Mood Meter
This mood meter activity develops students’ vocabulary for describing their feelings and their empathy muscles.
Exit Cards
Students share how they are feeling, what their needs are, and what goals they’d like to set in an exit card.
What’s In a Name?
Students explore the relationship between our names, identities, and the societies in which we live.
Frame a Special Item
Students identify an object that holds special meaning and learn about each other by sharing the stories of these special items.
Envisioning Our Classroom Space
Students analyze a poem in order to determine the qualities of a classroom community where members are seen, valued, and heard.
The Union As It Was
Students examine documents that shed light on life in the South under the policies of Presidential Reconstruction in 1865 and 1866.
Radical Reconstruction and the Birth of Civil Rights
Students learn about the responses to Johnson’s policies by Republicans in Congress and examine the fourteenth amendment that overturned Presidential Reconstruction.
Expanding Democracy
Students reflect on the revolutionary changes that occurred because of the landmark legislation and amendments passed during the Reconstruction era.
The Struggle over Women’s Rights
Students learn about the debate within the women’s rights movement over the passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments.
Equality for All
Students explore some of the limitations of Reconstruction's transformation on US democracy and learn about groups who demanded that the promise of equality be made a reality.
The Power of Representation: Patsy Takemoto Mink, Shirley Chisholm, and Kamala Harris
Use this mini-lesson to help students learn about the groundbreaking careers of Patsy Takemoto Mink and Shirley Chisholm and to consider the significance of Vice President Kamala Harris’s election.