+
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Buying Freedom, Making of African American Identity: V. 1

For Students 9th - 10th
Narratives from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries depicting the struggle by blacks to purchase their own freedom and the impediments they faced.
+
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Booker T. Washington, Making of African American Identity: V. 2

For Students 9th - 10th
A summary and questions related to an autobiography in which Booker T. Washington describes his early experience of freedom. A link to this full text is provided here as well.
+
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Desegregation Integration, Making of African American Identity: V.3

For Students 9th - 10th
This resource presents James Farmer (1920-1999), a major figure in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s, and the distinction he draws between integration and desegregation, two terms often used interchangeably and often confused.
+
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Separation and Power, Making of African American Identity: V. 3

For Students 9th - 10th
An essay that examines the relationship between racial separation and power. In this essay Stokely Carmichael advocates for the coalescence of political and economic power within the black community in a way that liberates and insulates...
+
Lesson Plan
Library of Congress

Loc: American Lives in Two Centuries: What Is an American?

For Teachers 9th - 10th
In 1782 Jean de Crevecoeur published Letters from an American Farmer in which he defined an American as a "descendent of Europeans" who, if he were "honest, sober and industrious," prospered in a welcoming land of opportunity which gave...
+
Article
NPR: National Public Radio

Npr: Marines Confirm Mistaken Identity in Iwo Jima Photo

For Students 9th - 10th
The photograph has been ingrained in American culture since almost the moment it was taken - a steadfast presence in high school textbooks and an enduring symbol of U.S. perseverance. But it appears we've been wrong about Joe Rosenthal's...
+
Article
NPR: National Public Radio

Npr: Jews & African Americans Built Tradition

For Students 9th - 10th
Read about the history of the Freedom Seder, a Jewish and African-American tradition. Includes an audio version of the story and a video.
+
Article
University of Groningen

American History: Essays: Philosophy and Literature: Intellectual Climate

For Students 9th - 10th
Discusses the intellectual atmosphere in the 1800s as America struggled to find its identity. The influences of the Enlightenment and Romanticism are described, and the ideas of various writers and philosophers.
+
Website
Other

Stories of American Community

For Students 9th - 10th
What does it take to make an American community? View the twelve different communities that are profiled through narrative, pictures, and audio.
+
Website
Other

Americans All

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Historians fear that current and future generations will no longer share their family stories. Americans All is program schools can join to encourage preservation of family legacy to continue history of heritage and culture.
+
Article
University of Groningen

American History: Essays: Philosophy and Literature: Quest for Nationalism

For Students 9th - 10th
Describes the struggle of Americans to develop a unified sense of national identity in the 1800s.
+
Website
PBS

Pbs: Alcatraz Is Not an Island

For Students 9th - 10th
An expose on the 19 month occupation of Alcatraz by a group of Native Americans beginning in 1969. They demanded the return of Alcatraz to Indian control and began the resurgence in the American Indian Movement.
+
Website
Smithsonian Institution

National Portrait Gallery: Asian American Portraits of Encounter

For Students 9th - 10th
Exhibition of the work of seven contemporary Asian American artists considers the genre from a distinctly Asian American point of view.
+
Unit Plan
Annenberg Foundation

Annenberg Learner: American Passages a Literary Survey

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
A series of 16 Instructional Units on American Literature with texts, videos, instructor guides, and more. Topics include: Native Voices, Exploring Borderlands, Utopian Promise, Spirit of Nationalism, Masculine Heroes, Gothic...
+
Website
PBS

Pbs: American Family: What It Means to Be Latino

For Students 9th - 10th
From the PBS series American Family: What it Means to Be Lation the first Latino family drama on broadcast television. What it Means to Be Latino discusses the personal experiences of Latinos in America, as well as their feelings about...
+
PPT
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art: Art and Identity in British North American Colonies

For Students 9th - 10th
Consider the English identity of American colonists by examining the sorts of imported goods and decorative arts Americans chose to purchase and display.
+
Unit Plan
Smithsonian Institution

National Museum of the American Indian: African Native American Lives

For Students 9th - 10th
A fascinating exhibition on the history of Americans of both African American and Native American ancestry. The exhibit looks at policies and laws that affected them, how they have formed and managed communities, their resistance...
+
Article
American Psychological Association

American Psychological Association: Social Media's Growing Impact on Our Lives

For Students 9th - 10th
Media psychology researchers are beginning to tease apart the ways in which time spent on social media is, and is not, impacting our day-to-day lives and our psychological well-being. They are looking at whether time spent on social...
+
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Becoming American: The British Atlantic Colonies, 1690 1763

For Students 9th - 10th
Primary source documents, including text and art, provides a look at the diversity and identity of the people in the New England colonies.
+
Article
University of Groningen

American History: Essays: Philosophy and Literature: History and Literature

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
Discusses the state of literature and written history in the 1800s as they related to the development of a national identity, and the role Romanticism played. With the passage of time, more serious literature emerged and authors began to...
+
Interactive
Other

Memorial Hall Museum: American Centuries: Kids' Home Page

For Students 3rd - 8th
An extensive interactive that looks at clothing from the 17th through early 20th centuries, furniture, documents, and old tools.
+
Article
Michigan State University

Michigan State University: American Revolution: Rediscovering Britain

For Students 9th - 10th
Article on colonial attitudes toward Britain and their own political and cultural identity.
+
Article
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Attacking Stereotypes, Making of African American Identity: V. 3

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Two images that express the growing militancy of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. This article explains how Joe Overstreet (1934-) and Betye Saar (1929-) went head to head with the formidable Aunt Jemima and with wit and irony...
+
Lesson Plan
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Marching, Making of African American Identity: V. 3

For Teachers 9th - 10th
This resource by the National Humanities Center discusses the role of physical protest in the civil rights movement. Its primary focus, the print "Freedom Now," by Reginald Gammon (1921-2005), depicts the massing of bodies in the name of...

Other popular searches