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When most people think of the civil rights movement, they think of Martin Luther King, Jr., whose "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 and his acceptance…
So many of our students arrive with a negative impression of the discipline of history. They have come to the conclusion that the study of history is about memorizing a ton of dull facts. Why…
Last time, I began to survey how American artists viewed the Great War (1914–1918). This NEH-supported exhibition, World War I and American Art, has uncovered forgotten works that could…
World War I (1914-1918) has been called the seminal catastrophe of the twentieth century, leading to the destruction of four empires (Russian, German, Austrian-Hungrian, and Ottoman), the…
“Incredible Bridges: Poets Creating Community” is a series developed by the Academy of American Poets in collaboration with EDSITEment that enlists the voices of nine contemporary American poets,…
Americans elect a president through the state-by-state mechanism of the Electoral College rather than direct nationwide popular vote. Today, all but two states award all of their electoral votes…
How can we help students better understand the long history of immigration to the United States and the experiences of contemporary immigrants and refugees? How do we encourage students to compare…
This lesson plan is the ninth in the “Incredible Bridges: Poets Creating Community” series. It provides a video recording of the poet, Joy Harjo, reading the poem “Remember.” The companion lesson…
“Life in the galloping flatlands was a pact with nature. It gave as much as it took, and in 1935 it was all take.”—Timothy Egan, The Worst Hard Time
You are a teenager growing up…
This lesson plan is the eighth in the “Incredible Bridges: Poets Creating Community” series. It provides a video recording of the poet, Richard Blanco, reading the poem “Translation for Mamá…
Each of these twenty-one poems or poetic forms for AP Literature and Composition includes a link to the poem and multimedia resources such as EDSITEment lessons and EDSITEment-reviewed websites…
This video of Elizabeth Alexander reading the poem “Praise Song for the Day” that she composed for President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration ceremony is the seventh in the “Incredible…
This lesson plan is the seventh in the “Incredible Bridges: Poets Creating Community” series. It provides a video recording of the poet, Elizabeth Alexander, reading the poem “Praise Song for the…
This lesson plan is the sixth in the “Incredible Bridges: Poets Creating Community” series. It provides an audio recording of the poet, Adrienne Su, reading the poem “Peaches.” The companion…
George Washington became President—reluctantly—at a critical time in the history of the United States. The Confederation had threatened to unravel; the weak central government (which included a…
This lesson plan is the fifth in the “Incredible Bridges: Poets Creating Community” series. It provides an audio recording of the poet, Minnie Bruce Pratt, reading the poem “The Great Migration.”…
Using art as a teaching resource. Whether you’re in the classroom or on a field trip, artworks are a fantastic way to engage students. But how do you go beyond art as illustration and use it as…
Oscar Wilde’s play The Importance of Being Earnest derives much of its comedic and thematic heft from the way in which it inverts the values of everyday life.
This lesson plan is the fourth in the “Incredible Bridges: Poets Creating Community” series. It provides a video of the poet, Edward Hirsch, offering a little backstory, then reading the poem…
The month of May is an opportunity for reflection on and commemoration of all that Jewish Americans have accomplished and contributed to U.S. history and culture. This piece highlights NEH…
More Americans get their history from Ken Burns than any other source. —Historian Stephen Ambrose
This lesson plan is the third in the “Incredible Bridges: Poets Creating Community” series. It provides a video of the United States Poet Laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera, reading the poem “Every Day…
Curriculum unit on the historical context of Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle and how the book helped reform efforts in Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act and the…
In this lesson, students learn how Progressive reformers in government used the public outrage over Upton Sinclair’s book The Jungle as a catalyst for legislation. The story of how…
In this lesson, students read primary source newspapers from Chronicling America. They read the articles independently, guided by a series of questions to be answered.
This lesson plan is the second in the “Incredible Bridges: Poets Creating Community” series. It provides a video of the poet Claudia Rankine reading the poem “from Citizen, VI [On the train the…
This lesson plan attempts to dissolve the artificial boundary between domestic and international affairs in the postwar period to show students how we choose to discuss history.
This lesson plan provides a sequence of activities that you can use with your students before, during, and after reading Gate A-4. Use the whole sequence, or any of the activities, to…
Anton Chekhov began his career writing humorous pieces for popular magazines to support himself while he studied to become a doctor.
One of the important roles of diplomats is to negotiate treaties between countries