This collection uses primary sources to explore The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

Academic/Business English is designed as a practical course to develop an authentic understanding of how to use concepts of writing and discourse to communicate in the workforce. Students will have the ability to express their thoughts, feelings, and opinions in using real-life situations and learning scenarios. All new concepts will be introduced in context while incorporating various writing, speaking and listening activities.

Students will acquire new grade-level academic vocabulary by using images to make visual associations, which activiates student's long term memory. This lesson includes all of the information and materials that students need to create a vocabulary poster, share their poster with the class, practice a set of 14 vocabulary words, and take an assessment. 

This course explains the various styles of research writing, its content and citation

This lesson is designed to help students develop their understanding and application of an academic formal style, while encouraging them to develop their own individual style.

In this lesson students use a structured format (an adaptation of Think-Pair-Share) to discuss and deconstruct complex text. The new core standards emphasize the importance of developing students' speaking and listening skills as well as helping them access complex text through reading, re-reading, re-thinking, and re-examining.The purpose of this lesson is to get the students to focus and stay on topic while they talk. As a result, students are required to think more extensively about a topic by repeatedly reading and discussing with others.

Students form literature circles, read "Esperanza Rising" or "Becoming Naomi Leon" by Pam MuĐoz Ryan, use a Critical Thinking Map to discuss social issues, and use a class wiki.

This online tool enables students to learn about and write acrostic poems. Elements of the writing process are also included.

This recurring lesson encourages students to comprehend their reading through inquiry and collaboration. They choose important quotations from the text and work in groups to formulate "quiz" questions that their peers will answer.

A folding comic puzzle in which the heads of Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard and a donkey switch bodies. An example of mass of anti-Beauregard material published in the north after the outbreak of hostilities leading to Civil War.|Published by Samuel Upham, 310 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by Samuel C. Upham, 310 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Forms part of: American cartoon print filing series (Library of Congress)

This collection uses primary sources to explore The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

A racist attack on Democratic vice-presidential candidate Richard M. Johnson. The Kentucky Congressman's nomination, in May 1835, as Van Buren's running-mate for the 1836 election raised eyebrows even among party faithful, because of Johnson's common-law marriage to a mulatto woman, Julia Chinn, by whom he fathered two daughters. The artist ridicules Johnson's domestic situation, and the Democrats' constituency as well. Seated in a chair with his hand over his face, a visibly distraught Johnson lets a copy of James Watson Webb's "New York Courier and Enquirer" fall to the floor and moans, "When I read the scurrilous attacks in the Newspapers on the Mother of my Children, pardon me, my friends if I give way to feelings!!! My dear Girls, bring me your Mother's picture, that I may show it to my friends here." On the right are his two daughters, Adaline and Imogene, wearing elegant evening dresses. One presents a painting of a black woman wearing a turban, and says, "Here it is Pa, but don't take on so." The second daughter says, "Poor dear Pa, how much he is affected." A man behind them exclaims, "Pickle! Pop!! and Ginger!!! Can the slayer of Tecumseh be thus overcome like a summer cloud! fire and furies. oh!" Johnson is reported to have slain the Indian chief Tecumseh. Flanking Johnson are a gaunt abolitionist (right) and a black man. The abolitionist holds a copy of the "Emancipator," a Hartford, Connecticut newspaper, and says, "Be comforted Richard; all of us abolitionists will support thee." The black man pledges, ". . . de honor of a Gentlemen dat all de Gentlemen of Colour will support you." On the far left is a stout postmaster who says, "Your Excellency, I am sure all of us Postmasters and deputies will stick to you; if you promise to keep us in office." The print seems to date from early in the campaign of 1836. Johnson's wife Julia Chinn died in 1833. Adaline, one of the two daughters pictured, died in February 1836. Although Weitenkampf dates the print at 1840, when Johnson was again Van Buren's running-mate, the presence of both daughters and the drawing style are persuasive evidence for an 1836 date.|Probably published by Henry R. Robinson, New York.|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Weitenkampf, p. 63.|Forms part of: American cartoon print filing series (Library of Congress)|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1836-15.

The documents included in this lesson come from The North Carolina Experience collection of Documenting the American South and specifically focus on African Americans and race relations in the early 20th century. The lesson juxtaposes accounts that relate to both the positive improvements of black society and arguments against advancement. Combined, these primary sources and the accompanying lesson plan could be used as a Document Based Question (DBQ) in an advanced US history or African American history course.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the experiences of African American Soldiers in World War I. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

A pro-Republican campaign print casting Lincoln as peacemaker, and as the hope for reconciliation between the North and South. The top half of the composition represents the North and the bottom the South. In the center, Lincoln rides forth on a prancing horse, as a group of farmers at the left wave their hats and cheer, "All is right now! hurrah!" Below him is a streamer "Union Henceforth Now and For Ever." On the right the upper scene, in the North, shows a "Northern Fanatic" in a jail "Imprisonment for Life." Above the jail is a gallows, "Higher Law." The prisoner is jeered by a crowd, saying, "That serves them [him?] right." The bottom right scene in the South shows a "Southern Fanatic" jailed while several onlookers say, "They won't do any more mischief." In the center, to the left, a weary Jefferson Davis begins to dismount from his horse. Below him are two clasped hands, with the title "After a Little While."|Lith. by Chas. Magnus, N.Y.|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1864-29.

In the wake of the tragic school shooting in Newtown, CT, students learn about and discuss renewed calls for gun control and the National Rifle Association's history of successfully resisting such reforms.

This site offers 12 hours of interviews recorded in the days and months following the bombing of Pearl Harbor from more than 200 individuals in cities and towns across the U.S. Audio and transcripts of the interviews are provided.

Jason Allen offers a comparative discussion of two important Caribbean poets and playwrights, Aime Cesaire and Derek Walcott, to emphasize the impact of Caribbean literature upon the postcolonial world. By using biographical and historical detail to support his analysis of some of Cesaire and Walcott's key texts, Allen offers insight into what it means to be a Caribbean writer - looking back to a colonial past, and forward to a global future. This audio recording is part the Interviews on Great Writers series presented by Oxford University Podcasts.

In this lesson plan, the traditional autobiography writing project is given a twist as students write alphabiographies—recording an event, person, object, or feeling associated with each letter of the alphabet. Students are introduced to the idea of the alphabiography through a presentation giving the instructions of how to create guidelines for writing their own alphabiographies. Students create an entry for each letter of the alphabet, writing about an important event from their lives. After the entry for each letter, students sum up the stories by writing the life lessons they learned from the events. Since this type of autobiography breaks out of chronological order, students can choose what has been important in their lives. And since the writing pieces are short, even reluctant writers are eager to write!

The presidential campaign of 1836 viewed as a card game by a satirist in sympathy with the Whigs. Opposing candidates Martin Van Buren (Democrat) and William Henry Harrison (Whig) face each other across a card table. Behind Van Buren stands his vice-presidential running mate Richard M. Johnson. Behind Harrison is incumbent President Andrew Jackson, who smokes a clay pipe and stands on tip-toes to spy on Harrison's hand. With his left hand he signals to Van Buren. Jackson: "What a h---ll of a hand old Harrison's got. I'm afraid Martin and Dick Johnson will go off with a flea in their ear." Johnson: "The old general is making signs that Harrison has the two highest trump cards and low. Martin he'll catch your Jack and then the jig's up! You'd better beg." Van Buren: "I ask one." Harrison: "Take it! now look out for your Jack!" On the wall above the table is a painting of the Battle of the Thames, one of Harrison's celebrated military victories a well as the occasion on which Johnson is reported to have slain the Indian chief Tecumseh. The print is probably by Robinson draughtsman Edward W. Clay, judging from its similarity to his "Grand Match Between the Kinderhook Poney ..." (no. 1836-14) and other signed work of the period.|Entered . . . 1836 by H.R. Robinson.|Published May 1836 by the proprietor H.R. Robinson, 48 Cortlandt St. N. York.|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Weitenkampf, p. 44.|Forms part of: American cartoon print filing series (Library of Congress)|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1836-11.