Lesson Plans
Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer
Pair the picture book, Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, with primary sources to deepen student understanding of Jim Crow laws and the struggle for civil rights, in general, and voting rights, in particular. After, students can investigate current voting laws in their state.
Science & the Suffragettes
Students evaluate historical claims and the evidence to support them and consider their applicability to today.
Election Day
Students explore, compare, and contrast historical and contemporary reflections about elections in America.
Selma & Voting Rights: Standing Up for Equality
Through inquiry into primary sources, students discover a story of citizens shaping and sustaining our democracy through civic action and will contemplate the import and impact of citizens who strive for equality. This lesson may be used prior to reading a fictional work or poem related to the civil rights movement or in conjunction with a close reading of Lyndon B. Johnson’s March 15, 1965 voting rights address to Congress (in whole or in part).
Gerrymandering: Voting by Numbers
Students learn about the application of ratios and proportions to the real political issue of gerrymandering. In Part I, students conduct a primary-source analysis of the original 1812 political cartoon about Elbridge Gerry’s redistricting in Massachusetts to build background knowledge. In Part II, students analyze a historical map of Massachusetts’s gerrymandered voting districts in 1812 and compare it to the political cartoon to discuss issues of fairness. In Part III, students solve a hypothetical problem about fair representation on a student council, using their knowledge and understanding of gerrymandering and ratios. Finally, students role-play state legislators in a hypothetical state to solve problems of representation, including gerrymandering.
Electoral College: Are All Votes Equal?
Students examine the process of voting and the Electoral College. Applying mathematical percentages, students experience how population and voting impact elections in this country and consider if everyone’s vote matters. Then students consider the use of the Electoral College and how it aligns with the popular vote.
Voting: Rights and Responsibilities
In this three-part lesson students use primary sources to explore voting rights in the United States. In Part I, students analyze two sets of documents to gain a deeper understanding of how suffrage has been both expanded and suppressed, developing claims about how voting rights impact equality. In Part II, students further analyze one of the documents from Day One before taking on the role of a congressional committee charged with amending (or not) the Voting Rights Act to require compulsory voting. In Part III, students write their answer to the Essential Question, informed by class discussion and primary source analysis.
Does Every Vote Count?
Students analyze primary sources to examine examples of voting, then discuss who votes and how ballots have changed to make voting equitable for all eligible voters.
The Impact of Voting
Students analyze primary sources to review their own understandings of voting rights in the United States, learn how voting rights have changed over time, and gain a better understanding of how the right to vote has impacted equality. After, students use their learning to create a teen voting information campaign.
- « Previous
- 1
- 2