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.

Front page of Black Panther Party newspaper with headlines about 504 protests

How disability activists created change

This lesson has a sharable ready-made album of primary sources with an introduction essay by the author!

Using primary and secondary sources about protests by members of the Disability Rights Movement, students identify strategic actions taken by activists and evaluate them as to the…

People in wheelchairs blocking path of bus, holding signs, "Buses are for Everyone."

Disability, Protest, and the 504

“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.

What is our value? A look at undervalued people

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

Putting Primary Sources in Order - Text Set and 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.

Zoom-In Visual Inquiry Activity

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…

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