High School Lesson Plans

In this lesson, students will connect slave spirituals with both slave narratives from the WPA project AND hip-hop songs.  One of the themes of AP United States History is American and National identity. This lesson will allow students to explore how slave spirituals impact our American identity through music and through primary source analysis. Students will follow the spirituals from the times of slavery through their impact on hip-hop music of today.

Black communities and neighborhoods during the Reconstruction and early Jim Crow eras were fundamental to the development of Black culture, schooling, and political life. Many of these communities were razed by gentrification and modernization, being treated as expendable in the wake of nearby cities needing highways and housing. Students will have the opportunity to explore these early communities to learn about the ways in which newly-freed people lived and set up their lives post-Emancipation. From there, students will create meaningful ways to commemorate these communities and their enormous impact, as well as learn about historic locations in their communities in danger of being destroyed.

The intent of this lesson is to highlight the many people and efforts that laid the foundation for the modern Civil Rights Movement. We will explore the history of early pioneers of civil rights, like Booker T. Washington and Ida B. wells. In addition, we will introduce key contributors, such as Mary Terrell and Jo Ann Robinson, who are less often credited for their more behind-the-scenes efforts that directly contributed to the successes of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

This lesson looks at the blinding of Isaac Woodard in Batesburg, SC and follows how this event led to major changes in the fight for civil rights, including the connection to Briggs v. Elliott and Brown v. Board of Education.

As a large group students will examine pictures and other primary sources about the events in the US during 1968- then focus specifically on the events of Feb 8, 1968, in Orangeburg SC on the campus of SC State University.  Independently students will investigate the Kent State Shooting of 1970.  In small groups, students will complete a graphic organizer to compare the two events and the resulting changes to society.

After reading a graphic novel about the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, NY, students will be analyzing primary sources to look at the influence of the theatre in civil rights across its existence. Students will just problem solving by bringing their thinking to the modern day and the theatres impact now. 

Students will be analyzing the history of the Apollo Theater in Harlem, NY, specifically looking through the lens of important artists that performed there. Students will create their own act that shows the importance and appreciation of the theater. 

Students will be reading from Lifting as We Climb: Black Women’s Battle for the Ballot Box on the growth of black women’s suffrage clubs and women’s clubs overall. From this, students will be taking oral histories of current members of their local women’s clubs and analyzing the impact across time. 

Jeanne Theoharis writes in her book, A More Beautiful and Terrible History, about expanding the story of civil rights in America. Students will be looking at primary sources to assess and re-write the typical narrative of Rosa Parks to dive deeper into their understanding of the Modern Civil Rights Movement. 

Students will be expanding their understanding of the Modern Civil Rights Movement by looking at how the physical location impacted events and effects of the movement. They will look at the differences in the North, focusing on redlining. 

The purpose of this lesson is to introduce students to primary sources of enslaved people, show students firsthand perspectives of the hardships endured through slavery, and make thematic connections with the short story “Everyday Use.” This lesson will show students how first-hand experiences of enslavement have shaped the course of African American family heritage and American heritage altogether.

This lesson has students examining primary sources in order to investigate the connections between WWII and the modern civil rights movement. It starts by reviewing the discrimination and violence facing African Americans in the US during the early 20th century as well as the anti-semetism of the Nazis and America’s involvement in WWII.  This is done through an image analysis routine. It then has students define the Double V campaign and examine its impact through the case of Isaac Woodard by reading several newspaper articles and other primary sources. Students will synthesize their understanding through short, text-based writing assignments.

In this lesson plan, students will compare Freedom Summer of 1964 to the Black Lives Matter Movement of 2020.

Students will examine Primary and Secondary Source documents on African American gathering places, such as churches, restaurants, hotels, barber and beauty shops,  and college campuses, that were used to organize efforts to promote racial equality and to fight bigotry.

Students will work together in groups to create a poster arguing the success or failure of Reconstruction using a variety of primary sources after participating in a gallery-walk like protocol to analyze the primary source set, specifically analyzing the republican standpoint, a democratic standpoint, and an African American standpoints. These three standpoints will usher students into a greater understanding of the organization of the Reconstruction period that carries over into the modern Civil Rights Movement.

This lesson should be used in a larger unit on the modern Civil Rights Movement, as this movement focuses on organizations working to solve issues. This should be prefaced with an analysis of the problems and oppression that these groups work to change. It should also be followed by an analysis of how this relates to the modern day, looking at how much of the rights being fought for have actually been achieved, i.e. voting rights and Georgia. Once looking at modern day, students should then dive into how this movement went global, i.e. South Africa and Nelson Mandela.

Students will use primary sources to learn about the color barrier in baseball.  Students will also examine primary documents from the Great Migration to gain historical perspective and a better understanding of the issues presented in Fences by August Wilson.

This website examines the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Selma to Montgomery Marches, and the 1963 Birmingham Demonstrations, to see how the media was instrumental in drawing attention to the plight of African-Americans during this time.

This lesson uses primary sources  to understand the historical context of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” and Nelson Mandela’s “Glory and Hope” speeches. 

Students will read “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry and will participate in a variety of activities using Primary Sources to discuss race, sex, religion, gender, and socio-economic bias and prejudice.