative for girls in Ethiopia. After hearing their stories, I was inspired to bring games into my anthropology teaching, too.

I developed a 1-credit experimental course on "Anthropology of/through Games" which was offered in Fall 2014 through Commonwealth Honors College. In my course, we used tabletop, card, and computer games to explore themes in social, behavioral, and cultural theory such as play, gender, language, symbols, economic exchange, and power. As homework, students read texts, played games, and posted questions and comments to our #anthgamef14 Twitter stream. We learned about the basic elements of game design by inviting local game designers as guest speakers. As a culminating project, the ten students were divided into small teams to develop a game based on a social theory to be playtested at our own "AnthroCon" game night at the Du Bois Library.

The course material was presented in three major units: 1) "Theorizing Games," 2) "Ethnography of Games," and 3) "Cultural Anthropology through Game Design." I attempted to integrate simple, low-tech games (requiring no more than ink and paper) into each weekly class session, taking up Anastasia Salter's challenge to design a game a week. In the first part of the class, we read cultural theories of games. Drawing from the work of anthropologist Roger Callois, we attempted to develop a working definition of games that could be applied across different cultural settings. We read Audrey Anable's feminist analysis of gender and "affective labor" in casual games like Diner Dash, at the same moment when the #Gamergate polemic was raging and media critic Anita Sarkeesian was subjected to violent threats for speaking and writing about the endemic harassment of women in video games. I presented further analytic lenses for game design, referring back to Salen and Zimmerman's book, The Game Design Reader (2006, MIT). These discussions helped us understand how games work at the micro-level, in terms of narrative and mechanics (what game scholar Ian Bogost calls the "procedural rhetoric of games"), as well as the broader social significance of playing games. Students capped off the unit by writing a critical review of a game of their choice.

In the second part of the class, students applied cultural anthropology's core method, ethnography, to study people playing games. We discussed biocultural approaches to game behavior through Jeff Snodgrass' research on World of Warcraft players, as well as Adrienne Shaw's work on gender, race, and sexual identities among gamers. Tom Boellstorff's essay, "A Ludicrous Discipline?" provided a framework for students to reflect on the relationships between games and "real life." In their mini-ethnographies, students tackled status symbols among Magic the Gathering card-game players, Pokemon characters as objects of memory and emotional attachment, and social dynamics between players in a massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG).

The last part of the class was an experimental mash-up of anthropological theories and hands-on game design. We launched this unit by playing Jesse Harasta's fabulous economic anthropology game, Yams!, a card game based on Malinowski's Argonauts of the Western Pacific and Coral Gardens and their Magic.

Small teams of students then selected an anthropological article from a list I compiled of "game-ready" texts and developed game concepts linked to the theoretical and ethnographic content. Sam Anderson visited my class for an afternoon of low-tech "gamestorming" when students sketched their basic game ideas using markers, stickers, post-its, and pennies as game tokens. Sam helped students match concepts to potential game mechanics or goals. I invited art professor Copper Giloth to present her tablet game Labyrinth of Fables, in which players navigate a reconstruction of a garden at Versailles that was destroyed over 200 years ago. Giloth used historical documents and archaeological evidence to recreate a maze with riddles based on Aesops' fables-an example of how digital humanities are intertwining art, literature, computer science, and history in exciting new ways.

I also brought in local designer Joshua A.C. Newman to talk about the specific challenges of representing cultural diversity in his anthropological sci-fi role-playing game Human Contact. Newman started developing the game as a critique of Star Trek's militarized colonial and cultural engagements. In Human Contact, players construct imaginary space cultures, fraught with their own issues and fracture lines, and then have them meet, confront shocks, and try to understand each other. Newman explained how he avoids having predetermined "bad guys" or inherently heroic protagonists who are destined for greatness: "Nobody is good or bad because of inherent attributes...make an interesting problem, and whether you're looking at abstract or imaginary cultures or real ones from history, make sure they are treated as people." The student teams workshopped drafts of their game designs with Newman.

Instead of a final exam, we held "AnthroGame Con" in the university library during finals week. Library patrons were invited to take a study break by playtesting the teams' games. One team developed a game about consumption and climate change, inspired by anthropologist Susan Crate's work. Another team ambitiously tackled one of Thomas Turino's articles on Peircean semiotics in ethnomusicology-developing a creative Pictionary-like game where players compete to compose short songs on a computer to illustrate a theme ("climbing up a steep hill" or "doing a physics problem set").

In Tyler Caldwell's and Caleb Miller's card game Garage Sailing, another team took on Mauss' theories of gifts and exchange via Gretchen Hermann's ethnography of garage sales. Each player has a secret identity ("parent," "nerd," "antique collector," "fashionista") that shapes the value they attribute to other people's junk as they bargain hunt, haggle, and dump. At AnthroGame Con, players flocked to the game's kitschy aesthetic and frenzy-inducing "Shiny Objects" cards.

Jasmine Skye Gulick's and Cassie Schau's game Sign (based on C.S. Pierce's article "What is a Sign?") was another runaway hit at AnthroGame Con. Using three types of cards-likeness, index, and signifier-players cooperatively create a mini system of symbols. To end the game, the group creates a new sentence or story using the symbols. One playtester exclaimed, "It's like Mad Libs on steroids!" (Who knew C.S. Peirce could be so fun?)

Teaching cultural anthropology of and through games was a transformative experience for me as a social scientist and educator. Before teaching the class, I worried that our focus on games might descend into "edutainment." Instead, analyzing, playing, and designing games opened up creative ways to do what anthropologists do: to unpack theories, to try on other people's perspectives, and to understand both stated norms and improvised, embodied practice. In Part 2 of this blog post, I reflect on the pedagogy, current constraints, and possibilities for game-based teaching in the university classroom.
About the Author
When not playing tabletop games, Krista Harper is an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Center for Public Policy and Administration at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Harper has conducted fieldwork in Hungary, Portugal, and the United States, and she writes about urban environmental mobilizations, shared public spaces, and participatory visual and digital research methods. Her blog is blogs.umass.edu/harper, and she is on Twitter @kristamharper.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Teaching Anthropology of/through Games, Part 1

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In part one of this two-part series, Krista Harper (UMass Amherst) provides insight into her successful Fall 2014 course, "Anthropology of/through Games." There is so much here that is useful for instructors (as well as gamers). Enjoy! I teach in rural New England, where we have long winters.

# data[].attributes.body
This link goes to an interactive archaeology dig for students through a virtual museum. This is a great resource if an actual dig isn't an option or would help students practice before doing a reenactment. Students would go to the site and do the dog individually going through the specific methods.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Simulated archaeological dig based on public archaeological excavations of historic sites along the Little Bonnechere River.

# data[].attributes.body
This link goes to a page with a 90 second video that goes through a timeline. During the video it concentrates on different parts of the globe and gives information about human movement. I would use this for human geography because it shows the movement of people and the spread of culture.

# data[].attributes.body
This website has a game that focuses on the history of the Inca people and culture. The students going through a game that shows them the preserved artifacts found there and what has been discovered about their culture through archaeology

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By looking at the maps we created of the buildings, and examining the artifacts found near them, my team and I figured out what some of the buildings were once used for. I found some of the places where people lived, where they stored food, where they held festivals, and much more.

# data[].attributes.body
This website goes through the step-by-step process of an excavation of artifacts. It gives details on how they preform it and why they do the dig that certain way. This would be good preparation for students before a field trip or before doing a Project Archaeology lesson.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Any excavation, no matter how large or small and of whatever period and type of site, can be an exciting and essentially unpredictable event.

# data[].attributes.body
This source goes to a page with a virtual map that allows students to move through different places in Europe. When certain pins are clicked on it shows historical artifacts or pictures. I would use this for human geography to study population patterns

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
london; maps; panoramas; visit; virtual exhibition; podcasts; videos; learning; events;  shop; vox pop

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
An introduction to London; A life in maps

# data[].attributes.body
This site has the option to watch a ten minute video that corresponds to a timeline given on the page. The video shows the geographical development of the US through time. I would use this to show students the progress of westward expansion geographically during different time periods.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Animated Atlas portrays history by animating maps. Growth of a Nation, a ten minute history of the USA, had over one million viewers last year.

# data[].attributes.body
This page goes to a virtual game that has students identify issues that involve their rights. They are given a situation and then have to decide whether their rights are being violated. This also has apps and practices the new strategy of "game-play instruction" in the classroom.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In Do I Have a Right? you can run your own firm of lawyers who specialize in constitutional law. Decide if potential clients have a right, match them with the best lawyer, and win their case. The more clients you serve and the more cases you win, the faster your law firm grows!

# data[].attributes.body
Smarty pins is run through google maps and allows students to go through the map by answering geography based questions and trivia. I would use this as an interactive game during a unit because you can have the students focus in on a specific area

# data[].attributes.body
This page gives the instructions to an activity that is based on a zombie game. Students are given apocalypse scenarios and based on their decisions on where to go on the map they either survive or die.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
ZOMBIE-BASED GEOGRAPHY - Interact Simulations

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When the zombies attack, where should we run, where regroup, and where rebuild our lives? Those questions, key to survival, can focus student attention on a highly motivating and dangerously overlooked fact: Geography skills can save you from the zombie apocalypse!

# data[].attributes.body
This link goes to a collection of civil rights primary and secondary sources for lessons. I would use this as a text set for students to use during the civil rights section and has useful primary sources.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Civil Rights Web Sites

Civil Rights Special Collection ★★★★☆
The Teachers' Domain Civil Rights Collection is produced by WGBH Boston, in partnership with the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and Washington University in St. Louis. Materials are free but you have to sign up. Features an impressive array of audio, video, and text sources from Frontline and American Experience shows, Eyes on the Prize, and other sources. Also offers an interactive Civil Rights movement timeline and four lesson plans: Campaigns for Economic Freedom/Re-Examining Brown/Taking a Stand/Understanding White Supremacy.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project ★★★★☆
This project out of Stanford University disseminates historical information about Dr. King and the social movements in which he participated. There are papers, speeches, sermons, book chapters, scholarly articles, a biography and a chronology. Excellent research site.

Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Movement ★★★★☆
The landmark Eyes on the Prize television series spans over three decades of history, and dozens of civil rights events. This American Experience feature presents 25 major civil rights events, including Emmett Till's murder in 1955, The Montgomery Bus Boycott, The Freedom Rides, The March on Washington, The Nation of Islam and Malcolm X, and much more. There are also two dozen primary sources presenting varied perspectives on the civil rights movement, as well as profiles of individuals and groups. Furthermore, there are 15 background articles on civil rights milestones, and even an opportunity to share your memories. In the For Teachers section there are five lesson plans each for High School or Middle School classrooms.

Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement ★★★★☆
This Seattle Times exhibit helps students learn about King as a civil-rights leader and his sweeping influence on the civil rights movement and beyond. Included are a photo gallery, biography, study guide, quizzes, essays from students and others and a focus on black history.

The History of Jim Crow ★★★★☆
Access historical background, source material, and lesson plans at this impressive site and learn how Jim Crow laws deprived African Americans of their civil rights.

The African-American Odyssey ★★★★☆
A Library of Congress resource guide for the study of Black History and Culture, the Mosaic explores colonization, abolition, migration, and the WPA. Included are maps, charts, primary sources, and background information on black history. Part IX Civil Rights Movement topics include Desegregation and Civil Rights in the Arena and on the Stage.

The Two Nations of Black America ★★★★☆
The Two Nations of Black America discusses the divide in the black American community and features audio excerpts, charts, graphs and analysis, interviews, readings and links. "Are we better off?" is an essay by famed Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Black Panthers ★★★★☆
This Spartacus website looks at the history of the Black Panther movement and includes biographies of leading figures such as Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Fred Hampton, Eldridge Cleaver, H. Rap Brown and Bobby Hutton.

Jackie Robinson and other Baseball Highlights ★★★★☆
The special presentation called Baseball, the Color Line, and Jackie Robinson, 1860s-1960s draws on approximately thirty items-manuscripts, books, photographs, and ephemera-from many parts of the Library of Congress. It describes the color line that segregated baseball for many years, the Negro Leagues, and Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson-two men who played key roles in integrating the sport. The last two sections of the presentation explore Robinson's career as a Dodger and his civil rights activities.

African American History and Heritage ★★★★☆
Extensive collection of online resources for the history of the US civil rights movement and current projects and events in Black History.

Civil Rights Movement Veterans ★★★★☆
This site is by and for veterans of the Southern Freedom Movement who tell their story of the Civil Rights Movement in their own words. The Veterans explain the movement, provide a timeline, contribute a photo album, offer documents, and discussion, and more. Most importantly, they contribute their stories. A great primary source resource.

Voices of the Civil Rights Movement ★★★★☆
AARP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), and the Library of Congress team up to collect and present personal accounts of the Civil Rights Movement. In addition the various voices on the web site, there is a timeline, a historical overview, a music video montage, and a look at the movement at 50.

Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights Scrapbook ★★★★☆
White state officials banned the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a powerful civil rights organization, for its supportive role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-1956. To fill the void, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth helped organize the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) in Birmingham, Alabama. The ACMHR organized demonstrations and boycotts to protest segregation in Birmingham's schools and businesses. The group also challenged segregation laws by openly defying them and by filing lawsuits to overturn them. Features primary source documents. Part of WGBH Civil Rights Special Collection.

Civil Rights Movement ★★★★☆
History.com presents a Civil Rights Movement gallery featuring 15 video clips, 6 speeches, 8 photo galleries, and 1 interactive. Video clips include Little Rock Nine, Jackie Robinson Breaks Barriers, King Leads the March on Washington, and the interactive is a Black History Milestones interactive timeline. There are 25 combined photographs of Martin Luther King, Jr. and The March on Washington.

Religion & Ethics News Weekly ★★★★☆
This PBS newsmagazine provides insightful coverage and analysis of the news, people, events and trends behind the headlines in the world of religion and ethics. The program explores how religion shapes both national and international events, and examines the challenges raised by difficult ethical issues. The Web site features individual show transcripts, an audio archive of past programs, full transcripts of interviews with notable guests, related articles dealing with significant issues in religion and ethics news, a list of related resources and an online pressroom featuring downloadable versions of the program press kit and quarterly newsletter as well as detailed summaries of individual stories. See Martin Luther King Jr. as Pastor (January 13, 2006; Episode no. 920); interview of Civil Rights movement leader Rep. John Lewis (January 16, 2004; Episode no. 720): What spiritual legacy did the civil rights movement give to the United States?; The Legacy of Howard Thurman - Mystic and Theologian (January 18, 2002; Episode no. 520). Howard influenced Martin Luther King, Jr.

We Shall Overcome ★★★★☆
The National Parks Services' story of the Civil Rights Movement centers around places listed in an interactive map historic places.

International Civil Rights Walk of Fame ★★★★☆
This National Parks Service presents essays and image of civil rights leaders such as Rosa Parks, Fred Shuttlesworth, Thurgood Marshall, Julian Bond, Dick Gregory, Jesse Jackson, Andrew Young, and others.

Academy of Achievement: Rosa Parks ★★★★☆
The Academy of Achievement presents stories of "legendary achievers" of the 20th century in arts, public service, sports, science, and other fields. This feature on Rosa Parks includes video interviews that you can download and images from the Civil Rights Movement.

Rosa Parks Excerpts on NPR ★★★★☆
National Public Radio presents audio excerpts from 1992 interview and a 2004 tribute.

Rosa Parks Interview (YouTube video) ★★★★☆

Songs of the Civil Rights Movement ★★★★☆
National Public Radio presents jazz/blues versions of select songs that sustained the civil-rights movement in the 1960s through setbacks, hardships, failures and the many hard-won successes.

The First Civil Rights Bus Boycott ★★★★☆
The Baton Rouge bus boycott in 1953 inspired the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott led by the Rev. Martin Luther King, but was largely forgotten. This National Public Radio reports from principals involved in the boycott.

Documents from the Women's Liberation Movement ★★★★☆
The materials in this on-line archival collection document various aspects of the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States and focus specifically on the radical origins of this movement during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Agents of Social Change ★★★★☆
Smith College offers an on-line exhibit and several lesson plans drawn from its collections. The lesson plans are directed at middle and high school students and make use of both the text-based documents and visual images that can be found at the curriculum portion of the Web site. They highlight women's part in struggles for social change in the 20th century including labor, socialism, civil liberties, peace, racial justice, urban reform, welfare rights, and women's rights.

Life Covers the Civil Rights Movement ★★★★☆
Life Magazine presents the Civil Rights Movement in this slideshow of wonderful photographs of major events and individuals accompanied by brief descriptions.

Timeline of the American Civil Rights Movement ★★★☆☆
This is an Infoplease.com annotated timeline of the Civil Rights Movement from the Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954 to the Selma (Alabama) March in 1965. It provides hyperlinked encyclopedic summaries of key events and brief biographies of key participants.

From Slavery to Civil Rights: Timeline of African American History ★★★☆☆
This Library of Congress timeline includes a section on the Civil Rights Movement replete with photographs of Rosa Parks, March on Washington, Little Rock Nine, and more.

Skin Deep: 1945-1994 (PBS) ★★★☆☆
The People's Century site is based on the 26-episode PBS television series and features a teacher's guide, a timeline, a thematic overview, and RealAudio excerpts. The highlights of the web site are the first-person narratives, often by ordinary people who lived through turbulent times. The Skin Deep: 1945-1994 episode probes the challenge to racial oppression in the United States and South Africa and features an interesting interview of Jim Zwerg, Civil Rights activist.

Civil Rights Movement ★★★☆☆
The New Georgia Encyclopedia presents a hyperlinked essay on the Civil Rights Movement with related links. Of note are the five video clips that accompany the essay.

Afterward with Clarence Jones ★★★☆☆
A former adviser to the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Clarence Jones presents a behind the scenes picture of the weeks leading up to the March on Washington, and the writing and delivery of the civil rights leader's "I Have a Dream" speech. Courtesy of C-Span Video.

Martin Luther King and Current Public Policy ★★★☆☆
Former Pennsylvania Senator Harris Wofford and former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend speak on the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and his possible approaches to current public policy issues

The Civil Rights Movement ★★★☆☆
CNN.com presents a timeline of the Civil Rights Movement with related stories and links. If the page fails to load, try opening it in Incognito mode (if using Chrome) or switching to a different Internet browser.

The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez (PBS) ★★★☆☆
This portrait of Chavez is presented in both English and Spanish and features audio excerpts from Chavez himself and an interview with his brother.

Lesson Plans, Teacher Guides, Activities and more

Civil Rights Themed Resources
The Teachers section of the Library of Congress features several excellent reaching resources on the Civil Rights Movement. It includes two primary source sets (images, manuscripts, maps, sound files) with analysis tools to help students think like historians: Jim Crow in America and The NAACP: A Century in the Fight for Freedom. There are also six lesson plans created by teachers centering on civil rights:

After Reconstruction: Problems of African Americans in the South (Grades 9-12) Students identify problems and issues facing African-Americans immediately after Reconstruction using text based sources.

Segregation: From Jim Crow to Linda Brown (Grades 6-12) Students explore the era of legalized segregation.

Baseball, Race Relations and Jackie Robinson (Grades 6-12) Students explore racism in the United States, both in and out of sports. The lesson focuses primarily on race relations in the 1950s.

Women in the Civil War: Ladies, Contraband and Spies (Grades 6-12) Students view the perspectives of slave women, plantation mistresses, female spies, and Union women during the Civil War. Much of the lesson is centered on "contraband" in the South.

Baseball, Race and Ethnicity: Rounding the Bases (Grades 9-12) Students use primary sources focused on baseball to explore the American experience regarding race and ethnicity. Covering the period from 1860 to 1959, students are divided into groups each investigating a 20-year segment of time and use primary sources from the Library of Congress's American Memory collection to develop and defend a unique historical hypothesis about race and ethnicity. Students draw parallels between the changing role of race and ethnicity in the history of baseball to the changing role these factors played in broader American society.

To Kill a Mockingbird: A Historical Perspective (Grades 6-12) Students are guided on a journey through the Depression Era South in the 1930s.

African American Identity in the Gilded Age: Two Unreconciled Strivings (Grades 8-12) Students examine the tension experienced by African-Americans during the Gilded Age. The lesson explores the areas of family, work, play, faith, education, race, and violence.

Baseball, Race Relations, and Jackie Robinson
In this Library of Congress lesson students draw on their previous studies of American history and culture as they analyze primary sources from Jackie Robinson and Other Baseball Highlights, 1860s-1960s in American Memory. A close reading of two documents relating to Jackie Robinson's breaking of the racial barrier in professional baseball leads to a deeper exploration of racism in the United States, both in and out of sports. Middle School and High School levels.

Teaching With Documents: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
This National Archives and Records Administration lesson explores "affirmative action" and relates to Articles I,II, and III in the Constitution.

Teaching With Documents: Competing Voices of the Civil Rights Movement
This National Archives and Records Administration curriculum unit contains two lessons that help students understand of the diversity of voices that shaped the debate over civil rights in 1960s America.

Birmingham 1963
In this Civil Rights movement lesson plan from the Alabama Department of Archives & History students read Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and other documents relating to King's incarceration in a Birmingham jail in April, 1963. Students are then asked to write a press release to be sent to each newspaper, radio station and television station in Alabama which will explain what happened in Birmingham. High School level resource.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project: Lesson Plans
This project out of Stanford University disseminates historical information about Dr. King and the social movements in which he participated. Primary sources and lesson plans include:

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail"

The Children's Crusade and the Role of Youth in the African American Freedom Struggle

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X: A Common Solution?

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam

Personal Stories of Liberation from the Civil Rights Movement

Teaching King and the Civil Rights Movement with Primary Source Documents

The Murder of Emmett Till: Teacher's Guide
Provided by PBS, this lesson plan is centered around the murder of Emmett Till. Students are also asked to discuss segregation, violence, and the Great Migration. This lesson plan is broken into four parts and is intended for grades 7-12.

Lesson Plan: Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, and the Power of Nonviolence
This Thinkfinity lesson introduces students to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s philosophy of nonviolence and the teachings of Mohandas K. Gandhi that influenced King's views. After considering the political impact of this philosophy, students explore its relevance to personal life. Intended for grades 6-8

Whitewashing? History: Exploring Topics of Civil Rights from 1948-1964
In this New York Times lesson, students will revisit issues of civil rights in the U.S., using the recent national discussion of retiring Senator Strom Thurmond's 1948 Dixiecrat Presidential campaign as a starting point.(December 16, 2002)

Teacher Lesson Plan: Created Equal?
This Library of Congress lesson focuses on a few key concepts of the Declaration of Independence, beginning with the phrase "All men are created equal." Students gain an appreciation of Thomas Jefferson's efforts to deal with the complex issues of equality and slavery in the Declaration of Independence. Recommended for High school students.

The First Amendment: What's Fair in a Free Country
This EDSITEment lesson plan explores the difficult issues that arise related to our right to free speech.

Preserve, Protect and Defend? Considering Violent Protests and American Values
In this New York Times lesson plan students explore if ever Americans should ever use threats and violence to promote and defend their definitions of America.

Burning Hatred: Discussing the Constitutional Conflict Over Cross Burning
In this lesson, students examine the constitutionality of various forms of expression; they then take part in a mock trial on the issue of cross burning.

Is Everyone Protected By the Bill of Rights?
In this high school lesson plan, students explore whether gays should be entitled to serve in the military. To understand this issue, students take a look at the civil rights afforded to every US citizen. We explore how this applied to the civil rights movement, and whether it is also applicable to gays who want to serve in the military. All this is used to gather information for a final debate about the issue using skills and research found in the lesson.

Hip Hop: Today's Civil Rights Movement?
In this National Public Radio interview author Todd Boyd says that Hip-hop culture, with its street rhythms and explicit lyrics, is more relevant in advancing civil rights today than the peaceful messages of Rev. Martin Luther King.

Cesar Chavez: Model Curriculum
Standards-based model curriculum on the life and work of Cesar E. Chavez. Curriculum is provided for kindergarten through grade twelve, consisting of biographies and lesson plans. Page requires some time of Adobe Reader in order to be viewed.

Rounding the Bases - Lesson Plan
This lesson challenges students to investigate the roles that race and ethnicity have played in the United States by utilizing the lens of baseball. Covering the period from 1860 to 1959, students are divided into groups each investigating a 20-year segment of time and use primary sources from the Library of Congress's American Memory collection to develop and defend a unique historical hypothesis about race and ethnicity. Students draw parallels between the changing role of race and ethnicity in the history of baseball to the changing role these factors played in broader American society. Designed for grades 9 to 12.

Living Legacies - Commemorating People Who Have Positively Impacted Society
In this New York Times lesson, students explore the contemporary commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., research the positive impact another famous person has had on society and the images that best represent the actions and beliefs of that person, create an art exhibit honoring that person's legacy, and finally, write an essay analyzing the effect this individual has had on modern society.(June 20, 2003)

Non-Violent Protest Through The Ages
This is a detailed Middle School teaching unit from the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. It focuses on the beliefs of Henry David Thoreau, Mohandas K. Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King and is designed to be used for classroom discussion as well as independent reading projects. Includes terms, activities, and teaching strategies.

The Civil Rights Movement (A Web Project)
Designed by George Cassutto, this Lesson plan aims to give students a general historical understanding of the events of the Civil Rights Movement and its context in African-American history. It encourages students to construct a Black History timeline. A matching activity is also included, in which students pair a historical event with its correct description.

Little Rock Nine (Web Quest)
Little Rock Nine is an interactive Web Quest from the Pacific Bell Knowledge Network and explores racial desegregation in schools. Students are asked: What, if anything, should be done to racially desegregate U.S. schools? Activities are group-oriented and inquiry-based and are designed to promote critical thinking. There is a teacher's guide included.

Interpreting Primary Sources
Digital History provides brief excerpts from primary sources and statistics on slavery and presents several questions to think about

Digital History Resource Guides
The Digital Resource Guides provides links to American history web sites by period and provide historical overviews, readings (online textbook chapter, Reader's Companion) primary source documents (documents, maps, cartoons), teaching resources (chronologies, maps, quizzes), audio-visual resources, and additional resources. It is an excellent and comprehensive teaching resource.

All About Martin Luther King, Jr.: An Overview of his Life
This Enchanted Learning site provides an overview of Martin Luther King's Life and has some printable activities about King'?s life and achievements for both beginning and fluent readers. Elementary School.

HistoryTeacher.net: AP United States History Quizzes 1920-1970
A New York teacher has produced a great general site for history teachers that offers AP-level United States history quizzes on many different periods and topics.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Civil Rights Movement - Best of History Web Sites

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Civil Rights Web Sites Lesson Plans, Teacher Guides, Activities, and more Civil Rights Web Sites Martin Luther King Jr.: I Have a Dream ★★★★★A complete audio recording of the famous speech. Why it's so Difficult to Find Full Videos of King's Historic Speech ★★★★★Due to copyright law, it can be tricky to find complete video recordings of the "I Have a Dream" Speech.

# data[].attributes.body
This website has a collection of primary source documents and is specifically linked to Woodrow Wilson's declaration of neutrality. I would use this whenever I need a primary source or if students need to find a primary source.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I venture, therefore, my fellow countrymen, to speak a solemn word of warning to you against that deepest, most subtle, most essential breach of neutrality which may spring out of partisanship, out of passionately taking sides. The United States must be neutral in fact, as well as in name, during these days that are to try men's souls.

# data[].attributes.body
This website has a log in for teachers to have access to curriculum that is described to put skills development and student engagement first. I would use this for lesson plans along with using the interactive resources that is available on the students login.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
OER Project is a family of free, online social studies curricula. Aligned to state standards and easily adaptable.

# data[].attributes.body
This website has an unlimited amount of articles about both current events and history. I would use this when I'm doing current event exercises in class. They have a tab that is "world news" so that students can specifically find world events.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Updated June 04, 2014 15:22:12

China's army opened fire 25 years ago on students gathered in Tiananmen Square in Beijing to protest for political reform, killing hundreds and cementing authoritarian rule in the world's most populous country. Here are answers to some key questions about the protests and their aftermath.

Q: Who were the Tiananmen Square protesters?

Among the protesters in and around Tiananmen Square were students, manual labourers - including an independent union - newly authorised small businessmen, and white-collar personnel such as academics and journalists, even judges and card-carrying Party members.

Around 100,000 students are estimated to have taken part in Beijing, a small proportion of the more than a million total protesters.

Q: What motivated the demonstrators?

The 1980s were a time of upheaval in China, as the ruling Communist Party's most powerful leader Deng Xiaoping introduced sweeping economic reforms to replace the Maoist command system. Academics and students began to openly demand matching changes to the authoritarian political regime.

Student protests began in April 1989 to mark the death of Hu Yaobang, a pro-reform figure who had been ousted as Party general secretary by Deng and other hardliners.

Corruption and nepotism were also major issues, with protesters calling for officials to disclose their financial assets.

City residents were worried about job stability and rampant inflation - 26 per cent by the end of 1988.

At first, few students called for the overthrow of the Communist party, but as protests continued there were more demands for Western-style democracy and freedoms, and for Deng to resign.

Q. How and where did they protest?

Protests in Beijing and elsewhere were largely peaceful, employing non-violent tactics such as marches, banner-waving, speeches, sit-ins and hunger strikes.

Official estimates said more than a million gathered in Tiananmen Square. Several thousand took part in a hunger strike.

More than 300 cities across China saw similar protests, according to leaked official estimates. Some turned violent, with outbreaks of rioting reported in Xian and Changsha.

Q. How did the government crack down?

China's leadership was initially split on how to handle the protests, but the hardliners won out, and on May 20 the government imposed martial law.

Students ignored demands to leave the square and Beijing residents formed roadblocks blocking access to military vehicles.

On the evening of June 3, tanks, armoured personnel carriers and tens of thousands of troops converged on the square, using automatic weapons to shoot unarmed citizens.

Similar crackdowns took place in other cities.

Q. How many people were killed?

Estimates for the number killed in Beijing vary from several hundred to more than 1,000.

China's government has never released a definitive death toll.

Beijing's then-mayor, Chen Xitong, later jailed for corruption, said some 200 civilians including 36 students had died when the "counter-revolutionary rebellion" was put down, plus several dozen soldiers.

He said 6,000 security personnel were wounded, compared to 3,000 civilians.

The Tiananmen Mothers, a group representing families who lost children, have collated the names of 202 killed.

The US Embassy in Beijing estimated a death toll of "more than 1,000".

The Chinese Red Cross initially reported 2,600 deaths, but later retracted the figure.

Most shootings took place on surrounding streets, rather than the square itself.

Soldiers are also estimated to have killed dozens of protesters or more in other cities, including Chengdu in the south-west.

Q. What was the international response?

Hundreds of international reporters were in Beijing for a reconciliation visit by the Soviet Union's leader Mikhail Gorbachev, ensuring the protests were broadcast live worldwide.

US and European governments condemned the crackdown, offering students and activists asylum and briefly leaving China diplomatically isolated.

The US and EU imposed arms sales embargoes, though some European countries have continued providing Beijing with weapons.

Q. What were the effects in China?

The US-based Dui Hua foundation estimates up to 100 people were executed and 15,000 detained. Others escaped into exile.

More liberal Communists, most notably Party general secretary Zhao Ziyang, were firmly excluded from the top leadership.

Deng pursued economic reforms while keeping tight restrictions on any political dissent, a path followed by subsequent leaders to this day, including current President Xi Jinping.

Q. How are the protests remembered today?

China has for decades strictly censored public discussion of the crackdown, leaving a huge swathe of young people entirely ignorant of the event.

Public commemorations are also strictly banned, though some Chinese activists hold private memorials.

In Hong Kong, which has robust protection of freedom of speech and assembly, an annual candlelight vigil regularly attracts more than 100,000 people, and smaller events are also held by rights groups around the world.
AFP
First posted June 02, 2014 13:16:38

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Tiananmen Square anniversary: Questions and Answers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
China's army opened fire 25 years ago on students who had protested for political reform in Tiananmen Square, killing hundreds and cementing authoritarian rule in the world's most populous country. Here are answers to some key questions about the protests and their aftermath.

# data[].attributes.body
We used this activity during our world history lesson on Tianamen Square. This has different activities for the subject along with guided discussions and a worksheet that goes along with a linked video.

# data[].attributes.body
This site leads to a class project based on the Tianamen Square protests. We used this during our world history lesson and has students role play their own strike in the classroom. I would use this activity with the railroad strike of 1877 to have students play the part of striking workers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Subjects:

Art, Computers & Internet, Language Arts, Social Studies

Grades:

9, 10, 11, 12

Title - Experiencing Tiananmen Square
By - Curry Kenworthy
Primary Subject - Social Studies
Secondary Subjects - Art, Language Arts, Computers / Internet
Grade Level - 9-12

GOALS:

Know basic facts about the Tiananmen Square demonstration and massacre.

Understand the situation for democracy and human rights in another country, in the past and today.

Be able to express accurate facts and meaningful personal thoughts about this issue in spoken, written, demonstrated, and/or artistic form.

EQUIPMENT NEEDED:

Research: Internet access and/or adequate written materials available

(Other equipment varies according to activities chosen.)

STEP 1: INTRODUCTION

Lead in to the topic by reading a vivid excerpt from a book or article, by showing a video clip or projecting photos, or by initiating a discussion from the starting point of China, human rights and democracy, or atrocities. (Or if the lesson is being done on an anniversary date such as June 4, by asking the students if they know what happened on today's date.)

STEP 2: RESEARCH AND PRESENTATION

The instructor can choose one of these two options for students to learn and present information about the topic.

OPTION A: GROUP RESEARCH AND REPORTING

The students can divide into groups to find information on different aspects of the issue. Here are some examples. (These can be adjusted according to class size, time, and needs.)

Timeline of main Tiananmen Square events and brief overview of the event

What is Tiananmen Square? (What is it used for, how big is it, where did it come from, and what does its name mean?)

What students and bystanders did and said during the protest

Why students protested, and what they wanted to achieve from the demonstration

How China's government responded and what happened to protesters and bystanders

The world's reactions to the events and the results of their reactions

The story of one of the famous demonstrators at that time and (if applicable) their experiences afterwards

What is the situation for freedom and human rights in China now? Give some examples.

Did the Chinese government ever apologize for what happened? What have officials said about the matter?
You may want to give some reminders and pointers about internet search terms and methods. Be available to assist groups in understanding the topics and finding information if they have difficulty.

The groups will then present their findings to the class. If necessary, between presentations you can help to weave threads between the different issues, such as relating the current human rights situation to the situation in 1989.

Assessment methods:

Prepare a quiz from the information presented by the students. Use the chalkboard, projector, or give the questions orally on the same day, or type up a planned or pop quiz to give the following day.

Have students journal about what they learned, or use one of the activities in Step 3 for assessment.
OPTION B: INDIVIDUAL OR GROUP RESEARCH AND WRITING

Individuals or groups can research topics such as the above (or a greater variety of individual topics) and then write papers about what they learned.

If desired, the students can orally present summaries of their papers to the class on the due date before turning them in. Assessment can be based solely on the paper or on paper + oral presentation.

STEP 3: ACTIVITIES

The instructor can choose from these options for additional work related to the topic.

OPTION A: STUDENT PROTEST

This option could be a memorable and fun activity for your class, if planned and supervised correctly.

Introduce the idea of holding a real protest. Then lead the discussion to planning. First, why is the class going to hold a protest? What are the goals? The students and instructor should come up with a list of objectives for the event. Here are some examples. (Your class may have others.)

To commemorate the Tiananmen Square demonstration and honor the efforts of the students in seeking freedom for their country.

To protest the actions of the Chinese government in the 1989 massacre

To protest the current human rights conditions and lack of democracy in China

To demand the release of China's current prisoners of conscience

To raise awareness in the (school / community / etc.) about Tiananmen Square and the current human rights situation in China
Then the practical details should be addressed. The instructor may make these decisions previously or involve the students in planning. Where should the event be held? (In the classroom, in the school, outside the school?) Who will be the audience? (The class itself, the whole school, the community?) What will be done and how will the event be conducted? Of course, having a peaceful demonstration and respecting others during the protest should be emphasized. (Some protest behaviors that students have seen in the media may not be appropriate or helpful.) There should be some well-understood rules in place if the protest is to take place outside the classroom. These rules should fit the situation; for example, strict noise guidelines may be required for a protest in the school, even though many protests in other places place an emphasis on making noise.

Now students can start the creative part of the preparation. From the research, they can review details of why the Chinese students were demonstrating and what activities and slogans they used. (They can research further if needed.) Then the students can make signs and banners and think of slogans for the demonstration. A sign or slogan could be taken from what was actually used in Tiananmen Square, or it could reflect a current concern about China. Pamphlets are another useful material for students to make.

During the event, monitor behavior and give any guidance necessary to ensure that the protest is a meaningful and enjoyable event for everyone. If assessment is desired, it can come from the student's behavior and participation at the event and/or from a journal/paper about the event.

OPTION B: ARTISTIC PROJECTS

Students can create an art project with a Tiananmen or China human rights theme. For example:

A Goddess of Democracy statue. Students can research the original structure (and the reason and symbolism behind the statue) and then decide the size and materials for making their version.

A painting, drawing, poster, or cartoon about the topic.
OPTION C: WRITING

Here are some ideas for written projects.

A report or paper about an issue related to Tiananmen Square or human rights in China

A short story: Image you are a student taking part in the Tiananmen Square demonstration. Or, imagine you are a student or someone else in China now. What is your situation-your hopes and problems? What happens? How do you feel? What will you do now?

A letter to a newspaper editor or a politician about the topic and what you think should be done

EXTRA IDEAS FOR INDIVIDUALS:

If students are very interested in Tiananmen Square and China democracy, they may want to try any of the following:

Join a pro-democracy organization. (This can usually be done by joining an e-mail list or writing an e-mail to the organization.)

Start a school chapter or club for democracy.

Read a book about Tiananmen Square or a book written by a Chinese dissident or democracy advocate.

Raise funds for a donation to organizations which support freedom.

Volunteer for a China democracy organization.

Think of your own project to raise awareness or make a statement about the issue-a web page, a story or book, or whatever interests you.

FEEDBACK

Let us know how this lesson worked out for your class, what your students did, or ideas to improve the lesson.

http://www.chinasupport.net/
E-Mail Curry Kenworthy !

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
In this lesson, students experience Tiananmen Square

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Subjects: Art, Computers & Internet, Language Arts, Social Studies Grades: 9, 10, 11, 12 Title - Experiencing Tiananmen Square By - Curry Kenworthy Primary Subject - Social Studies Secondary Subjects - Art, Language Arts, Computers / Internet Grade Level - 9-12 GOALS: Know basic facts about the Tiananmen Square demonstration and massacre.

# data[].attributes.body
This site goes to a page of instructions for how to play a game demonstrating collective action. This game would be best used during the section teaching collective action because it is a hard concept for students to grasp. The page before it has multiple other games for other concepts.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
So last night I ran a game that utterly failed.

It was in the first meeting of my upper level seminar on Environmental and Energy Security, which meets 1x week for 8 weeks in a 4 hour night class. One of the key concepts I wanted to review was the Collective Action Problem, and naturally, my thoughts immediately went to how I could turn this into a game.

The game itself is below, but I thought it might be interesting to discuss how I created it and how it went so wrong. Designing a game is a c onstant work in progress, and we shouldn't be afraid to test it out on our students and see what happens. It helps improve the game for the next time around, and I've always found that even when the game doesn't go exactly as planned (or, you know, dies horribly while 20 undergraduates stare at you, expectantly), there is usually a relevant lesson for the players. Luckily, that's what happened this time.

Collection Action, in Action

The core of the collective action problem is trying to understand the ways in which individual self interest can preclude group interests. If contributing to the group interest poses a cost, individuals who may value that collective goal may still fail to contribute, perhaps hoping to free ride on the efforts of others. This is particularly a challenge in larger groups, when failures to contribute may be less likely to run social risks than in smaller groups, where contributors can be socially rewarded and shirkers, socially punished.

What I wanted, then, was some kind of decision-making game where students had to choose between a self-interested option and a collective option. I quickly zeroed in on extra credit as the self-interested option. The challenge here was figuring out how much extra credit was enough to tempt the students away from the collective option, without being too high. I went with 20 points- my course is out of 10,000 points, so this seemed reasonable at the time. As we will see, it was far, far too low to incentivize the students to behave selfishly.

For the collective interest, I considered two options. One was some kind of group prize, such as baked goods. The other was some higher amount of extra credit. What I did decide was not to tell the students exactly what their collective interest would be. This was because my class was full of former students of mine, many of whom have tried to break my games in the past. Limited information was therefore my friend, or so I thought.

For game play, I also wanted to see what role social norms would play. That meant playing the game anonymously the first time, and then openly the second, to see what kind of impact it would have if they would have to 'out' themselves as self-interested players. This part also did not turn out as planned, by the way.

Here's what I did:

The Collective Action Game

In round 1, students had to take out a piece of paper, write their names on it, and then indicate whether they chose option A, which was an automatic 20 points of extra credit on their final course grade, or option B, which was a contribution toward the unknown group prize. 75% of the students had to pick option B for the collective good to be provided. Choices were kept completely anonymous, but I announced how many students chose option A and B.

The collective prize was 100 points of extra credit-reduced by 20 points for each student who chose option A (basically, they were taking those points out of the collective pool). In my class, 4 out of 20 students chose Option A, so that left 20 points for the collective prize.

Round 2 was exactly the same, except now Option A was worth 80 points, and the unknown collective prize was baked goods for our next class. Again, I did not tell them the prize until after the results were announced.

Round 3 had an 80 point option A and a 200 point extra credit prize, but was done openly-self-interested players came to the front of the room, and collective players went to the back of the room.

So how did that go?

The Disaster

Well. Here's what I expected to have happen: in the first round, most students would take the self-interested route, would be shamed by the collectively oriented players, and then in Round 2, the public round, most students would act in the collective interest.

That's exactly what DIDN'T happen. 16 of my 20 students chose Option B in round 1. Although they expressed anger at the 4 unknown students who chose Option A, many (though not all) agreed that they probably would have taken the selfish route if the incentive was higher. The public round 2 was supposed to provide contrast, but suddenly, there was no contrast to be had! So on the fly I made up a new Round 2, a private game with a higher extra credit incentive for the self-interested option. Maybe 80 points was still not enough, though, as this time 17 students (1 MORE than before) chose Option B!

At this point, I was seriously concerned about the game failing entirely. I've written before about game failure and how it can present learning opportunities, and we've discussed it on the blog, but that doesn't mean it's a a fun experience when you are facing a new class on the first night and your new, untested game is completely failing to work as planned. I was pretty much resigned to having to admit to the students that the game didn't work, but decided to try the public round anyway.

In the public round, remember, I had anticipated 100% compliance with the collective option. Imagine my surprise when the social norms I expected to make everyone choose Option B resulted in the exact opposite-8 students came to the front of the room, going for the 80 points, and as soon as the ones in the back realized that this meant the collective good would not be provided, they tried to run up front so they too could benefit. Instead of promoting cooperative behavior, the ability to see what their peers were doing resulted in higher self interested action!

Total. Game. Failure.

By that I mean that I had created the game trying to engender a particular outcome (a rookie mistake, by the way), and the students behaved precisely the opposite of how I had hoped and planned. The game, in other words, failed to produce the behaviors I was hoping to discuss.

But I had two things going in my favor. First, and less importantly, I know that failure still provides opportunities to learn, and I was able to make some connections with what did happen that could still illustrate the lessons I wanted. More importantly, my students had NO IDEA that the game hadn't worked as planned. I didn't let on, and therefore they treated it as if I, the all-knowing instructor (hah!), had anticipated their every move. That meant that during the debrief, they were searching for ways to make the game relevant to the content-and they found them. They were able to teach themselves and their classmates all kinds of lessons about collective action, showing that even if they hadn't learned what I'd originally planned, they still learned quite a bit.

Salvage Mission

We had a wide ranging discussion about a number of points. First, the ability to observe and monitor fellow group members matters. Social norms matter-but if the norm is to be self-interested, then there is no danger in behaving that way. Likewise, observation allowed students to change their behavior based on what their peers did-which is the essence of free-riding behavior. In this case, too many students free-rode, preventing the good from being provided. Another point this showed is that collection action is easier to achieve in a small, highly connected group. There were only 20 students in my class, most of whom are junior and senior majors that have taken many classes together. Their cooperation is, therefore, precisely what I should have predicted. We were able to discuss what the game would have looked like if played in class of 300 or so, and they agreed the outcome might have looked different. We were also able to discuss how the incentive informed their decision-noting the crucial role that incentives play in motivating their own personal behavior.

The game clearly needs some tinkering and refining, but I don't regret playing it. It will give us a common reference point for the rest of the term, and any opportunity to get the students active and moving about during a four hour class is welcome. Ultimately it teased out several crucial points about collective action that I wanted the students to understand, even if it wasn't the points I originally intended. And it also re-taught me the crucial lesson that failure is just a starting point for learning, for both me and my students. I may have failed, but I'll still call that a win.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Collective Action Game: Failure in Action

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
So last night I ran a game that utterly failed. It was in the first meeting of my upper level seminar on Environmental and Energy Security, which meets 1x week for 8 weeks in a 4 hour night class. ...

# data[].attributes.body
This website has links to any era's or any countries history on the side of the page. The links each lead to different lesson plans and activities for world history. It also links to other websites that are helpful for the specific subject.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Early Modern Europe Web Sites

Internet Modern History Sourcebook
The Internet History Sourcebooks are wonderful collections of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts for educational use by Paul Halsall. The site and its documents are well organized and the breadth of materials is impressive. The Sourcebooks include: an Ancient History Sourcebook, a Medieval Sourcebook, and a Modern History Sourcebook. The Internet Modern History Sourcebook contains thousands of sources in dozens of categories. Subjects covered in the Interrnet Modern History Sourcebook include: the Late Middle Ages, the Italian Renaissance, the Early Reformation, Protestant Reformation, Catholic Reformation, Women and Reformation, The Early Modern World System, The European "Age of Discovery," Structures of Life in the West, Everyday Life, From Popular to Mass Culture, The Enlightenment, Religion in an Age of Reason, Responses to the French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars, and more.

Attending to Early Modern Women: Gender, Culture, and Change
Compiled by an Arts and Humanities team at the University of Maryland Libraries, this site provides annotated links to useful resources for the study of women in early modern Europe (and the Americas), particularly those between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The site offers searchable full-text resources, images, and sound recordings, though some resources are not free.

Early Modern Resources
In 2000 a Ph.D student began Early Modern Resources, a gateway site for the early modern period (c.1500-1800). It contains a wide range of links. Subject themes are Old and New Worlds, Material and symbolic cultures, Society, economy, and demography, Politics, rebellions and revolutions, Women, gender, and sexuality, Crime, law, and disorder, Religion, science, and philosophy, Literature, art, and performance, and Medicine and illness. Also includes links to General Resources, E-tests, E-journals, and more.

The Garden, the Ark, the Tower, the Temple: Biblical Metaphors of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe
This Oxford University site describes how the Biblical stories of the Garden of Eden, Noah's Ark, the Tower of Babel, and the Temple of Solomon provided explanations for the human condition and seemed to offer plans for escape into a better world. The searchable site aims to provide a broad picture of the role of biblical interpretation in early modern Europe and shows how stories from the Bible were used by early scientists and Reformation leaders as a story of the growth and decline of knowledge. Mostly text with a few hyperlinks, but there are some engaging images.

World Civilizations: An Internet Classroom and Anthology
World Civilizations is an interactive reading environment that combines materials of two World Cultures courses taught at Washington State University using web-based materials since Fall of 1994. Although designed for university freshman students, World Civilizations' texts, glossary, and learning modules are intended to be usable for high school level students and advanced undergraduates. In order to increase usability for advanced undergraduates, bibliographies of works consulted are being assembled for textbook entries, glossary entries, and learning modules.

Labyrinth: Medieval Resources
This Georgetown University site features bibliographies, a searchable index, links to special topics, and full-text versions of medieval works

Printing: Renaissance & Reformation
Printing: Renaissance & Reformation is part of "An Exhibit for History 101: European Civilization I," a course offered at the University of South Carolina. Originally exhibited fall 1995 at the Thomas Cooper Library, the items in this exhibit of early printing are more than four hundred years old and each is accompanied by concise explanatory text.

Lesson Plans, Teacher Guides, Activities, Primary Sources and more

History Learning Site
This site covers many UK Key Stage 3 topics and contains a complete Modern World History course, together with numerous GCSE and Advanced Level History and Politics courses.

Course Models: The French Revolution
Part of the California History-Social Science content standards and annotated course that includes: background information, focus questions, pupil activities and handouts, assessments, and references to books, articles, web sites, literature, audio-video programs, and historic sites. Grade 10.

Course Models: The Enlightenment and the Rise of Democratic Ideals
Part of the California History-Social Science content standards and annotated course that includes: background information, focus questions, pupil activities and handouts, assessments and references to books, articles, web sites, literature, audio-video programs, and historic sites. Grade 11.

BBC History Trail: Victorian Britain
Victorian Britain experienced dramatic economic growth but at great social cost. Discover more about the winners and losers in the race to prosperity. Find out how heroic cartoons and the novels of Charles Dickens can help the historian piece together a picture of the past.

Tudor Hackney
This UK National Archives Learning Curve and Hacknet Archives site enables you to explore the world of 1601 through a virtual reality reconstruction of the Rectory House, which once stood on the west side of Hackney's Mare Street. The site uses video drama and virtual tours to provide an insight into Tudor life in general, and how court and country could come to be linked in the web of intrigue and politics of the latter days of Elizabeth I.

Did God Really help the English Defeat the Spanish Armada?
At Key Stage 3 this work fits into the unit on the Making of the United Kingdom and could be used as a straight account of events, illustrating English foreign relations. It could also be used to explore the role of propaganda in Elizabeth's reign. From the National Archives Learning Curve

19th Century People: What Can We Tell From this Photograph?
?Who were these people? What were they called?? The exercise aims to give pupils the opportunity to use two historical sources to answer these basic questions. From the National Archives Learning Curve. Key Stage 2-3.

Past Pleasures: How Did the Victorians Have Fun?
Photographs and posters from Victorian Britain help students understand how leisure time was spent. From the National Archives Learning Curve. Key Stage 2-3.

The Romantic Chronology
An attractive site featuring an interactive chronology of the Romance period.

Napoleon: Church and State
Study historic and present-day examples of the interplay between religion and government. Based on the PBS video, Napoleon. Grades 7 -12.

Hero or Tyrant?
Debate Napoleon's legacies and leadership style to determine if he was a hero or a tyrant. Use your view to produce a newspaper from 1815 which assesses Napoleon's career. Based on the PBS video, Napoleon. Grades 7 -12.

Napoleon Becomes a Man of Destiny
Ask students to consider what has influenced their own lives and whether or not they believe in "destiny." Explore how the French Revolution, family, personality, historical events, and other factors influenced Napoleon's rise to power. Based on the PBS video, Napoleon. Grades 7 -12.

How Did the British React to July 1789?
Students look at primary source material from 1789, including a London newspaper report and personal letters, and then the examine the British reaction to the events that started the French Revolution. From the National Archives Learning Curve. Key Stage 3

The Laws Live On
Compare Napoleon's Civil Code with the U.S. Constitution and explore how guiding documents evolve over time. Based on the PBS video, Napoleon. Grades 7 -12.

Course Models: The Industrial Revolution
Part of the California History-Social Science content standards and annotated course that includes: background information, focus questions, pupil activities and handouts, assessments, and references to books, articles, web sites, literature, audio-video programs, and historic sites. Grade 10.

English Civil War Game
In this ActiveHistory interactive contest you try to keep your head as King of England in the crisis-ridden years of the 1630's and 1640's. You must be a paying member of ActiveHistory in order to access the site.

A Victorian News Magazine
Students will create a special feature news magazine that highlights Queen Victoria and her reign over England. Students will include stories about key events, people, and politics of the time. They will use proper writing techniques when creating news and feature stories as well as editorials. Magazines will focus on different decades of Victoria's life from 1819 to 1901. PBS, High School.

The Six Wives of Henry VIII
Meet the wives, get a portrait of life in Tudor times, explore Henry VIII and his fascinating life, access lessons and play matchmaker for the monarch himself with a fun interactive game.

The Western Heritage: Lesson Plans
Focus Lessons for The Western Heritage highlight important ideas and concepts in each chapter as well as the relevant sections in the program's ancillaries. The Focus Lessons, written by an experienced AP teacher, suggest strategies for assessing how well your students understand the important points in each chapter and also provide test-taking tips that will help your students prepare for and take the AP European history test successfully.

Inventions That Changed the World
Students will create small group projects that illustrate the positive and negative impacts of the inventions of the Industrial Revolution, the ways this revolution shaped Victoria's reign as Queen of England, and the ways this invention contributed to the idea of a world economy. PBS, Middle School

Course Models: The Italian Renaissance
Part of the California History-Social Science content standards and annotated course which includes: background information, focus questions, pupil activities and handouts, assessments, and references to books, articles, web sites, literature, audio-video programs, and historic sites. Grade 7.

AP European History Web Links and Primary Source Documents
Historyteacher.net offers 1000s of links to great web sites and primary source documents. Just pick a topic and go to that page where you will find a large number of links that can be used for research and study. You will also be directed to in-depth, detail-linked class assignments on several topics.

BBC History Games: Battle of Waterloo
Play the game and take sides in the Battle of Waterloo. Then find out more about the battle, the tactics employed, and the consequences for Europe.

BBC History Games: Elizabethan Spying
Play the game and see if you can crack the code that incriminated Mary, Queen of Scots.

BBC History Games: Victorian Women's Rights
Play the game to find out how women's rights evolved during the Victorian Age.

BBC History: Kings and Queens Through Time
In this animated timeline you put the kings and queens of England, and later the United Kingdom, in their proper place. There are four periods to explore. The Plantagenets and the Houses of Lancaster and York are featured in the first period, the Tudors and Stuarts in the second, and the House of Hanover in the third. The timeline concludes with the Windsors.

BBC History: Stephenson's Rocket Animation
Play the animation to operate the Rocket, considered by many to be the forerunner of all steam locomotives, and a key factor in the advance of the Industrial Revolution.

BBC History: Spinning Mill Animation
Play the animation to operate a steam-powered spinning mill.

BBC History: The Changing British Population Animation
Play the animation, and track how key events in British history have affected the size of the British population.

BBC History: The Great Fire of London Animation
View the animation to see contemporary etchings of the London skyline, showing the extent of the devastation. Afterwards, you could view the changing designs for St Paul's Cathedral, rebuilt in the aftermath of the fire by Sir Christopher Wren.

BBC History: The History of European Map Making Animation
Explore the changing European view of the world in the animated history of maps across the centuries. The Map Animation features images that are reproduced courtesy of the British Library.

BBC History: The Endeavour Virtual Tour
Captain Cook set sail on the Endeavour, a refitted Whitby coal ship, in 1768. The Endeavour was to sail to Taihiti to watch the 'transit of Venus', and then on to the South Pacific to complete a top secret mission. Cook went on to chart New Zealand and the previously uncharted east coast of Australia in what has now become a legendary voyage.

BBC History Games: The Gunpowder Plot
Guy Fawkes was among a gang of Roman Catholic conspirators who wanted to blow up the House of Lords and assassinate King James VI of Scotland and I of England. As part of their plan, they stored gunpowder kegs in the cellars of the House of Lords. You must find those kegs before the fizzing fuse causes disaster!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Internet Modern History Sourcebook The Internet History Sourcebooks are wonderful collections of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts for educational use by Paul Halsall. The site and its documents are well organized and the breadth of materials is impressive. The Sourcebooks include: an Ancient History Sourcebook, a Medieval Sourcebook, and a Modern History Sourcebook.

# data[].attributes.body
This website has exercises that help make students aware of ecocentrism and stereotypes. I would use this for ideas on how to introduce the topic of ecocentrism in a way that students are able to grasp.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Understanding Stereotypes | Free Lesson Plans | Teachers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Free U.S. History lesson plan for grades 9 to 12.

# data[].attributes.body
This website goes to a virtual and interactive museum that can be explored by students. The students can choose specific cultures to explore in class. I would use this as an exercise to ask students how they interpret information of a culture through the artifacts and pieces displayed at the museum.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In 2020, Digital Museums Canada (DMC) evolved out of the Virtual Museum of Canada (VMC), changing its investment program from a public facing portal for virtual exhibits that it funded to one that invests in online projects by Canadian museums and heritage organizations, helping them build digital capacity and share stories and experiences with their audiences.

With this new direction, Digital Museums Canada has made the decision to decommission The Virtual Museum of Canada website (virtualmuseum.ca), including the Virtual Exhibits and the Teachers' Centre portals.

Considerations around the decision to decommission the VMC website include:

Outdated user experiences and content

Security risks

Degraded technology

Lapsed copyright and contracts

Recent projects and Community Stories

DMC-funded projects launched in the last five years can be viewed on the new website.

All Community Stories projects (formerly Community Memories) continue to be hosted by DMC on the Canadian Museum of History's servers and are accessed as a collection on the DMC website (under Community Stories collection).

Learn more about the largest funding program in Canada dedicated to online projects by the museum and heritage community.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Digital Museums Canada Decommissions the Virtual Museum of Canada Website - Digital Museums Canada

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In 2020, Digital Museums Canada (DMC) evolved out of the Virtual Museum of Canada (VMC), changing its investment program from a public facing portal for virtual exhibits that it funded to one that invests in online projects by Canadian museums and heritage organizations, helping them build digital capacity and share stories and experiences with their audiences.

# data[].attributes.body
This website is part of Kstates database and has over 350 resources for political science. This would be used for students to find reliable sources for research and projects

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Gaming Political Science | Kansas State University

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This project was made possible through the financial support of the Provost's Office at Kansas State University. I owe a special thanks to my graduate research assistant, Chelsey Eimer, who collected and organized many of these articles, and Julie Fosberg for her technical assistance.

# data[].attributes.body
This website has a bunch of links to articles and essays on world history.  The links take you to different websites that have the history on the content selected from the site. I would have students use this to find reliable sources for assignments.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
World History Matters » A Portal to World History Sites from the Center for History and New Media

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
World History Matters is a portal to world history websites developed by the Center for History and New Media

# data[].attributes.body
This lesson is based on the events of Tianamen Square and relates to the US strategy of containing communism.

# data[].attributes.body
This website has a guide on how to have a mock trial in the classroom.  It has examples of a class doing the mock trial for the teacher to review and implement in the classroom.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Oregon High School Mock Trial

Mock Trial is both a classroom strategy and an extracurricular competition that high school students have loved for decades. Using a mock court case, students play the roles of attorneys, witnesses, and court officers while learning the lasting skills of public speaking, teamwork, research, collaboration, civil and criminal legal concepts, and civic engagement. It is a way to bring the law alive for students and to give them a voice in what otherwise might seem a very distant judicial system.

Oregon has been participating in the National High School Mock Trial Competition ( NHSMTC) since 1987, and Classroom Law Project is proud to carry that legacy for Oregon high schools into the 21st century! Every March, over 70 teams from high schools all around the state compete in 8 different regional competitions. The winners of those regionals compete at the State Competition and that winner goes on to Nationals. Check out all our past winners!

Classroom Law Project coordinates the high school mock trial competitions in Oregon and also provides workshops for teachers on how to implement mock trial strategies in their classrooms.

Check our upcoming events for learning opportunities. To see historical materials - including past case packets - visit our resources page and filter the PROGRAM by "Mock Trial".

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Oregon High School Mock Trial Mock Trial is both a classroom strategy and an extracurricular competition that high school students have loved for decades. Using a mock court case, students play the roles of attorneys, witnesses, and court officers while learning the lasting skills of public speaking, teamwork, research, collaboration, civil and criminal legal concepts, ...

# data[].attributes.body
This website revolves around the exploration of America and has two options, a section for educators and a section for students which is helpful.  The educator portion of the website has a full lesson plan and an interactive activity for the students. I would use this as a resource for lessons and for student research.

# data[].attributes.body
This website focuses on armed conflicts and has primary source documents and videos. It has conflicts from the revolutionary war all the way to the Iraq war. Has printable worksheets available for lesson plans.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Price of Freedom: Americans at War surveys the history of America’s military from the French and Indian Wars to the present day, exploring ways in which wars have been defining episodes in American history.

# data[].attributes.body
This page has the link to 50 primary source documents in chronological order. Documents start with the Declaration of Independence and has things like the federalist papers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
At Ashbrook, we teach about America by using original historical documents. We believe this list of 50 core documents provides an essential starting point for students, teachers, and citizens to think more deeply about what it means to be an American. Read more.

# data[].attributes.body
This website has a collection of lesson plans but the games are the most important aspect of the site. The site has a bunch of games about different government system and has debate simulations.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In this new Private i History Detectives unit, Elementary students analyze primary sources to discover how Constitutional Amendments attempted to address slavery's wrongs, how the courts challenged unfair laws, and how individuals and groups fought for civil rights.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In this new Private i History Detectives unit, Elementary students analyze primary sources to discover how Constitutional Amendments attempted to address slavery's wrongs, how the courts challenged unfair laws, and how individuals and groups fought for civil rights.

# data[].attributes.body
This page has three different search options for students to use when looking for specific court cases. I would use this by listing it as a reliable source of information for students. This would be helpful for research projects or when students need to search within a certain time period.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Digital History> Reference Room>Historically Significant Supreme Court Cases in American History

# data[].attributes.body
This page goes to specific acts that have been put in place and gives the primary source document. This will be helpful when students need to analyze the details and specific wording of acts.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In a related development, the 1986 Budget Reconciliation Act amends the ADEA, the Internal Revenue Code and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act ("ERISA") to broaden the pension plan rights of older workers. Under the new law, a pension plan can no longer freeze benefits on the basis of age upon the attainment of normal retirement age.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
First Amendment Rights During the Cold War  (1)

# data[].attributes.body
This is a collection of materials about the attack on Pearl Harbor and what led up to the attack. It has secondary sources including audio interviews and videos.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
After the Day of Infamy: "Man-on-the-Street" Interviews Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor presents approximately twelve hours of opinions recorded in the days and months following the bombing of Pearl Harbor from more than two hundred individuals in cities and towns across the United States. On December 8, 1941 (the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor), Alan Lomax, then "assistant in charge" of the Archive of American Folk Song (now the American Folklife Center archive), sent a telegram to fieldworkers in ten different localities across the United States, asking them to collect "man-on-the-street" reactions of ordinary Americans to the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declaration of war by the United States. A second series of interviews, called "Dear Mr. President," was recorded in January and February 1942. Both collections are included in this presentation. They feature a wide diversity of opinion concerning the war and other social and political issues of the day, such as racial prejudice and labor disputes. The result is a portrait of everyday life in America as the United States entered World War II.

Pete Seeger playing banjo, 1948. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, New York World Telegram and Sun Newspaper Collection. Photograph by Mel Kirkwood. Reproduction Number LC-USZ62-124417.

The 1941 recordings were made as a part of the the Library of Congress' Radio Research Project. A portion of this project aimed to create documentary recordings of Americans from around the country who described their lives, sang their songs, and told the stories of their own regions. The project's staff believed that most commercial radio broadcasts of the day were dominated by programs created in the great urban centers and that these programs failed to reflect regional culture, local talent, and, in particular, the voices of the people speaking in their own words. Alan Lomax was serving as folklore consultant for the project when he sent the December 8, 1941 telegram, asking fieldworkers to collect "man-on-the-street" reactions. This request resulted in approximately four and one half hours of recordings that were used to create a fifteen-minute radio program for the Mutual Broadcasting System.

A second set of recordings, in which the interviewees were asked to address their thoughts and opinions on the attack and the declaration of war directly to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was made under the auspices of the Office of Emergency Management in January and February 1942. These recordings total approximately seven and one half hours and were also used to create a radio program, entitled "Dear Mr. President," which was broadcast in May 1942. Pete Seeger and Huddie Ledbetter (Leadbelly) recorded original songs for the "Dear Mr. President" interviews. Included in this presentation are Pete Seeger's "Dear Mr. President" and "The Martins and Coys."

In most cases, the recordings were digitized by Library of Congress staff directly from the discs on which they were originally recorded. The only editing redacted interviewee names from several recordings and removed Leadbelly's two songs for which permissions have not yet been received. Otherwise, the recordings are presented as they were originally recorded.

This online presentation includes one essay: "Making and Maintaining the Original Recordings." Also included are biographies of the fieldworkers who conducted and arranged the interviews, complete transcripts of the interviews, related manuscripts, and original disc sleeves.

This online presentation also includes a set of interviews conducted in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. During the course of these interviews, Library interviewers advised some interviewees that the interviews would not be broadcast. Presumably, the agreement to safeguard the identity of these persons was intentional, as some of the interviewees worked for the Federal government and/or otherwise required anonymity in order to participate. For this reason, the Library has edited the Washington, D.C., audiotapes and transcripts to remove interviewee names.

This presentation was made possible with the generous support of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute and the New Deal Network.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
About this Collection - After the Day of Infamy: "Man-on-the-Street" Interviews Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
After the Day of Infamy: "Man-on-the-Street" Interviews Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor presents approximately twelve hours of opinions recorded in the days and months following the bombing of Pearl Harbor from more than two hundred individuals in cities and towns across the United States.

# data[].attributes.body
This website links to the AP US history website that has several lesson plans available. The lesson plans have links to documents in them and other resources.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ohio State University and College Board Lesson Plans for AP U.S. History | AP Central - The College Board

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The College Board and Ohio State University

# data[].attributes.body
This website has the constitution as an interactive document where you can go through it and pick certain amendments to get more information on. It also shows when it was last brought before congress and who debated it.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn about the text, history, and meaning of the U.S. Constitution from leading scholars of diverse legal and philosophical perspectives.

# data[].attributes.body
This website has brief outlines of lessons that go along with specific books that are cited. It has several links on the bottom of the page to more secondary source documents.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
NEH EDSITEment Lesson Plans

The Ashbrook Center at Ashland University worked with the National Endowment for the Humanities to develop web-based lesson plans for U.S. history and American government teachers. The lessons created as a part of this partnership have been placed on the NEH's EDSITEment web site, which features the best of the humanities on the web. EDSITEment is funded in part by the Verizon Foundation and is a contributor to its educator platform, Thinkfinity.org.

This project was funded by a three-year, $375,000 cooperative agreement and a three-year, $186,900 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. These activities are a part of the NEH's We the People initiative. The project was led by Dr. John Moser, Assistant Professor of History at Ashland University, and the lessons were developed from distinguished faculty and secondary school teachers from across the nation.

The following EDSITEment lesson plans have been developed as a part of this project:

Other Lesson Plans from the Ashbrook Center:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
NEH EDSITEment Lesson Plans | Teaching American History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Ashbrook Center at Ashland University worked with the National Endowment for the Humanities to develop web-based lesson plans for U.S. history and American government teachers. The lessons created as a part of this partnership have been placed on the NEH's EDSITEment web site, which features the best of the humanities on the web.

# data[].attributes.body
The website is a gateway to other resources and has direct links to them. It has links to multiple primary source documents like the Library of Congress. It has 4 different websites for lesson plans and they are all teacher sharing sites.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
American history teacher resources selected by History Hustle to assist history teachers with developing fun ways to teach history to their students and make the experience of learning history fun and engaging.

American history is a well-studied and fascinating period that draws learners from around the world, not just the United States. Form the framers, the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, to the many exploits of Benjamin Frnklin, there is so much rich history in America, dating from the 15th century to the modern day. Let History Hustle be your resource for finding fun and, most importantly, relatable ways to get your students interested in American History.

This page will be updated as more resources are added. Again, if you have your own resources, please shre them with us and we will add them to the page, and give you full credit (no pun intended) for your contribution. Email us at info@historyhustle.

American History Lesson Plans

Below, you'll find lesson plans you can use or take inspiration from for your own lesson plans. Teachers, we welcome you to add your own lesson plans, or other resources here, too.
Lesson Plans - Teaching American History Lesson Plans - Educational Resources and Lesson Plans Lesson Plans - Share My Lesson Lesson Plans - University of Maryland
American History Primary Sources

Primary sources are an important part of teaching history. Fortunately, the web makes it easy to find them! Below, you'll find links to many primary resources, including Benjamin Franklin's letters, to the Declaration of Independence.
Primary Sources - Library of Congress Primary Sources - National Archives

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
American History Teacher Resources | History Hustle

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
American history teacher resources selected by History Hustle to assist history teachers with developing fun ways to teach history to their students and make the experience of learning history fun and engaging. American history is a well-studied and fascinating period that draws learners from around the world, not just the United States.

# data[].attributes.body
This website has dozens of links to American history lesson plans. You can choose a topic or word and it'll take you to a page of lesson plans based on that word.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Hundreds of U.S. history lesson plans and resources for K-12 teachers.

# data[].attributes.body
I chose this website because it provides resources that can be used in the classroom. The section with resources for teachers has pre-made lesson plans along with articles and videos to use in lessons. It also provides information for field trips or class activities to do related to Kansas history.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Resources for teachers and parents - Kansas Historical Society

# data[].attributes.body
This powerpoint created by Dr. Tiemeyer discusses the Cold War's impact on the United States.

# data[].attributes.body
This is a lesson on the Space Race and the impact NASA had on the US during the Cold War.

# data[].attributes.body
Game based learning is the method of making learning content into a game or competition to make it interactive. This article gives examples on how to do this with history along with instructions on how to do this.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The sheriff of colonial James City County, Virginia, takes her job seriously, calling forth the candidates nominated to the House of Burgesses while trying to keep voters in line, turning one away because she doesn't make enough money.

Giddy laughter erupts from the rest of the voters. Of course, she's not really a sheriff -- and not just because a woman wouldn't have held that post in colonial times. Like the roughly twenty-five others gathered in this village, she's an elementary school teacher. And the mock election is the first lesson of the afternoon as part of the Colonial Williamsburg Teacher Institute program.

The institute, in its eighteenth summer, immerses teachers in history for a week. More than just learning facts and dates, teachers reenact history through the eyes of those who lived it, simultaneously acquiring ideas on how to keep their students engaged and how to integrate other subjects, such as math and reading, into their history lessons. Teachers learn about the events leading up to the Revolutionary War, the intricacies of slavery, and the details of colonial life and people, from woodworkers to gentries.

On the fourth day of this group's visit, the teachers are learning about colonial government, from the court system to a visit from Patrick Henry. Lessons are often given by eighteenth-century characters, such as Henry, or through skits that teachers learn and can later perform for their students back home. During this courthouse trip, the teachers participate in a mock trial, playing plaintiff, defendant, judge, and jury, to illustrate how the court would have handled a case of questionable tobacco in 1774.

Participants say their time at the institute ranks among the best experiences of their professional careers, giving them a renewed desire to spark student interest in history.

"It has given new light to the entire topic, and each day of activities brings on a brainstorm of ideas," says Vandy Lujan, a fifth-grade teacher at Edmund G. Ross Elementary School, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The home base for the institute is Williamsburg, Virginia, but teachers also travel to Jamestown and Yorktown. Tab Broyles, director of teacher development for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, says participating in the program makes the teachers feel like they're on the cutting edge of history. There have even been times when new artifacts have been discovered at Jamestown during a teacher visit.

"Our goal is to give teachers the tools to create what I think are the citizens and leaders of tomorrow," Broyles says. "We give them ideas on how to replicate everything we do here once they get back to their classrooms."

When they arrive at the institute, each teacher is given the name of a character from colonial Williamsburg. They're given primary sources, such as maps, letters, and diaries -- the use of which is emphasized in the program -- and must use these sources to discover more about the character and their life in Williamsburg. Occasionally, the teachers are called on to play their citizen as part of a lesson.

Getting her students into character is just one of the ways fifth-grade teacher Patti Connors plans to make social studies more interesting at her Prattville, Alabama, intermediate school. As a result of attending the institute, Connors says she now has a better grasp of historical details, such as the daily life of a slave or indentured servant, and little things such as longhouse, the proper word for a type of shelter the Powhatan Indians used. "The more 'real' history becomes to you as a teacher, the better you're able to teach it," Connors says.

Connors and colleague Peggy Simmons already have a list of activities for their students this fall: They plan to let their students make rope, and sea biscuits -- hockey-puck-like bread Jamestown settlers ate during their voyage to America.

Simmons also wants to make historically accurate clothing to help her students travel back in time. And for the school's Constitution Day, in September, Simmons and Connors envision setting up each fifth-grade classroom with a different activity, and having the day culminate with the signing of the Constitution.

"Hands-on activities really get students involved and keep their attention," Simmons says. "If you can get children interested in history in the fifth grade, you'll be planting a seed for the coming years."

Since the institute's inception in 1990, roughly 5,000 teachers have spent a week immersed in colonial history. This summer, there are twenty sessions for about 500 elementary school, middle school, and high school teachers.

Most are able to attend thanks to private donors or a Teaching American History grant from the U.S. Department of Education. Participating teachers are also given $100, which covers any necessary materials; a CD-ROM with lesson plans including strategies, primary sources, and audio and video recordings; and an electronic field trip of their choice.

The institute revises its lessons based on teacher input and updates in national social studies standards. Among the topics this summer: indentured servitude and slavery, including the hardships slaves faced on their voyage from Africa; the economy of eighteenth-century Virginia and the role of tobacco; and military life, with a lesson on the daily struggles of a soldier during the Revolutionary War.

Before dinner each evening, the group gathers for a talk -- led by a teacher who has already been through the program -- about ideas for sharing what they learned that day with their students.

Misty Belyeu, a fifth-grade teacher from Wrights Mill Road Elementary, in Auburn, Alabama, and facilitator of this teacher group, tosses a stuffed toy to another participant and asks her to describe how her colonial character would have reacted to the political upheaval of the time. This game, Belyeu explains, can be used in the classroom as a fun way to facilitate participation: After a student answers, he or she tosses the toy to another student to prompt that child's response.

"I've learned that my students understand the Revolution and the events leading up to it a lot better when we spend several weeks first discussing what the colonies were like and then discussing the war," says Belyeu. "Historical decisions then don't seem so arbitrary, because students understand the reasons that led to those decisions."

Belyeu now incorporates primary sources into her history lessons, and feels more prepared to answer those unexpected questions from students. This is her second time at the institute, and she's still finding ideas she'd like to try, such as the mock election. "It would really help illustrate to my class a step in the evolution of our democracy," she says.

Vandy Lujan says she'll now be more comfortable teaching social studies and finding ways to integrate the many topics. "That was always the drawback for me -- I was a little hesitant to explore activities we could do in class," she says. "But now that I've been here and 'lived' it, I know I can handle it."

Alexandra R. Moses is a freelance writer in the Washington, DC, area who specializes in education.

Teaching Periods

Teachers who attend the Colonial Williamsburg Teacher Institute leave with ideas for hands-on activities that will engage their students in history. Among the suggestions -- big and small -- for your classroom:

Assign each student a colonial character and have them use primary sources, such as photographs, diaries, and maps, to re-create the character, including details such as what they would have eaten and how they would have dressed and behaved in certain situations.

Hold a mock trial using typical colonial-era court cases, such as one involving the theft of a pig, to illustrate the evolution of the American legal system.

Use literature to teach history. One example from the Institute is Nancy's Story, by Joan Lowery Nixon, about a real colonial girl in 1765 named Nancy Geddy. The story, written from Nancy's twelve-year-old perspective, includes details on the Stamp Act and the events surrounding it.

Read George vs. George, by Rosalyn Schanzer, to help elementary students understand the differences and similarities between George Washington and Great Britain's king, George III.

Re-create colonial-era clothing to illustrate the social and economic differences among families living in Williamsburg.

Set up a colonial-era apothecary, substituting gummy worms for leeches.

Illustrate a popular form of punishment in colonial times -- such as tarring and feathering -- using a garbage bag for tar and Post-it notes for feathers.

Visit the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation for more ideas and resources for teachers, including podcasts, slide shows, and interactive museum exhibits.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
History Comes Alive: Educators Relive the Past to Better Teach It

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The sheriff of colonial James City County, Virginia, takes her job seriously, calling forth the candidates nominated to the House of Burgesses while trying to keep voters in line, turning one away because she doesn't make enough money. Giddy laughter erupts from the rest of the voters.