In this activity, students are guided through a close reading of The Journal of Sean Sullivan: A Transcontinental Railroad Worker, a fictional book for young readers based on historical sources. Students will read a short excerpt from the beginning of the book and determine the meaning of key words. Working in groups, students will then read excerpts related to one of the following themes: working conditions of railroad builders; tension between immigrant groups; corruption of the railroad companies; conflict with Great Plains Indian tribes; and boomtowns. They will also complete an individual writing task on their theme. Finally, students will consider the positive and negative effects of the railroad on the country as a whole, as well as on specific groups of Americans.

In this activity students learn about the religious, class, and ethnic tensions between reformers and residents in the working-class Irish immigrant neighborhood of Five Points. Students research roles of a Protestant reformer and two Irish women debating whether the reformer should send Irish children to live with upper-class parents. This activity accompanies the film Five Points: New York's Irish Working Class in the 1850s, but parts of it can be completed without the film.

This activity compares a runaway slave ad and an abolitionist poster to explore the causes and effects of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law. The law changed how many northerners viewed slavery and intensified conflicts that brought the nation closer to Civil War.

This brief activity leads students through analysis of an archaeologist's sketch of the grave of an African buried in colonial New York.

In this activity students compare an excerpt of a WPA interview with an ex-slave with a more famous statement by Frederick Douglass to arrive at their own interpretations of slave resistance. This lesson is designed to work with the film Doing As They Can, but parts of it can be completed without the film.

In this activity, students analyze documents to arrange events on a timeline of women's suffrage. The timeline and documents will help students understand the intersection of social movements and constitutional change. This activity can be modified by reducing the number of documents. An optional Smartboard Notebook file is included to facilitate the activity.

In this activity students explore how Progressive Era reforms did not apply universally, but rather varied depending on issues like race and class. Students watch the 30-minute filmHeaven Will Protect the Working Girland read an article that explains tensions among immigrants and African Americans in the Progressive Era.

In this activity, students develop Common Core reading skills (eg. citing textual evidence, determining the central ideas, and determining meaning of words and phrases) through a study of the history of the second amendment to the U.S. Constitution and its significance today. First, students work independently, with some class discussion, to complete a close reading of the second amendment text and related primary and secondary documents. Then, students work in groups to prepare a presidential candidate for a debate in which he/she must defend a particular position, or claim, about the meaning of the second amendment and constitutionality of gun regulation.

This chart presents historical thinking questions, historical thinking skills, and Common Core reading and writing skills that teachers should consider when planning activities and tasks for students in grades 11 and 12.

This chart presents historical thinking questions, historical thinking skills, and Common Core reading and writing skills that teachers should consider when planning activities and tasks for students in grades 9 and 10.

This chart presents historical thinking questions, historical thinking skills, and Common Core reading and writing skills that teachers should consider when planning activities and tasks for students in grades 6, 7, and 8.

In this activity, students will look at images of various types of technology (eg. TV, video games, subway) and determine which ones are “technological turning points.” To help evaluate whether or not something is a “technological turning point,” students will complete a worksheet that identifies each technology's economic, social, environmental, and political effects. Students will also think about the positive and negative impact of technological change, including who benefits and does not benefit.

In this activity students gather and analyze data from the 1855 census of the Five Points neighborhood. Students compare stereotypes of Irish immigrants with evidence from the census. Then students compare their census research with other primary sources describing life in Five Points to conclude how accurate different types of sources about urban immigrant life are. Students will need access to the internet to complete this activity.

In this activity students perform a role play of a talk show between Lowell workers and factory owners. To research their characters, students analyze primary sources. This activity is used to teach with the film Daughters of Free Men, but can be completed without the film.

In this lesson students read a series of documents about the American and Mexican reasons for and against the 1846 U.S.-Mexico War. As they read the documents students identify when the authors employ various foreign policy ideologies such as Manifest Destiny, Racial and Cultural Superiority, and Self Defense. This lesson was designed to be implemented with a Smartboard, but it can be completed without this technology.

In this activity students compare an eighteenth-century print of a slave ship and a table of data about the voyages of the slave ship to draw facts and make inferences about the transatlantic slave trade. This activity was designed for the Smartboard, but it can be completed without a Smartboard.

In this activity students analyze the lyrics to a popular Vietnam War protest song and discuss how music can be used to motivate people and for protest. Then students will create a new stanza for the protest song "I-Feel-Like-I'm Fixin'-To-Die Rag."

This activity helps students navigate and make sense of the information available in the Five Points census database. In the activity, students use the database to test hypotheses about life and residents in the Five Points. For this activity, students will need access to a computer with an internet connection. This activity can be followed up with the activity Telling the Whole Story: Irish Americans in Five Points.

In this activity, students will look at images from 1919 to explore the nature of the "Red Scare" of the World War I era, and think about it the context of current attitudes toward civil liberties since the September 11th attacks.

In this activity students will examine how attitudes towards slavery and the Civil War changed between 1860 and 1865. What began in the minds of President Lincoln and most northerners as a war to preserve the union changed, over the course of the war, into a war to free the slaves. This transformation occurred in large part because of the actions of enslaved and free African Americans themselves. Students will create a historical marker, based on historical evidence, that addresses the question: "What was the Civil War fought over?"