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Teaching Resources

Welcome to the Emerging America resource library. Browse our ever-growing collection of primary source sets, lesson plans, classroom assessments, and more, developed by teachers and edited for quality and consistency. Use the controls in the blue box to search and filter by Type, Subject, Time Period, and Grade Level. NOTE: Use the website search engine (above) to find resources–such as apps and curriculum from other organizations–that appear only in the blog.
People in wheelchairs blocking path of bus, holding signs, "Buses are for Everyone."

“I Can’t Even Get To The Back of the Bus” – Disability, 504 and the Power of Protest

This lesson investigates why and how people take action to make a difference. Building from an inquiry-based RAN chart, the lesson explores the context of the 1977 protests calling on the Federal Government to actually implement 504 access legislation. Featuring a variety of primary sources,…

Painting of Black man standing with crutches, wearing faded Civil War uniform, hand raised in salute, with one leg amputated at the knee.

In this multi-day elementary-level civics lesson written by Eileen Gloster, students view images and consider stories of people whose lives…

Screen cap of video: Putting Primary Sources in Order - Flow Map

Organizing a rich text set of primary sources requires that students analyze and make sense of several sources on a topic. In this case, they seek to answer a focused guiding question. Students sort through about a dozen images, letters, forms, and political cartoon. In practice, a teacher could offer fewer sources, though it is a valuable sometimes to require students to choose among sources…

Photograph shows four men, probably veterans, sitting on a bench with tents in the background, probably at the Bonus Expeditionary Forces assemblage in Washington, D.C. One of the men is wearing a traditional Indian headdress, and pants and a vest with Indian motifs.

Wendy Harris, a teacher at Metro Deaf School in St. Paul, Minnesota and coach for Emerging America, ably describes how to apply the the Zoom-In Inquiry strategy  developed by Metropolitan State University as part of the Library of Congress…

A three-column chart with only the center column filled in, leaving columns on left and right empty

Rubrics are frequently used to communicate expectations and standards to students. Making expectations as clear, simple, and easily understood as possible is a practice of value to all learners.

A streamlined rubric form, using one column to specify the target standard, offers advantages for accessibility–especially fewer words to absorb–over more typical multi-column rubrics. This …