Browse lesson plans

The African American experience in NC after Reconstruction

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 AP US history course.

Format: lesson plan (grade 11–12 English Language Arts and Social Studies)

By Meghan Mcglinn.

Civil rights wax museum project

In this lesson plan, students will choose African Americans prominent in the Civil Rights Movement and research aspects of their lives. They will create timelines of their subjects' lives and a speech about their subjects, emphasizing why they are remembered today.

Format: lesson plan (grade 5 English Language Arts and Social Studies)

By Sabrina Lewandowski.

Experiences of the Civil Rights Movement: A roundtable project

This activity allows students to participate in a roundtable discussion by taking on the persona of someone who lived and experienced the Civil Rights Movement. By participating in a role playing simulation, students are more able to achieve higher-level thinking skills and, as a result, hopefully be able to think more critically about the Civil Rights Era.

Format: lesson plan (grade 11–12 English Language Arts and Social Studies)

By Kathleen Caldwell.

Exploring the church in the southern black community

Students explore the Documenting the American South Collection titled, the “Church in the Southern Black Community.” Beginning with a historian's interpretation of the primary sources that make up the collection, students search the collection for evidence to describe the experiences of African Americans living in the south during the Antebellum through the Reconstruction Period centering on their community churches. The activity culminates in student presentations of a digital scrap book.

Format: lesson plan (grade 8 and 10–12 Social Studies)

By Meghan Mcglinn.

"Forward" to the great escape

In this lesson, students will read a primary source document from Documenting the American South and examine a painting by Jacob Lawrence to understand the conditions of the underground railroad before the Civil War. Students will then create a painting and a narrative related to the underground railroad.

Format: lesson plan (grade 11–12 Visual Arts Education and Social Studies)

By Jamie Lathan.

Freedom songs of the civil rights movement

Students will listen to freedom songs recorded during the civil rights movement, 1960–1965. Students will write about personal reactions to the music and lyrics. Through reading and pictures, students will briefly explore historical events where these songs were sung. Listening again, students will analyze and describe — musically — particular song(s).

Format: lesson plan (grade 5 Music Education and Social Studies)

By Merritt Raum Flexman.

An introduction to slave narratives: Harriet Jacobs' Life of a Slave Girl

In this lesson, students will learn about the life experiences of slaves in the United States during the 1800s by reading the story of a North Carolina slave woman who eventually escaped.

Format: lesson plan (grade 8 Social Studies)

By Joe Hooten.

Jim Crow and segregation

This is an integrated lesson plan that incorporates both eighth grade language arts and history. Using Internet research, literary analysis, and persuasive technique, students will practice reading and writing skills while analyzing the impact of Jim Crow Segregation on African Americans living in North Carolina and elsewhere.

Format: lesson plan (grade 8 English Language Arts and Social Studies)

By Burnetta Barton.

A living timeline of civil rights

This fifth grade lesson plan is one piece of a civil rights unit. This particular lesson is an opportunity for students to demonstrate knowledge of a specific person or event that occurred during the civil rights movement. The students will share their research with others as they take on the role of a museum artifact.

Format: lesson plan (grade 5 Social Studies)

By Laurie Lietz.

Lunsford Lane: A slave in North Carolina who buys his freedom

In this lesson plan, students read a primary source document to learn about the life of Lunsford Lane, a slave who worked in the city of Raleigh, North Carolina. Students answer questions about Lane based on his memoir to help them understand the details of his life.

Format: lesson plan (grade 9–12 English Language Arts and Social Studies)

By John Schaefer and Victoria Schaefer.

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s “I Have A Dream” speech

Students will display their understanding of the symbolism and references that Dr. King used to enrich his famous speech on August 28, 1963 from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial by constructing a “jackdaw,” a collection of documents and objects.

Format: lesson plan (grade 8 English Language Arts and Social Studies)

By Charlotte Lammers.

Mountain dialect: Reading between the spoken lines

This lesson plan uses Chapter 13 of Our Southern Highlanders as a jumping-off point to help students achieve social studies and English language arts objectives while developing an appreciation of the uniqueness of regional speech patterns, the complexities of ethnographic encounter, and the need to interrogate primary sources carefully to identify potential biases and misinformation in them. Historical content includes American slavery, the turn of the century, and the Great Depression.

Format: lesson plan (grade 8 English Language Arts and Social Studies)

By Kathryn Walbert.

Religion and slavery in the American South: Comparing perspectives

In this lesson plan, students consult a variety of primary sources from the Documenting the American South Collection to uncover the varied impacts of religion in the lives of slaves in the American South. They are encouraged to seek out multiple, and sometimes contradictory, perspectives of this history.

Format: lesson plan (grade 9–12 Social Studies)

By Meghan Mcglinn.

Slave songs

In this lesson, students learn more about the religious observances of slaves in the United States by presenting hymns from Slave Songs in the US digitized in the Documenting the American South Collection. This is a great lesson to introduce the intersection of religion and slavery in a US history or African American history class.

Format: lesson plan (grade 9–10 English Language Arts and Social Studies)

By Meghan Mcglinn.

Slavery across North Carolina

In this lesson, students read excerpts from slave narratives to gain an understanding of how slavery developed in each region of North Carolina and how regional differences created a variety of slave experiences.

Format: lesson plan (grade 8 Social Studies)

By Dayna Durbin Gleaves.

Teaching about slavery through newspaper advertisements

In this lesson for grades 8 and 11, students will analyze a selection of advertisements related to slavery from an 1837 newspaper in order to enhance their understanding of antebellum North Carolina, U.S. history, and the history of American slavery.

Format: lesson plan (grade 8–12 English Language Arts and Social Studies)

By Kathryn Walbert.

Underground Railroad quilts: Fact or folklore?

In this lesson, students explore the controversy surrounding a book entitled Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad, which was published as a non-fiction account of fugitive slaves sending coded messages through quilt patterns. Students evaluate numerous sources and assess the validity of each in an attempt to determine if the quilt codes are fact or folklore.

Format: lesson plan (grade 8–12 English Language Arts, Information Skills, and Social Studies)

By Abby Stotsenberg.

The Walking Classroom

Lesson plans and podcasts aligned to the fifth grade curriculum.

Format: lesson plan (multiple pages)

Resources on the web

African American World

A multifaceted resource providing information from PBS, NPR, and the Encylopaedia Britannica about African Americans. This website targets many audiences and age groups and encourages discussion of their materials via online forums. (Learn more)

Format: website/lesson plan

Provided by: PBS

Africans in America

Chronicles the history of racial slavery in the United States using historical documents and interactive maps to accompany in-depth articles (Learn more)

Format: website/lesson plan

Provided by: PBS