By Lindsey R. Peterson, Ph.D. and Stephanie Puhrmann

We are excited to introduce our backward-designed curriculum that uses authentic tasks to help high school students develop historical research skills in:

  • drafting and revising research questions and claims;
  • analyzing history and historical arguments from multiple perspectives;
  • and using digital tools to research and communicate findings
  • while learning about emancipation — and how historians grapple with its significance — during the Civil War and Reconstruction era.

To better assist educators, it includes pre-created but fully editable materials such as activities, note-taking guides, daily lesson plans, presentation slides, and more. This active and authentic approach promotes deeper learning and fosters student agency in their exploration of history.

Read on to learn more about the curriculum, including tips and information not published at the website, which have been emphasized in bold italics throughout this post.

Peterson introducing Iowa and South Dakota educators to the curriculum’s timeline assignment at CWRGM’s 2024 Educator Institute

Value & Overview

This curriculum addresses the need to not only convey historical content but also help students develop meaningful research, writing, and critical thinking skills. Consequently, it is appropriate for social studies and civics/government classrooms.

Designed with teachers and students in mind, it:

  • places students in historically and contemporarily grounded scenarios that encourage them to grapple with the same constraints and decisions faced by historical actors;
  • follows the thread of emancipation during the Civil War and Reconstruction to help them study change over time and better analyze historical context;
  • strengthens their skills in analyzing tertiary, secondary, and primary sources in relationship with one another;
  • helps students navigate multiple — often competing — perspectives, including those of enslaved people, women, veterans, civilians, and government officials; and
  • sharpens their synthesis and writing skills by helping students make and revise claims while also learning to develop accessible, digital museum exhibits in an authentic manner.

Rooted in Authentic Tasks: Final Project Preview:

Snippet of the Final Project Prompt: You are a historian who works for the Smithsonian Institution. They just received a large collection of primary resources about the Civil War and Reconstruction from the Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi project. They would like you to curate a digital exhibit appropriate for one of their four museums’ websites: the National Museum of American History, the National Museum of African American History, the National Museum of American Women’s History, or the National Museum of the American Indian. They left the exhibit’s topic up to you, so long as it is appropriate to that museum’s mission and your exhibit will 1) create hype for the new collection and 2) provide historical knowledge to individuals who can’t travel to one of their museums.

Outline & Length:

The curriculum is designed to be spaced out over six weeks, though the exact pacing can be adjusted to fit your classroom and students’ needs. The daily lesson plans are written to cover Mondays–Fridays, and will need to be adjusted if you begin on another day besides Monday or have any shortened class periods or vacation days.

While six weeks may seem like a significant amount of time to spend on the Civil War and Reconstruction, the primary goal is to help students develop their historical inquiry and research skills while using content from this era as a vehicle for that learning. Also, please note that the curriculum does not aim to provide comprehensive coverage of the Civil War and Reconstruction (an impossible task); instead, it centers on exploring the theme of wartime and postwar emancipation, while developing research and communication skills:

  • Week 1: Introducing Historical Research and the Importance of Inquiry
  • Week 2: Beginning the Research Process
  • Week 3: Historical Analysis
  • Week 4: Historical Analysis and Writing Interpretations
  • Week 5: Writing Interpretations and Argument Mapping
  • Week 6: Wrap-Up Final Projects

Due to the curriculum’s coverage of emancipation during the Civil War and Reconstruction — as well as the interplay between private citizens and their state and federal governments — the content is not only appropriate for social studies class but also civics and government classrooms. It would also be appropriate for those who teach Mississippi history, African American history, and military history.

Equitable Design

Resources for special education students and English language learners have been incorporated, including:

  • English and Spanish transcriptions at the CWRGM website and audio recordings of select primary source documents at YouTube; 
  • Simplified, reader-friendly English transcriptions of those same documents in Word files;
  • Spanish translations of select secondary sources in Word files; and 
  • Accommodated note-taking guides and lesson plans for additional learning tools in Word files.

Learning Standards

The curriculum includes daily lesson plans that fulfill the following standards, but with editable files, any state’s learning objectives can be substituted.

  • C3 Framework Standards
  • Iowa’s learning standards in content, inquiry, literacy, and 21st century skills

Getting Started

Accessing the Curriculum:

Navigate to CWRGM’s Educator resources and begin by downloading the zipped Emancipation Curriculum file. Unzip and save a version of the files locally. The files are designed to work in Microsoft Word, but can be adapted to other formats, such as Google Drive.

Note:

  • When downloading the zipped files on a PC, users will receive a default security warning when they click on hyperlinks.
  • Hyperlinks will not work while the file is still zipped or if it is opened in Apple Pages.
  • When opening hyperlinks in Word on a Mac for the first time, users will need to grant file access. To do so: click “Select…” and then “Grant Access” in the second window.
  • If you download the files and then upload them to a cloud enivroment, you will need to manually update all of the links directed to other curriculum files (not the web links, however).

Exploring the Curriculum:

Look through the files to familiarize yourself with the curriculum and it’s structure before making edits. Beging with the (1) Getting Started file, which contains a unit-level overview featuring the curriculum’s Stage 1 Desired Results, Stage 2 Assessment Evidence, and Stage 3 Learning Plan, as well as a slide deck overviewing the unit. You can also use this slide deck to introduce students to the unit.

Weeks 1-6

The Weeks 1–6 Folders contain:

  • Daily Lesson Plans (6) for five days each, for six weeks total with learning standards and objectives, materials, bellringers, teacher-directed lessons, guided practice, independent work, closings, differentiation and accommodations, and assessments.
  • Student Note Taking Guides (6) covering the daily objectives, built-in frameworks for note taking, and assignment instructions and rubrics for the week.
  • Weekly Slides containing pre-made slide decks with presentation notes covering historical content for teachers are embedded in the Presentation Notes section throughout (Note: unlike all other materials, they are not hyperlinked in the daily lesson plans).
  • Activity Materials include copies of assignment instructions and rubrics, additional simplified English transcriptions of primary sources, and activity handouts.
  • Accommodated Materials features accommodated note-taking guides for students (Week 1–4) and sentence frames for those who need additional structure and other templates.
  • Back-up PDF copies of the Guelzo and Foner articles are found in the Secondary Readings folder.

Final Project Materials

The Final Project Materials folder contains:

  • The Guidelines and Rubric, which details the final project task for students and how they will be evaluated.
  • The Final Project Packet, which includes templates of all project activities for students to complete, instructions, and resources.
  • The Final Project Packet (Accommodated), which is is a copy of the above Final Project Packet, but also pre-includes a bank of research topics, research questions, and tertiary and secondary sources.

Learning Tools Mini-Lessons

The Learning Tools Mini-Lessons folder includes lesson plans and handouts for the following accommodation tools:

  • Natural Reader: Free online tool to convert spoken words into computer text
  • PaperRater: Free online tool for providing students with feedback and suggestions for revision
  • Rewordify: Free online tool that changes the reading level/text complexity
  • ScreenPal: Free online screen and camera recorder
  • Speech-To-Text on Google Docs: Instructions for converting spoken words to text in a Google Doc
  • YourDictionary: Free online, student-friendly dictionary

Using the Curriculum:

Frequently Asked Questions:

  • Can I use the curriculum in Google Drive or another cloud-based platform? These files have been provided in Word format. You can upload them to a Google Drive instead, but if you do, you will need to update all of the internal hyperlinks (those attached to other documents in the curriculum, not webpages).
  • Which files should I share with the students? Students should receive copies of the Weekly Note-Taking Guides (6 templates total) and the Final Project Packets (1 template total) and save a version locally. Do not share any additional “Materials” files with the students, as copies of the assignment templates, guidelines, and rubrics are already pasted into their guides/packets.
  • Will students need to access any of the other files not mentioned above? Students have almost everything they need in their Weekly Note-Taking Guides or the Final Project Packets, with a few exceptions. The following exceptions can be found linked in the Daily Lesson Plans and teachers should share them with students at the appropriate time and in whatever format (print, virtual, projected) that they prefer:
    • Materials/Handouts:
      • Why Study History Activity Cards (Week 1)
      • Abraham Lincoln in Historical Context (Week 1)
    • Handout Assignment Instructions:
      • CWRGM Scavenger Hunt (Week 1)
      • Clinton Activity (Week 3)
  • If students already have access to the assignment instructions, frameworks, and rubrics, why are there additional copies of these files in the Daily Lesson Plans? The Weekly Note-Taking Guides and Final Project Packets are meant to be resources and templates for students to work directly in: taking notes and completing in-class and out-of-class assignments. However, back-up, stand alone copies of all materials have been provided and linked in the Daily Lesson Plans so that teachers have editible copies. Notes:
    • In fact, most items found in the Daily Lesson Plan’s “Materials” section are for teacher use and should not be provided to students.
    • If you make changes to these files, however, you will also need to reflect those changes in the students’ Weekly Note Taking Guides and/or Final Project Packets.
    • We strongly suggest that educators explore all of the materials and how they are structured from the perspectives of the students and educators before editing anything.
  • What is the best way for me to monitor student progress? Whatever platform (Word or Google, etc.) you choose, it may be beneficial to have students upload their individual, locally-saved copies of their Note Taking Guides and Final Project Packets to their Google Drives (etc.) and share the links with you in a master file to help track student progress.
    • Note: Make sure students add their names to the documents and file names before sharing them with you.

National History Day (NHD) Integration

While this curriculum can be taught as a stand-alone unit, it can also be used to integrate NHD into the classroom for the entire class or for those select students who would like to participate in the program as individuals or groups. The steps built into the curriculum reflect most of NHD’s website category requirements. When completed, students will have curated a website that complies with NHD’s website category, excepting the process paper and word count requirements. Learn more about participating in National History Day and the Website category here. Note: those who want to create a website for NHD, should use NHDWebCentral instead of Weebly to create their websites; resources for accessing NHD WebCentral have been included throughout.

Credit & Sponsors

Curriculum designed by historian Lindsey R. Peterson, Ph.D. and master educator, Stephanie Puhrmann. Spanish language transcriptions provided by Frida Ramirez.

Curriculum development was sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Historical Publications and Records Commission, and Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Consortium.