Engaging students in an examination of historical segregation in Virginia can ignite an important discussion about the ongoing reality of segregation in the United States today.  

Watch a film that envisions the book James Baldwin never finished, a revolutionary and personal account of the lives and successive assassinations of three of his close friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. ( The documentary streams on January 16.) Read more at http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/i-am-not-your-negro.

Strategically designed word walls can help students build the vocabulary needed to ask and explore important questions in the social studies.

This probing discussion of the Electoral College offers new approaches to teaching about this often-perplexing political system. 

Examining newspaper articles such as the featured one from 1913 about parents intentionally exposing children to measles can highlight for students the critical connection between science literacy and citizen behavior.

This 2020 issue of Social Education, marking the centennial anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment, seeks to broaden understanding of the suffrage story in several ways: by considering the strategies and tactics used by the suffragists to foment their agitation; by acknowledging the ways in which further work was needed to secure voting and other rights for all women; by acknowledging the need for women in positions of political leadership and for stories about their accomplishments; and by placing the U.S. women’s suffrage story within the context of the larger struggle for women’s rights…

(check local listings) PBS/ Boston Film & Video Productions This is the first film (and companion book) to be produced about the immigrant hospital on Ellis Island. Opened in 1902, the hospital grew to 22 medical buildings that sprawled across two islands adjacent to Ellis Island, the largest port of entry in the United States. Massive and modern, the hospital was America's first line of defense against contagious, often virulent disease. In the era before antibiotics, tens of thousands of immigrant patients were separated from family, detained in the hospital, and healed from illness…

Learning the stories of Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Stacey Abrams can deepen students’ understanding of the long and ongoing struggle for voting rights in the United States.

A classroom examination of the featured historical article announcing North Carolina’s ratification of the Constitution can springboard into a lesson on federalism, the Bill of Rights, and the ratification process.

The Library of Congress’s Slave Narratives Collection present students with an opportunity to expand their understanding of slavery in America while grappling with questions about interpretations of the past.