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This site is RAD! Current and Recent Events resource From the website: "Students can read the day's top stories using Knowledge Tools, take a news quiz about today's world, and play special crossword puzzles. . . . Teachers can access a daily lesson plan for grades 6-12, written in partnership with The Bank Street College of Education in New York City. Each lesson plan and the article it references can be printed out for classroom use. Previous lessons are available in the archive and in thematic lesson plan units. . . The site additionally provides teachers with the latest education news from the newspaper. "

I found this article about individual teachers selling their lesson plans online to be very interesting. Over the past few years, many teachers have started selling their lesson plans online rather than just sharing them on free websites. One teacher has earned $36,000 in a year selling lesson plans. This trend has caused some school districts to question the idea of who owns material developed for public school classrooms and whether or not school districts should share some of the profits. Others worry that selling the lesson plans harms the idea of free swapping and sharing. But, some teachers argue that it validates their efforts and shows that people recognize their hard work and expertise. Whether using free or bought lessons from online, I did find the teachers who argued that they enjoy comparing their lessons and getting ideas to be very compelling.

From the site: "Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) uses properties listed in the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places to enliven history, social studies, geography, civics, and other subjects. TwHP has created a variety of products and activities that help teachers bring historic places into the classroom." Including lesson plans and tips!

Lesson Plans: The Lesson Plans link has SO MANY lesson plans. They are designed at a middle school level but can easily be adapted (says them). The lesson plans are organized by Location/State; Theme; Time period; and Skill - meaning that you can click on any one of those subdivisions and search them that way. Very exciting! You should definitely check these out. Even if you're not in that state, they still have pictures, mapping materials, and activity ideas that you can use to incorporate geography into historic concepts. For example, the Battle of Bunker Hill lesson contains two maps (of Boston today and in 1775) and inquiry questions for these, a section of text (looks like a high school level to me) and inquiry questions for that AND three images (one a sketch of an encampment and two pictures) and inquiry questions for those. These might make fantastic "Do Now"s for the beginning of the lesson even if you didn't use any of the rest of the sites info. So neat!

Also they have lots of tips for how you can incorporate place into your lessons. AND! you can submit your own lessons. They take you through the TwHP lesson creation process and you can submit them.

In reading this last chapter of Takaki, I couldn't help but draw comparisons to my personal favorite from this genre of "alternative" interpretations of U.S. History, Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States." His chapter on the history of Reconstruction is very insightful and I remember being utterly shocked the first time I read it. In searching for lesson plans based around his text, I found this website. You simply have to sign up for membership (it's free) and you have access to resources and lesson plans based around each of the chapters in his seminal work. This website is co-produced by Howard Zinn himself.

In reading this last chapter of Takaki, I couldn't help but draw comparisons to my personal favorite from this genre of "alternative" interpretations of U.S. History, Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States." His chapter on the history of Reconstruction is very insightful, and in searching for lesson plans based around his text, I found this website. You simply have to sign up for membership (it's free) and you have access to resources and lesson plans based around each of the chapters in his seminal work. This website is co-produced by Howard Zinn himself.

This lesson plan allows students to try to put themselves in the shoes of Native Americans who became involved in European conflicts in colonial America such as the American Revolution and the Seven Years War. It provides an extensive lesson plan as well as background information for teachers on the topic.

As another tough topic to tackle in the high school social studies classroom, this multimedia-based PBS lesson plan aims to help students grades 9-12 understand the difficulties encountered by US soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Television, internet, and many other factors have changed the way we view war and receive our veterans. The lesson plan examines the conditions faced by troops returning from not just Iraq and Afghanistan today, but also from Vietnam and World War II. Like the other collection of lesson plans I posted earlier, this is material that can be a little bit emotional, especially for students who have a family or friend connection to veterans.

This website uses resources from current and returned Peace Corps Volunteers to create lesson plans to help teachers educate their students about the world. Most of the lesson plans center around stories written by Volunteers but there are some videos as well. Teachers can also request that a Volunteer visit their classroom to talk with their students.

Because political cartoons are somewhat of special category of primary source images, I thought it would behoove us to find a particular strategy for analyzing and interpreting them - much along the same lines as the SOAPS method but one specifically designed for political cartoons. This lesson plan, and its "Cartoon Analysis Checklist" is a start.

Thanks for this add, I can use this for my lesson plan on Chinese immigration.

The Newseum site provides lesson plans for elementary, middle, and high school teachers.  The lessons focus on first amendment rights and the role of media in society.  Links to other online resources allow teachers to find supplemental materials for other lesson plans and units. The site also contains a number of primary sources.

A list of very good detailed lesson plans for a high school economic class related to different country and the economic policies that they pursue.

Lesson plan on the Cherokee removal and the Trail of Tears

A list of lesson plans created by teachers covering all subject areas and grade levels. Put together by the Columbia Education Center.

This is sort of a basic review of how and why we as teachers might use film in the classroom. This is my first post on this issue; I am searching for some more in-depth sites that might have models for lesson plans. Many sites have lesson plans based around a specific film; a site that provides lesson plan templates that are applicable across a wide variety of films would be more applicable/useful. However, the comments made here by Paris provide a good base from which to start thinking about the idea.

Concept to Classroom is a website sponsored by the Educational Broadcasting Corporation. It is an interactive site desinged for educatotors and provides online workshops featuring a variety of teaching strategies such as cooperative learning, inquiry based learing and teaching to multiple intelligences. Other categories include workshops on constructivism, assessment, curriculum design, and using the internet in the classroom. Clicking on any of these categories, directs one to information about that topic. For example, the inquiry based learning filter will provide a description of the teaching method, benefits for using the method, criticisms of the method, and finally lesson plans using that particular method. In the multiple intelligences section, there is a series of five lesson plans on world religions I may adapt for a 7th grade class. Check it out…it is a great resource for ideas and lesson plans.

Great lesson plans! "EDSITEment is a partnership among the National Endowment for the Humanities, Verizon Foundation, and the National Trust for the Humanities. EDSITEment offers a treasure trove for teachers, students, and parents searching for high-quality material on the Internet in the subject areas of literature and language arts, foreign languages, art and culture, and history and social studies. All websites linked to EDSITEment have been reviewed for content, design, and educational impact in the classroom. They cover a wide range of humanities subjects, from American history to literature, world history and culture, language, art, and archaeology, and have been judged by humanities specialists to be of high intellectual quality. EDSITEment is not intended to represent a complete curriculum in the humanities, nor does it prescribe any specific course of study."

The AP section was very helpful. Thanks for keeping me in mind. :)

The Newseum offers a variety of resources for teachers including detailed lesson plans with worksheets, free tours for DC studetns and their chaperone, professional development opportunities for techers and educational classes for students and on topics including the First Amendment, Berlin Wall, Woodstock, and headlines of history. The lesson plans are thorough and easisly adapted. I am going to adapt one of their lesson on the First Ammendment called "You Can't Say That?"

A reference site based on the study of the history, geography and cultures of the Indian Ocean and the peoples who used it. Has an interactive map divided into different historical periods and offers lesson plans for teachers.

This site provides history teachers with information for helping with their classes. This part of the site includes lesson plans with this one specifically on "Watergate and the Constitution."