Resource Library
Find compelling classroom resources, learn new teaching methods, meet standards, and make a difference in the lives of your students.
We are grateful to The Hammer Family Foundation for supporting the development of our on-demand learning and teaching resources.
Introducing Our US History Curriculum Collection
Draw from this flexible curriculum collection as you plan any middle or high school US history course. Featuring units, C3-style inquiries, and case studies, the collection will help you explore themes of democracy and freedom with your students throughout the year.
What Are You?
Canadian writer Anna Fitzpatrick describes how she moved beyond the labels and stereotypes about Indian culture to find a deeper connection to her family's history.
What Does It Mean to “Be American?”
Here are a selection of answers to New York Times reporter Damien Cave’s question, “What does it mean to be American?”
The Wooden Shoes
A high school student tells the story behind a pair of wooden shoes and their connection to her family's history in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
James Baldwin’s Lesson for Teachers in a Time of Turmoil
This 2017 essay by author and former high school teacher Clint Smith draws connections between the role of education in past turbulent historical times and the present political climate.
Race and Belonging in Colonial America: The Story of Anthony Johnson
Learn about Anthony Johnson, a Black forced laborer who became free in seventeenth-century Virginia.
Black Officeholders in the South
These tables provide data about African American officeholders in the South during Reconstruction.
Changing Names
Three formerly enslaved people discuss their names and the changes they underwent after Emancipation.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866
This is the full text of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which made freedpeople citizens.
Congress Debates the Fourteenth Amendment
Quotations from the 1866 congressional debate over the Fourteenth Amendment help students clarify what the amendment says and its significance.
A Day of Triumph
In an 1865 diary entry, Northerner Caroline Barrett White celebrates the Union’s victory and the end of the Civil War.