American Memory Primary Sources

Six lessons for which instructional support and teaching steps are provided in the unit curriculum guide. Each lessons unfolds in four stages: Inquiry, Observation, Analysis, Synthesis. In this unit students examine aspects of power in United States history. They begin by considering citizenz' rights and their rights as students. They go on to study how power is gained and used in the context of four historic episodes: the woman suffrage movement, the African American struggle for equality in the first 50 years after emancipation, government's expanding role during the Great Depression, and shifting views of the United States' role in world affairs from 1914 to 1941. In the unit's final project, students explore how some Americans are using their power to work for the common good, and they discover ways in which they, too, might participate.