U.S. History - The West: Lesson Plans

Curriculum Unit overview. In this unit, students will trace the development of sectionalism in the United States as it was driven by the growing dependence upon, and defense of, black slavery in the southern states.

Lesson 1: An Early Threat of Secession: The Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Nullification Crisis
Lesson 2: Slavery's Opponents and Defenders
Lesson 3: The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854: Popular Sovereignty and the Political Polarization over Slavery
Lesson 4: Abraham Lincoln, the 1860 Election, and the Future of the American Union and Slavery

Using the life of Davy Crockett as a model, students learn the characteristics of tall tales and how these stories reflect their historical moment. The lesson culminates with students writing a tall tale of their own.

In this lesson students examine primary documents including photographs, film, maps, and essays to learn about Chicago at the turn of the 20th century and make predictions about Carl Sandburg's famous poem. After examining the poem's use of personification and apostrophe, students write their own pieces about beloved places with Sandburg's poem as a model.

Trace similar motifs in the artwork and folklore of India, Africa, the Maya, and Native Americans.

The lessons in this unit are designed to help your students recognize how people of different cultures and time periods have used cloth-based art forms to pass down their traditions and history.

Students compare imagined travel experiences of their own with the actual experiences of 19th-century pioneers.

The lessons in this unit are designed to help your students recognize how people of different cultures and time periods have used cloth-based art forms (quilts) to pass down their traditions and history.

Students analyze archival material such as photos, documents, and posters, to understand the phenomenon of the Transcontinental Railroad.

As a class, students create an imagined travel experience and then compare it with the actual experiences of 19th-century pioneers.

A critic of writer Jack London called his animal protagonists “men in fur,” suggesting that his literary creations flaunted the facts of natural history. London responded to such criticism by maintaining that his own creations were based on sound science and in fact represented “…a protest against the ‘humanizing’ of animals, of which it seemed to me several ‘animal writers’ had been profoundly guilty.” How well does London succeed in avoiding such “humanizing” in his portrayal of Buck, the hero of his novel, The Call of the Wild?

Students study census data showing the names and occupations of early settlers of the English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. (Archaeology, U.S. Colonial History)

Examine the history and geography of a region that has been at the heart of the American experience.

Explore the Alaskan Gold Rush by "mining" EDSITEment resources for primary texts and period photographs. Just as writer Jack London discovered "metaphorical gold" in the Yukon, students can search several online databases for period details that will enhance their own narratives based on the Gold Rush era.

In this Picturing America lesson, students explore the historical origins and organization of the Spanish missions in the New World, and discover the varied purposes these communities of faith served.

This lesson discusses the differences between common representations of Native Americans within the U.S. and a more differentiated view of historical and contemporary cultures of five American Indian tribes living in different geographical areas. Students will learn about customs and traditions such as housing, agriculture, and ceremonial dress for the Tlingit, Dinè, Lakota, Muscogee, and Iroquois peoples.

In White Fang, Jack London sought to trace the “development of domesticity, faithfulness, love, morality, and all the amenities and virtues.” In this lesson, students explore images from the Klondike and read White Fang closely to learn how to define and differentiate the terms “nature” and “culture."

Work with primary documents and latter-day photographs to recapture the experience of traveling on the Oregon Trail.

Looking at historic maps of the West, students can begin to appreciate the immensity and mystery of the mission Lewis and Clark accepted.

Students learn about the social and historical context of Willa Cather’s My Antonia and work in groups to explore Cather's commentary on fortitude, hard work, faithfulness, and other values that we associate with pioneer life

This lesson ecourages students to explore the similarities and differences of being a student in a one-room schoolhouse versus attending their own well-equipped, modern school.

Students examine photographs of sod houses, build a model sod house, and picture themselves living in a soddie to gain a firsthand perspective on this important period of American history.

This lesson compares the cultures and languages of the Tlingit, Lakota, and Cherokee American Indian tribes, and helps students learn the importance of preserving a group's traditions.

Students compile information to examine hypotheses explaining why the first nine states to grant full voting rights for women were located in the West.