Welcome High School Educators
These lessons have been designed by high school teachers for use in standard U.S. History courses, as well as Advanced Placement courses. The teacher-authors of the lessons have followed a standard format, which we hope you will find helpful. For many of the lessons, there are materials that can be downloaded and changed for your own needs or printed out exactly as they appear on the site. You may also find our AP PARTS guidelines or links to our primary source analysis worksheets helpful. If you would like to submit a lesson you have created using materials on this site for publication consideration, please click on the "submit lesson plans" menu item at left.
Each lesson is organized as follows:
- Lesson title
- Overview: This section contains a brief overview of the lesson, including a list of the materials needed, the time suggested for completing it, and the standards the lesson meets.
- Historical background and bibliography: This section offers a brief introduction to the historical context and key developments, with a bibliography of recommended readings for instructors and students.
- Guiding questions: This section provides the esential question that guides student learning throughout the lesson and the answer to which meets the lesson's learning objective.
- Learning objectives: The learning objectives are oriented to student achievement and outline the student outcomes for each lesson.
- Activities: This section provides a description of how teachers direct each lesson and how students perform and complete various activities.
- Assessment: This section suggests methods of assessment for each lesson and culminating activities.
- Extending the lesson: This section provides a list of additional activities and recommendations of helpful websites.