“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, including testimony of activist Ed Roberts.   

Analysis of the timelines below can help students to locate important events in Disability History in a larger historical framework. Timelines also offer opportunities to explore the impacts of activism, policy, and social change. Disability History timelines work best when students are also gaining contextual background knowledge about larger social forces and events. Thus these particular timelines are recommended for grades 6-12. 

Scan Multiple Timelines 

In this lesson, students learn about the Social Security Act and its provisions to care for the elderly, the unemployed, mothers and children, and children and adults with disabilities.  Students will examine several primary source images and documents related to the New Deal era, using a primary source analysis organizer. The lesson offers options in how students can show their learning. This lesson plan has a special feature: the teacher who authored it offers reflections on how teaching the lesson worked with her class when she taught it the first time.

The following set of resources from the Library of Congress was prepared for Special Education in Institutional Settings (SEIS). The set presents primary source documents and images on two main units of study: The American Revolution and the U.S. Constitution. There are abundant resources on the American Revolution and U.S. Constitution. Therefore, this set recommends a careful selection of the most engaging. Teachers and students can focus on the most valuable sources from the era for use in classroom or research settings.

A research unit and project developed during the National Endowment for Humanities Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshop – Forge of Innovation: The Springfield Armory and the Genesis of American Industry, in the summer of 2015, the following five-day lesson plan and subsequent independent student study, contains a comprehensive companion site to drive student learning and engagement. Instruction and research center around the development of technologies that shaped the American Industrial Revolution during the Antebellum Era in the Connecticut River Valley.

Emerging America, in a partnership with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives, has a produced a primary source-filled lesson on the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) – arguably the start of World War II. In this complex conflict, all sides used propaganda to sway the opinions of Spanish citizens and nations around the globe. The most apparent form of propaganda used was posters created by each side of the war. The Library of Congress has over 120 colorfully detailed posters. Students will use these posters to discuss and evaluate the tools of persuasion.

American involvement in the Vietnam War was one of the most polarizing issues of 20th century American history. Many supported the conflict, claiming that a victory for communism would destabilize the entire region. Others argued that United States policy towards Vietnam was an illegitimate and unnecessary use of American power that led to an unconscionable loss of American and Vietnamese life. The following primary source set contains primary and secondary source documents accompanied by annotations and questions, classroom activities, and relevant standards.

The story of the American West is the story of the meeting of French fur traders and a variety of Indian communities, of American settlers and soldiers and Mexican families, of black miners and Chinese laborers. The creation of the continental United States was made possible through the acquisition of vast tracts of land that were not, contrary to the opinions of many, simply an empty wilderness. Thus, the history of westward expansion is a history of accommodation and adaptation, of conquest and colonialism.

America’s self image, forged in the era of Thomas Jefferson’s yeoman farmers, is of a rural nation. The great landscape of the West often dominates popular culture and Americans imagine themselves as independent and self-sufficient, shaped by the western frontier. Yet there is also a long urban tradition in the United States that has equally shaped the development of American culture. The rise of the great metropolis in the late 19th century was due to the existence of enormous wealth in the cities, built upon industrialism and immigration.