CONCEPT: Conflict -
The Civil War, Reconstruction, & the West

UNIT 1 TOPIC:
Civil War & Reconstruction

ARC 1: Road to Civil War

• 2012-13 Model Lesson:
• Lesson Portfolio: The South’s Secession & Lincoln’s Response
• Lesson Portfolio: A Dividing Nation
• Lesson Portfolio: Roadmap to the Civil War
• Lesson Portfolio: On the Eve of War: North vs. South
• Lesson Portfolio: An Early Threat of Secession: The Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Nullification Crisis

ARC 2: The Civil War

• Lesson Portfolio: Assessing the Civil War
• Lesson Portfolio: The Civil War

ARC 3: Reconstruction

• 2012-13 Model Lesson: Analyzing Reconstruction Political Cartoons
• Lesson Portfolio: The Ordeal of Reconstruction
• Lesson Portfolio: Reconstruction

ARC 4: Westward Expansion

• 2012-13 Model Lesson: Myth vs. Reality of the American West
• Lesson Portfolio: Myth vs. Reality in the West
• Lesson Portfolio: Change & Conflict in the American West

 

Additional Resources on this Topic

 

• Resources examining history of slavery in Austin / Travis County

[Created by UT Professor Dr. Martha Norkunas and students at the University of Texas.
Items are packaged in an Adobe Portolio, use Acrobat 9.0 or higher to open]

• PBS American Experience, "Reconstruction: The Second Civil War"
• PBS, The West

 

Concept: Innovation -
The Gilded Age

UNIT 1 TOPIC:
The Gilded Age

ARC 1: The Rise of Industry

• 2012-13 Model Lesson: The Philosophy of the Industrialists
• Lesson Portfolio: The Age of Innovation & Industry

ARC 2: The Labor Movement

• Lesson Portfolio: Point of Conflict: The 1892 Homestead Strike
• Lesson Portfolio: Labor's Response to Industrialization

ARC 3: Urbanization & Immigration

• Lesson Portfolio: Immigration Journals
• Lesson Portfolio: Through Ellis Island and Angel Island: The Immigrant Experience
• Lesson Portfolio: Uncovering Problems at the Turn of the Century

ARC 4: Politics & Reform

• Lesson Portfolio: Economic Development in post-Reconstruction Austin
  (Austin Past & Present)
• Lesson Portfolio:  Populism - Cartoon Analysis
• Lesson Portfolio: The People's Party - Populism

 

Additional Resources on this Topic

• PBS Documentary w/ Teacher Guide - Andrew Carnegie: The Richest Man in the World
• 19th century Immigration & Industrialization

[Teaching Project & Lesson Plans Developed by Participants in a Teaching American History Grant project]

• 1880 - 2000: Immigration to America interactive map (NY Times)
• Educating About Immigration (CRF)
• PBS' "The Rise & Fall of Jim Crow"
• Impact of the Model T - Then and Now
  [Henry Ford and Innovation Educator DigiKit]
• Immigration During the Gilded Age

- Lesson authored by Melissa M. Allen, TCSS 2008 High School Teacher of the Year, published in the Fall/Winter 2008 issue of The Social Studies Texan.

 

CONCEPT: Ethics, Values, & Beliefs -
Civic Engagement

UNIT TOPIC:
Celebrate Freedom Week / Constitution Day

ARC 1: Celebrate Freedom Week / Constitution Day

• Lesson Portfolio: Historical Analysis of Constitutional Amendments (Center for Civic Education)

 

Additional Resources on this Topic

Constitution Day / Celebrate Freedom Week directory of resources

 

CONCEPT: Reform -
The Progressive Era

UNIT 1 TOPIC: The Progressive Era

2012-13 Model Lesson: The Progressive Era (Arcs 1 and 2 Lessons)

ARC 1: Progressive Reforms

• Lesson Portfolio: Civil Rights in the Progressive Era
• Lesson Portfolio: The Progressives Respond

ARC 2: Progressives on the National Stage

• Lesson Portfolio: The Progressive Era: Conservative or Liberal?
• Lesson Portfolio: Progressivism on the National Stage

Additional Resources on this Topic

 

• Spanish-American War, A Google Earth Tour (C. Harrison, Texan, January 2013)

• Theodore Roosevelt & the Progressive Era
  [History Now, Issue 17]

• Analyzing Sources, "Sweatshop Girls"
• Analyzing Sources, "The Jungle"
• Reviewing Progressive Era Reforms, NY Regents Exam Prep Center.
• Documenting the "Other Half": The Social Reform Photography of Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine
• Educator Resources provided for the PBS production
  “Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.”
• You Decide: Washington or Du Bois?
  from “A Biography of America - 19. A Vital Progressivism,” Annenberg Media.
• "US History Through An Economic Lens," Kizer, S. (Texan, January 2013)

 

 

CONCEPT: Conflict -
Imperialism, World War I, and the Roaring Twenties

UNIT 2 TOPIC: Age of Imperialism

ARC 1: America Expands Beyond Its Borders

• Lesson Portfolio: The Argument for Imperialism
• Lesson Portfolio: Foreign Policy - Setting a Course for Expansion

ARC 2: The Spanish-American War

• Model Lesson: Imperialism - Take Up the White Man's Burden!
• Lesson Portfolio: Yellow Journalism
• Lesson Portfolio: Imperialism DBQ

ARC 3: America's Influence on the World Stage

• Lesson Portfolio: Political Cartoon Analysis:
  United States Foreign Policy (1890-1914)

 

Additional Resources

Imperialism and the Spanish American War
(Digital History - Interpreting Primary Documents)

 

UNIT 2 TOPIC: World War I

ARC 1: From Neutrality to War

• Lesson Portfolio: Causes of World War I
• Lesson Portfolio: From Neutrality to War

ARC 2: World War I

• Lesson Portfolio: World War I and American Civil Liberties
• Lesson Portfolio: The Course and Conduct of World War I
• Lesson Portfolio: The Homefront

ARC 3: The Treaty of Versailles

• Lesson Portfolio: Senate Debate: The Treaty of Versailles
• Lesson Portfolio: The Provisions of the Treaty of Versailles

 

Additional Resources on this Topic

• Influenza 1918 [PBS - American Experience]

UNIT 3 TOPIC: The Roaring Twenties

ARC 1: Post-war America

• Lesson Portfolio: The Red Scare: Case Studies in Conflict
• Lesson Portfolio: A Return to Normalcy

ARC 2: 1920s Culture

• Lesson Portfolio: A Flapper's Appeal to Parents
• Lesson Portfolio: Popular Culture in the Roaring Twenties
• Lesson Portfolio: The Clash Between Traditionalism and Modernism

 

Additional Resources on this Topic

 

• "A Splendid Little War" [Small Planet]
• The United States Becomes A World Power
  [Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History module]
• The Great War [PBS]
• "The Debate in the U.S. over the League of Nations"
  Documents and audio files explain the range of political viewpoints on the League of Nations following World War I. [teachinghistory.org]
• "The Great War & the Jazz Age" [Library of Congress.org]
• "Teaching the American Twenties" [Harry Ransom Center]
• The 1920s
  [Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History module]

• The Politics of Protest during the 20th Century Suffrage Movement
  - Focus, The National Woman’s Party Call for Suffrage during the Wilson Years
  [Lesson designed by Melinda Lemke; M.Ed., as part of the Teaching American History grant project, The Relevant Constitution.]

• The Red Scare (Debating the Documents)

 

CONCEPT: Crisis and Reform -
The Great Depression and the New Deal

UNIT 1 TOPIC: The Great Depression and the New Deal

ARC 1: The Great Depression

• Lesson Portfolio: The Great Depression:
  Causes, Symptoms, and Solutions

ARC 2: The New Deal

• 2012-13 Model Lesson: Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal
• Lesson Portfolio: "The New Deal" Cartoon Analysis:
  FDR and his critics

 

Additional Resources

 

• PBS production, "The 1930s"[Teacher Resources]
• "The Grapes of Wrath" production guide (Zach Scott Theater)
  - includes Depression timeline, glossary of Depression-era terminology, and more...
• African-American experience in the Civilian Conservation Corps,
  National History Education Clearinghouse.
• Set of posters, "The Civilian Conservation Corps"
  [Created by UT Professor Dr. Martha Norkunas and students at the University of Texas. Posters are packaged in a Portolio, use Acrobat 9.0 or higher to open]
• Educator Resources from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum
• Life in the Civilian Conservation Corps lesson plan and slide show
  [The Portal to Texas History web site]

 

CONCEPT: Confict -
World War II

UNIT 1 TOPIC: World War II

ARC 1: Causes of World War II

• Lesson Portfolio: From Isolation to Intervention

ARC 2: The Course of World War II

• Lesson Portfolio: DBQ exercise, The Atomic Bomb

 

ARC 3: World War II on the Homefront

• Lesson Portfolio: Evaluating Domestic Policies during WWII

Additional Resources on this Topic

 

• America and the Sino-Japanese Conflict, 1933-1939: Lesson Plan Two of the Curriculum Unit - The Road to Pearl Harbor: The United States and East Asia, 1915-1941
  [EdSitement]
• Veterans History Project
• Causes of World War II (HistoryOnTheNet.com)
• Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History module - World War II
• Animated map of WWII.pps
• Dr. Seuss Went to War: A Catalog of Political Cartoons
  (Mandeville Special Collections Library)
• Graphic, World War II Rationed Items.jpg
• Graphic, Nuclear Effects - 1 Megaton.jpg
• PBS, "The War"
• Hidden Memory: Japanese-American Incarceration educator resources (RaceBridgesForSchools.com)
• Library of Congress resources on American Women Workers During World War II
• U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum - Teacher Resources
• Genocides, Politicides, and Other Mass Murder Since 1945, GenocideWatch.org
• PBS program, The Nuremberg Trials Educator Resources
  

 

 

CONCEPT: Conflict -
The Cold War

UNIT 1 TOPIC: The Cold War

ARC 1: Origins of the Cold War

• Lesson Portfolio: The Origins of the Cold War
  

ARC 2: Fighting the Cold War at Abroad

• Lesson Portfolio: Eisenhower and the Cold War
  

ARC 3: Fighting the Cold War At Home

• Lesson Portfolio: McCarthyism: A Senator Speaks Up
  

 

Additional Resources

• The Origins of the Cold War, 1945-1949 - These three lessons use primary source documents to explore such topics as the dissolution of Soviet-American cooperation, the policy of "containment," and the development of NATO. Each lesson is designed to stand alone, occupying three to four class periods. Taken together they provide a fairly comprehensive approach to the early years of the Cold War. [Source: EdSiteMent]
• "The Cold War Files: Interpreting History Through Documents"
• Cold War International History Project (CWIHP)
• Lesson Ideas on the UN Declaration of Human Rights
  [NCSS, Social Education magazine]
• "The Cold War," Gilder-Lehrman's History Now, Issue 27.
• Postwar America
  (Modules on American History – Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History)
• The Korean War and its Origins 1945-1953
  (Harry S. Truman Library & Museum)
• Anticommunism in Postwar America, 1945-1954: Witch Hunt or Red Menace?
  (NEH - EDSITEment.com)

 

CONCEPT: Change -
The 1950s & 1960s

UNIT 2 TOPIC: 1950s America

ARC 1: Post-War Prosperity

• Lesson Portfolio: Up From the Potato Fields: The Rise of Surburbia

ARC 2: Conformity and Rebellion

• Lesson Portfolio: Howl: The Beat Generation

 

Additional Resources

• American Cultural History: 1950 - 1959
• Lucille Ball: What’s So Funny?
  From PBS American Masters.
• Allen Ginsburg: Poetry and Politics
  From PBS American Masters.
• Selected materials from The Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame
• Port Huron Statement of the Students for a Democratic Society, 1962

 

UNIT 3 TOPIC: Protest and Reform

ARC 1: The African American Civil Rights Movement

• Lesson Portfolio: Martin Luther King, Jr. vs. Malcolm X

ARC 2: The Expanding Movement for Civil Rights

• Lesson Portfolio: The Chicano Mural Movement

ARC 3: 1960's Culture

• Lesson Portfolio: The Emergence of a Counterculture

 

Additional Resources

 

• Lyndon Johnson and 1960s Political Culture
  - Investigating US History; City University of New York.
• A Class Apart - From a small-town Texas murder emerged a landmark civil rights case. The little-known story of the Mexican American lawyers who took Hernandez v. Texas to the Supreme Court, challenging Jim Crow-style discrimination. [PBS American Experience]
• Why did the boycott of Montgomery's buses succeed?
  - see "Inquiry"
  [Historical Thinking Matters]
• Civil Rights Special Collection
  [teachersdomain.org]
• American Cultural History: 1960 - 1969

• Video, "Viva La Causa"
  [Video & materials available for checkout from our Social Studies Curriculum office]
• Cesar Chavez Audio Speeches
  [United Farm Workers official website]
• The African American Civil Rights Movement lesson:
  • Lesson plan instructions
  • Photoplacards Student Inference chart
  • Civil Rights photos with descriptors
• American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s curriculum unit
  [Courtesy of Dr. Cynthia DuBois; Briscoe Center for American History]
• Black Separatism or the Beloved Community? Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. - Lesson Plan Two of the Curriculum Unit Competing Voices of the Civil Rights Movement
  [EdSitement]
• Lyndon Johnson & the Voting Rights Act of 1965
  ["Teaching with Primary Resources," TCSS, The Social Studies Texan, 2008.]
• Video, "They Had A Dream Too"
  [Produced by Texas Young Lawyers' Association]
• Video, "Vote America"

  [Produced by Texas Young Lawyers' Association]

• The Tumultuous 1960s [The Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History module]
• Freedom Riders [PBS - American Experience]
• Civil Rights Special Collection from WGBH Boston in partnership with Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and Washington University.
• The Mexican and Chicano Mural Movements from Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute.

 

UNIT 3 TOPIC: 1960s Politics

ARC 1: The New Frontier

• Lesson Portfolio: Was JFK a Great President?

ARC 2: The Great Society

• Lesson Portfolio: LBJ's Great Society

 

Additional Resources

• Cuban Missile Crisis (Summary & Student Task, Constitutional Rights Foundation.)
• High School Curricular Resources from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
• Evaluating Great Society Programs placards & student template.doc
• LBJ’s Great Society from Teacher’s Domain: Digital Media for the Classroom and Professional Development.

• Lyndon Baines Johnson: 36th President
  [Discovery Education Video & Lesson Plan]

Coverage of the 1950s and 1960s will extend from 4th and into the 5th Six Weeks
with the theme “Politics of Protest” eventually segueing into early forms of protest in America - namely the grievances of colonists, the Declaration of Independence, etc. - culminating in a full review of Early American History prior to TAKS.

CONCEPT: Change -
The 1950s & 1960s [continued]

Coverage of the 1950s and 1960s extends from 4th and into the 5th Six Weeks
with the theme “Politics of Protest” eventually segueing into early forms of protest in America - namely the grievances of colonists, the Declaration of Independence, etc. - culminating in a full review of Early American History prior to TAKS.

 

UNIT 1 TOPIC: The Vietnam War

ARC 1: Causes of the Vietnam War

• Lesson Portfolio: The United States Gets Involved in Vietnam
  [History Alive! Activity]

ARC 2: The Home Front During the Vietnam War

• Lesson Portfolio: Writing Songs About the Vietnam War
  [History Alive! Activity]

ARC 3: Fighting the Vietnam War

• Lesson Portfolio: Facing Frustration in Vietnam
  [History Alive! Activity]
• Lesson Portfolio: Getting Out of Vietnam
  [History Alive! Activity]

 

Additional Resources on this Topic

• The Price of Freedom: Americans at War [Smithsonian]
• "Lyndon Johnson and 1960s Political Culture"
  [Investigating History, City University of New York]
• Classic Anti-War Protest Songs

• "From Tonkin to War Powers, The American War in Vietnam 1954-1975:
  A Dichotomy in U.S. Foreign Policy"
  - Focus, Separation of Powers and Consent of the Governed
  • Photo Story.wmv
  • Photo Story Annotated References.doc
    

    [Lesson designed by Melinda Lemke; M.Ed., as part of the Teaching American History grant project, The Relevant Constitution.]

• The USS Kirk: Valor at the Vietnam War's End (NPR, 2011)
• The Gulf of Tonkin Incident (Texan, January 2013)

 

CONCEPT: Conflict -
Early American History Review

UNIT 1 TOPIC: Colonial and Revolutionary History

ARC 1: Discovery and Colonization

• Lesson Portfolio: The Colonial Roots of America's Founding Ideals [History Alive! Activity]
• Lesson Portfolio: Understanding the Differing Colonial Societies [History Alive! Activity]

ARC 2: Revolution and the Constitution

• Lesson Portfolio: Americans Revolt
  [History Alive! Activity]
• Lesson Portfolio: Creating the Constitution
  [History Alive! Activity]
• Lesson Portfolio: An Enduring Plan of Government
  [History Alive! Activity]

ARC 3: The Early Nation & Antebellum Era

• Lesson Portfolio: Illustrating Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian Ideals
  [History Alive! Activity]
• Lesson Portfolio: Changes in a Young Nation
  [History Alive! Activity]
• Lesson Portfolio: The United States Discovers its Manifest Destiny
  [History Alive! Activity]

 

Additional Resources on this Topic

• TAKS Prep Resources

CONCEPT: Ethics -
The 1970s to the Present

UNIT 1 TOPIC: The 1970s

ARC 1: Seventies Society and Politics

• Lesson Portfolio: Politics and Society in the ‘Me’ Decade
  [History Alive! Activity]
• Lesson Portfolio: Understanding the Legacy of the Women’s Movement Through Oral History
  [History Alive! Activity]
  
• Lesson Portfolio: The Rise and Fall of Richard Nixon
  [History Alive! Activity]
• Lesson Portfolio: A Cartoon History of the Watergate Scandal
  [History Alive! Activity]

 

Additional Resources on this Topic

• Watergate (Background Info & Student Task from Constitutional Rights Foundation)
• President Nixon Defends His Office on Watergate Charges
  [NARA's DocsTeach.org]
• Ford_Images from a Presidency.wmv

[Photo story provided by Austin High teacher Melinda Lemke; M.Ed]

• American Cultural History: 1970 - 1979

• Earth Day 40th Anniversary Curriculum Unit:

  - The History of the Environmental Movement
  - Era Three, The Modern Movement
  - Rachel Carson: Sounding an Environmental Alarm.pdf
  - Timeline: "The Modern Environmental Movement"

UNIT 2 TOPIC: The 1980s to the Present

ARC 1: Rise of Conservatism

• Lesson Portfolio: A Shift to the Right Under Reagan
  [History Alive! Activity]

ARC 2: Foreign Policy Issues

• Lesson Portfolio: Identifying U.S. Methods In the Late Cold War
  [History Alive! Activity]
• Lesson Portfolio: Ending the Cold War
  [History Alive! Activity]
• Lesson Portfolio: U.S. Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War Era
  [History Alive! Activity]

ARC 3: Domestic Policy Issues

• Lesson Portfolio: U.S. Domestic Politics at the Turn of the 21st Century
  [History Alive! Activity]
• Lesson Portfolio: 9/11 and Its Aftermath: Debating America’s Founding Ideals
  [History Alive! Activity]

 

Additional Resources on this Topic

• American Cultural History: 1980-1989
• America at the End of the 20th Century
  [Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History module]

• September 11th
  [Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History module]

• The September 11th Education Program – A National Interdisciplinary Curriculum
  [Social Studies School Service]

• U.S. Policy in Afghanistan - Teacher plan.doc
  [The Choices Program, Teaching with the News]
  • KWL handout, What do you know about the current situation?.pdf
  • U.S. Policy in Afghanistan - Examining the Options.pdf
  • U.S. Policy in Afghanistan - Guidelines for Deliberation.doc
  • U.S. Policy in Afghanistan - Video / Web Resources.do

• September 11 and the USA-PATRIOT Act
  [Bill of Rights in Times of Crisis; Bill of Rights Institute.]
• U.S. Immigration Policy: What should we do?
  [The Choices Program, Teaching with the News]