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Reform to Equal Rights - Disability History Curriculum

The Reform to Equal Rights: K-12 Disability History Curriculum includes 250 primary sources in 23 lessons in seven units. Inclusive lessons feature Universal Design for Learning strategies and exemplary assessments. Lesson content facilitates integration into many regular K-12 topics. Skill and language development addresses C-3 History and Social Science frameworks as well as Educating for American Democracy Roadmap themes. Developed with Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources grant with additional support from Mass Humanities. 

What is our value? A look at undervalued people

What is our value? The principle that people are paid for their work does not always work as it should; many people who have been historically undervalued have contributed to American society, including many people of color, people with a disability, women, and children. Students view images and text of people whose lives may not have been adequately valued by their contemporaries. Students examine those documents, do further research, and come to their own conclusions about how those individuals should have been and should be valued, and possibly assisted.

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. The primary sources are also give context by a secondary source narrative from the Veterans Administration. 

Road to Freedom: Emancipation Proclamation

Since arriving in North America in the 15th century, Africans in the United States were forced to navigate the social, economic, and physical limitations placed upon their lives by the institutions of slavery and the racist ideology that justified it. The following primary source set shows several ways that different communities responded to the outlawing of the Atlantic slave trade (and subsequent yearly celebrations of the event) and the Emancipation Proclamation. These two events fundamentally challenged and changed the institutional practices of slavery. 

The Fugitive Slave Act: No Turning Back!

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 allowed for the capture and return of runaway slaves. Northerner legislatures passed laws in an attempt to reduce the impact of the FSA and how the work of the Underground Railroad (UGRR) was impacted. Students will learn how the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (FSA) changed perspectives of Northerners and the ultimate destination of the fugitives themselves. Students will learn background knowledge and vocabulary about the Underground Railroad in the United States.

Civil War and Reconstruction

The Library of Congress holds the best collection of primary sources anywhere on the Civil War and Reconstruction. (See especially the exhibitions under “d” below.) Therefore, the great challenge is to choose the most significant yet engaging and classroom-friendly from among hundreds of thousands of photos, drawings, newspaper articles, speeches, maps, and songs. Each item in this set focuses on a vital point in the conflict and its aftermath. Each item offers clear and meaningful opportunity for students to dig deeper.

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