Teaching the Transcontinental Railroad
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Do you have special materials to teach about the transcontinental railroad and its affects on the West? Specifically looking at those who were part of the labor force building the railroad.
There are several resources available for teaching about the transcontinental railroad. As always, we recommend using the search function on bottom right of our history content page. Here are a few resources that may be of some use.
The Central Pacific Railroad History Museum's site offers a detailed history and several primary sources regarding the construction of the transcontinental railroad, including, for example, photographs, legislation, and letters. They also have an extensive bibliography of print resources.
The Library of Congress’s American Memory Collection on the Chinese and westward expansion has several primary resources that document the experiences of Chinese laborers during the construction of the transcontinental railroad.
If you are looking to provide your students with a brief overview of the transcontinental railroad check out Digital History’s online textbook.
The virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco provides a brief but informative overview of the leading figures, like Leland Stanford, responsible for the completion of the transcontinental railroad.
Lastly, PBS has a lesson plan that examines two of the landmark documents regarding westward expansion: the Homestead Act and the Pacific Railway Act. Activity three in the lesson asks students to compare the construction of the transcontinental railroad from a variety of perspectives, including those of Chinese laborers. We should note that this lesson draws on a PBS documentary video that is not directly available on the site; but many resources are available on the site, and the activities can be easily adapted .
Using Old Maps as Tools to Explore Our World
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In this bulletin board activity, students work collaboratively to explore sections of old maps. By closely examining these unique historical documents, students learn to see maps as more than just tools for locating places. And, whatever the grade level, this activity prompts students to grapple with the basic elements of the social studies: people, space, time, meaning, and purpose.
Maps are essential tools in modern life but they also are primary source documents reflecting the people, time, and culture that produced them. They can be read at different levels and used for various purposes. In every case, however, some fundamentals of social learning can come into focus when a class looks carefully at a single map. Visual literacy, critical analysis, synthetic learning, and interdisciplinary thinking all come into play. But, maps are often too large to use at student desks. So a bulletin board activity based on cutting the map into manageable section—a "divide and conquer" strategy—provides a way out. If the map is not too big, enlarging it on a copy machine to clarify its details will often increase its pedagogical value.
After selecting a map, the teacher should photocopy it with two concerns in mind:
- It should be a suitable size for an available bulletin board or display area. AND
- It should be divisible into a number of equal parts.
In the classroom, groups of students will work with single sections of the map, using a specific procedure (see Handout 1) that will help them uncover meaning in the map. When the separate pieces are reassembled at the end of the activity, the class will have a unique final product: a historical map with accompanying narrative captions that explain its significance. The bulletin board display can then be read by others in the school’s community, including other classes, teachers, parents and the general public.
- Scheduling: Place this lesson into your school’s curriculum and your course calendar. Decide if you want to do it once or several times with a series of maps distributed throughout the academic year.
- Determining goals: Choose the type of map that would be most appropriate for your learning objectives. For example, if your goal is to use maps at several different scales, you could feature four activities in the course of the year using maps of the world, nation, state, and local community.
- Finding a map: Although current maps might be readily available, old maps are preferred because students will be able to see how they are "dated." By "datedness" we mean how they reflect not only past geographies and technologies, but also a former cultural and historical context. Help in finding suitable maps is available both on web pages and at your local library, historical society, community college, or state university’s map library.
- Exploring meaning: Once you have selected a map, find out as much about it as possible for your own benefit. Why did you select it? What intrigues you about it? Make a list of questions it raises, and keep a record of how you went about gathering information to help you understand the map. Remember that the essence of your preparation is to provide a model for your students.
- Enlarging and dividing it: Enlarge the map using a photocopy machine. At the same time, divide it into manageable sections. If you have 36 students in class and want them to work in groups of six, you will need six sections to the map. Make at least two copies of these board-size segments so you can proceed without interruption if one of them is damaged.
- Making copies: If you have enough resources, make a small 8½ x 11 inch version of the whole map for each group or student.
- Gathering supplies: Make sure you have enough supplies for coloring the map (if necessary); stiff paper for making panels for call outs; ribbons for connecting points on the map with these commentaries; and tacks, pins, or tape to attach everything.
- Practice makes perfect: A "trial" mounting of the bulletin board at least a day before the lesson will point out potential problems.
- Planning evaluation: Along with your lesson plan, develop some type of evaluation procedure so that you will be prepared to share this lesson with colleagues and interested parties (a curriculum director, parents, or even a local newspaper). Photographs of the end result as well as the lesson's stages of development might prove to be of great value. Maps, after all, can be compelling visual resources offering various ways to turn a class into a learning community. You will know you are on your way to success as students begin to see maps as more than devices to locate places.
NOTE: The below steps are outlined in Handout 1 which students can use to guide their work.
- Preparing students: First take a few minutes to set up the lesson, show students the focus map, explain how it fits into the curriculum, outline the six stages of the lesson using Handout 1, and then describe the end result. Then the class as a whole should develop a context for the map by addressing the four questions in part one of the handout.
- Student groups: During Part Two divide the class into small groups, each of which will focus on one part of the map, developing questions and searching for answers as directed on Handout 1.
- Calling out details: Part Three centers on students developing "call outs" to point to some detail of interest on the map. If this device is new to the class, start by providing an example of a call out ("look how small that state is" or "what is the strange symbol?"). Also help students realize the importance of questions in reaching for understanding. Pairing students is one possible way to encourage them to exchange ideas.
- Monitoring presentations: Part Four offers several opportunities for you to step back into a leadership role as needed, perhaps rephrasing a group's tentative statements or emphasizing that a map is constructed by selecting some details and omitting others (e.g., a map's "silences").
- Writing commentaries: At this stage each student should "read" the map in his or her own way and make a statement about the map's meaning or purpose. Extend the lesson by editing these commentaries. All of them could be made available (on a rotating basis) at the side or bottom of the display.
- Polishing the apple: A draft is seldom good enough for a presentation copy, both in the classroom and in real life. You will need to decide how much time to spend here. In any event, "Polishing the Apple" offers opportunities for evaluation, assessment, and involving students with special needs or talents.
- The map selected may prove too challenging for some classes. This might be a good time to walk the students through the lesson and then use the map bulletin board approach again later in the term with a different map.
- Mounting an attractive bulletin board that collects input from every student can be a daunting task. Seek help and guidance from art and English teachers. A media specialist might also be very helpful.
- This lesson has the potential to grow like Topsy, so careful advance planning and time management are essential.
- Community Map: Youngstown, OH, 1905-1906 This example is from an old "Quadrangle," map—a series produced by the U.S. Geological Survey since the 1890's. Every part of the nation is covered at once in this series of large-scale topographic maps. Other maps with this type of detailed local coverage can be found in county atlases, local history books, insurance atlases, and governmental records. Check with your community library to find a suitable map, especially one which includes the site of your school. This example is a detail from the Youngstown Quadrangle, edition of April 1908. It shows the Ohio city as it was in 1905-1906, the date of the survey. The small squares indicate residences.
- State Map: Highway Map of Southern California, 1924 Secure an old highway map of your state. (These are often available at flea markets, second-hand shops, libraries, historical societies, on the internet, or from antique automobile enthusiasts.) This example is a detail from the "Highway Map of Southern California" given away by the Security Trust & Savings Bank of Los Angeles. The Automobile Club of Southern California produced the map in 1924 through the Clason Map Company of Los Angeles.
- A Map of the United States, 1864 This map of the United States, entitled "Map of the Rebellion, As It Was in 1861 and As It Is in 1864" appeared in Harper’s Weekly, the leading news magazine of the time. The issue was dated March 19, 1864.
- A World Map, 1792 The Abbe Gaultier developed this map in England. The author was a French educational reformer who believed that schools should be fun. It was produced in England because the author had fled from the French Revolution. Students can use this display copy to answer a series of questions asked by the teacher, receiving points according to the quality of their answers. Note that the map presents the geographical situation and knowledge of the time.
Cartography Associates. David Rumsey Map Collection. 2009. http//www.davidrumsey.com/. 20,000 antique maps.
Greenhood, David. Mapping. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964. Originally published in 1944, this revised edition is still the best general introduction to maps.
Teachinghistory.org. "Featuring Maps!" History Education News 5, (2010). http://teachinghistory.org/files/HEN/HEN-05.pdf (accessed June 1, 2010).
Wood, Denis. The Power of Maps. New York: Guilford, 1992. An artist and designer looks at maps through modern eyes. In 2010 he will sharpen his perspective in Rethinking the Power of Maps.
And listen to Danzer explain map analysis at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media's History Matters.
Is the Internet a Reliable Source for History Content?
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What is your view on the reliability of the Internet when it comes to studying history?
It may be helpful to give students in all disciplines a basic understanding of what the internet actually is—to differentiate between the medium and the message. According to the How Stuff Works, the internet is "a global collection of networks, both big and small. These networks connect together in many different ways to form the single entity that we know as the Internet." The Internet is an information medium in the same sense as telephone, television, or radio, but the hardware and connectivity of the Internet enable people to publish and communicate in diverse ways (text, audiovisuals, asynchronously, simultaneously) and to access information through a variety of tools (computers, phones, game consoles, datacards). And some of that information we send and receive via the Internet is reliable, and some isn't.
So many exciting materials are online for learning and teaching history, but students need to learn how to evaluate them—just as they should query information in books, newspapers and magazines, for example. Does the information come from a reputable institution or author? Can you check the information? Do the materials or information seem biased? Kathy Schrock's guide for Educators offers rubrics for evaluating websites for elementary, middle, and secondary students as well as for teachers and for specific content types such as virtual tours, blogs, and podcasts. (Some are translated into Spanish.) Schrock also links to articles on web site evaluation and to rubrics designed by other educators. For older students, the Cornell University Library offers Evaluating Web Sites: Criteria and Tools with guided questions from looking at the URL to evaluating bias, sources, and author credentials. So, as they explore the reliability of history materials available online, students are practicing skills that translate to other curricula and to their lives outside of the classroom.
New Jersey's Quakers and the American Revolution
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While many Quakers owned slaves prior to the American Revolution, the Quakers passed a rule in 1758 forbidding their members to buy or sell slaves. This lesson examines how the Quakers' religious views influenced their opposition to slavery during the Revolutionary period. We like that students are asked to analyze a series of primary sources to identify the reasoning behind the Quaker's anti-slavery stance.
The lesson plan suggests that teachers begin by delivering a lecture based on an online talk by historian Jean Soderlund. (Adobe Flash Player and Acrobat Reader are required to access the lecture). However, the historian’s lecture is brief, informative, and fairly engaging, so teachers may want to consider playing the lecture for students.
Next, students are asked to read a set of documents written by Quakers in the 18th century, and identify the various reasons Quakers were opposed to slavery. The documents are rich and informative. However, the language is challenging; and teachers may need to modify and shorten the documents, and create guiding questions to help students analyze them.
For an assessment, middle school students create protest pamphlets expressing the reasons behind Quaker opposition to slavery. High school students analyze the Declaration of Independence from the Quaker perspective. High school teachers may want to consider having students also analyze the original draft of the Declaration of Independence which had much stronger language opposing slavery. The original draft of the Declaration of Independence reflects more of Jefferson’s personal views, while the final version reflects more of the consensus view of congress.
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Yes
The plan provides a brief historical overview and a historian's lecture.
Yes
Students must read primary sources and respond with a written assessment.
Yes
Students read several primary documents to determine the reasons behind Quaker opposition to slavery in the 18th century.
Yes
No
The language of the documents may have to be modified—especially for middle school students.
No
Teachers should consider providing students with a few focusing questions for each document.
Yes
There are different assessments for the high school and middle school level. However, no rubrics or specific assessment criteria are included.
Yes
Yes
A sleek lesson that could be done in one or two class periods.
Watergate and the Constitution
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Students analyze a primary source document which sets forth points both for and against the indictment of Richard Nixon, before considering Constitutional interpretations of Watergate.
The strength of this lesson is that it is centered around a document which presents compelling arguments both for and against the indictment of former President Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal. The featured document, a memo to the Watergate Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski, was written by Jaworski's staff as he was considering whether or not to indict Nixon.
The memorandum’s language should be accessible to most high school students. Both a copy of the original document and a transcribed version are available.
The question at the center of the lesson is, "Should the Watergate Special Prosecutor seek an indictment of the former President?" If teachers want to make this lesson more of an historical inquiry, we recommend modifying that question to read: "What were the main arguments for and against the indictment of former President Richard Nixon?"
An additional strength of this lesson is two activities that use the Constitution as a lens to understand the Watergate affair. One of the suggested activities asks students to identify the specific role each branch of government played in the Watergate affair. Another activity asks students to apply specific sections of the Constitution and determine the role particular constitutional powers and rights played in the Watergate affair.
This lesson would likely work best after an introductory lesson on Watergate. While there is no formal assessment included in this lesson, the questions presented by the document easily lend themselves to an essay or a discussion.
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Historical background is detailed and accurate. The document is from The National Archives.
Yes
Th lesson includes background information for teachers and students, as well as a chronology of the Watergate affair.
Yes
The lesson is centered around a primary document from the Watergate scandal, and requires students to read the Constitution.
Yes
Students are asked to weigh the reasons for and against indicting Nixon.
Yes
Yes
The main document is appropriate and accessible for most high school students, as are the teaching activities.
Yes
The lesson includes the Archives' worksheet for analyzing primary source documents, asking students to consider source and contextual information when interpreting the document.
No
Yes
The lesson is clearly presented and is easily adapted to emphasize either History or Civic standards.
Yes
Appropriate for one class period.
Building the Erie Canal
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How would the Erie Canal have changed your life and the lives of those around you? Politics, trade, and the land itself were all affected.
This lesson from Teachers’ Domain examines how the construction of the Erie Canal affected the geographic, economic, and political landscape of the United States. In exploring these issues, students are presented with four computer-based activities.
The first two activities—viewing documentary video clips—are engaging, brief, and informative. These clips could be projected to the whole class if a teacher does not have access to multiple computers.
The third—an interactive graphic organizer—allows students to categorize different consequences of the construction of the Erie Canal in terms of geographic, political, and economic effects. The interactive graphic organizer allows students to draw connections between consequences in different categories and explain how they are interconnected in a pop-up comment box. After they are done, students can print out the graphic organizer.
The final activity in the lesson, which requires students to read and write, can be done either on a computer or not. It asks students to synthesize information from the video clip and a background reading (available in two different reading levels), and students can choose from three different writing assignments.
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Featured video contains interviews with reputable scholars.
Yes
Historical background provided in videos and handouts.
Yes
Students take notes throughout the assignment and write a short essay evaluating the major changes resulting from the construction of the Erie Canal.
Yes
Using evidence from the documentary video and a background reading, students assess and examine the economic, political, and geographic effects of the Erie Canal on the nation.
No
Yes
Two versions of background handout are included for different grade levels.
Yes
A graphic organizer helps students organize their ideas and draw connections between the various effects resulting from the Erie Canal’s construction.
Yes
Students can write an essay on the canal’s effects on America or New York State. Students can write a journal from the perspective of someone who experienced the effects of the Erie Canal five years after its construction.
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No
Requires access to multiple computers, but can be adapted for classroom use in which only one computer and a projector are needed to stream the video.
Woman Suffrage and the 19th Amendment
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Access primary sources and activities for a unit on the suffrage movement, from the Seneca Falls Convention to the passage of the 19th Amendment.
This lesson is anchored by nine primary source documents related to the women's suffrage movement, from 1868 to 1920. Students and teachers alike will appreciate that the site includes images of the original documents—not simply transcriptions.
It also has six teaching activities that range from document analysis, to role-play, to student research. Activity three, which asks students to use textbooks, library resources, and documents to make a timeline, can be an effective way of helping younger students understand historical chronology. For older students, activity six, which asks students to write and stage a one-act play, presents an opportunity to interpret and synthesize primary sources. The script for a one-act play commissioned by the National Archives, "Failure Is Impossible," is available as a model.
This lesson also includes links to related websites, including those from the Library of Congress, the National Park Service, the National Register of Historic Places, and the National Women’s History Project.
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Yes
Minimal
Includes a one-act play based on archival sources.
Yes
Students are asked to read multiple documents, and there are opportunities for original student writing based on document analysis.
Yes
Activities two and six ask students to assess suffragist strategies and write an evidence-based play, respectively.
Yes
Activity one focuses on these skills, and can be paired with a downloadable Document Analysis Worksheet.
Unclear
Audience is unstated.
No
Teachers may need to supplement the provided materials.
No
Yes
The lesson is designed for easy adaptation by teachers.
Yes
Midnight Ride of Paul Revere: Fact, Fiction, and Artistic License
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Students assess a famous artistic depiction of Paul Revere's ride, based on historical documents.
This lesson asks students to use primary source evidence to assess Grant Wood’s famous 1931 painting, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. Students must also determine the event's historical significance. This lesson offers a wealth of resources for analyzing artwork as historical evidence and provides a nice example for using artwork along with written documents to learn about the past.
The lesson opens up by asking students to note their initial impressions of Wood's painting. Additional resources are included to help students analyze the painting.
Following the opening activity, students read a series of primary accounts of the event from the British perspective and the colonial perspective. Teachers should consider the lesson plan’s suggestion to jigsaw this activity since the documents range in length and difficulty.
The lesson concludes with multiple assessment options including analyzing the poem "Paul Revere's Ride" by Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, using evidence to distinguish between fact and fiction, and writing a short story. Teachers could also easily create a document-based question assignment to assess students' historical understanding.
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A wealth of background information is included about Revere's ride as well as relevant poetry and artwork.
Yes
Students are asked to read primary and secondary sources and write from the perspective of the historical actors.
Yes
Students analyze artistic interpretations of the past and construct historical interpretations of the past.
Yes
Students are asked to consider the author’s perspective as they read and analyze primary sources.
Yes
Yes
Includes guiding questions that scaffold thinking. However primary documents may need further editing and preparation depending on students' reading levels.
Yes
Multiple assessment options
Yes
Yes
Opening up the Textbook: Voices from My Lai
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This video shows high school students exploring primary sources related to the 1968 My Lai massacre to better understand U.S. public perceptions of Vietnam. The module feature, created for the Montgomery County (Maryland) TAH website, has two sections focused on Vietnam and the My Lai massacre. The scholar analysis provides historical background on U.S. involvement in Vietnam, the My Lai massacre, and public reactions. Classroom practice & teacher analysis features video of classroom instruction along with commentary and reflection by the teacher. The lesson asks students to look critically at the textbook and question it as one perspective on the past. The activities encourage students to engage with complex questions related to the Vietnam War and the American public's reactions to the war—reactions mediated by television news and publications such as Life magazine. The website provides examples of two promising practices:
- Engaging students in close, careful observation and reading of multiple primary source documents (using group work and comparative documents);
- Consideration of the textbook as one perspective among multiple historical narratives.
In the Classroom Practice and Teacher Analysis section, we see the lesson in action and the teacher explains some of his instructional choices. The lesson begins the unit on the Vietnam War and starts with a five-minute warm-up question about how textbook authors decide what information to include (or not include).
After introducing the lesson, students analyze their textbook's account of the events at My Lai and suggest other perspectives they would like to hear to add depth to the textbook narrative. Next, students work with a partner to examine a collection of primary sources including trial testimony from Lieutenant William Calley and other soldiers involved in the massacre, accounts from My Lai villagers, and results from a 1971 telephone survey of public opinion of the case. Students see that while the textbook is one useful source of historical narrative, it is not the only—or necessarily the fullest—perspective, and may leave out key ideas. During the second half of the lesson, the teacher facilitates an in-depth analysis of Paul Conrad's editorial cartoon from the Los Angeles Times. The teacher projects the cartoon on a writeboard, revealing pieces one at a time. This focuses student attention on specific areas before looking at the whole—modeling careful, critical reading of a complex primary source. Throughout the lesson—from initial responses to the textbook narrative to working with primary sources that tell different stories to exploring the creation of a historical narrative—students encounter multiple viewpoints and engage with primary and secondary sources as complex and multifaceted tools for understanding history. At the same time, students learn about American involvement in Vietnam and the American public's evolving perceptions of the war through primary source analysis and historical thinking. Students also explore questions of authority and perspective in present-day historical accounts. You can find a comprehensive lesson plan, complete with primary sources, background information, and classroom worksheets, on the website.