Have you ever stopped to think about the incredible risks the Founding Founders took when they rebelled against British authority? They were starting a war with the greatest military power of the time even though they did not have a mighty fighting force themselves. And they were fighting for a type of government that most people thought was impossible. In this video mini-course, Professor Sarah Burns of the Rochester Institute of Technology explains the historical and philosophical context of the American Revolution from the changing role of the British army in the colonies to Radical Whig theory.

This audio excerpt captures the beginning of Bayard Rustin's 1967 "Freedom Budget" speech, describing the social and economic impact of racism over time.

Interdisciplinary survey of people of African descent that draws on the overlapping approaches of history, literature, anthropology, legal studies, media studies, performance, linguistics, and creative writing. This course connects the experiences of African-Americans and of other American minorities, focusing on social, political, and cultural histories, and on linguistic patterns.

Interdisciplinary survey of people of African descent that draws on the overlapping approaches of history, literature, anthropology, legal studies, media studies, performance, linguistics, and creative writing. This course connects the experiences of African-Americans and of other American minorities, focusing on social, political, and cultural histories, and on linguistic patterns.

Not all people are born equal or free but there is an expectation of both when you are a citizen of the United States. Our struggles to earn the base level of representation are quickly forgotten as we look for another group to demonize. In my unit we will discover why George Washington was ahead of his time with his warning about "factions" and how their existence makes freedom and equality harder to bridge. As we trek through time highlighting issues such as the abolition of slavery, support for women's suffrage, and the challenges that face Asian and LGBTQIA communities my hope is that student understand the sacrifices made to be accepted and to earn the right to vote but more importantly the difficulty in being welcomed into American society.

The “Citizenship Complex” is the process by which groups gain full inclusion. To understand it, one must look to the intersection of law, citizenship and the Constitution. The unit aims to provide a more complex history of our nation, to tell a more earnest story of how the American identity became a mosaic of human struggle, and to offer a more robust and enlightening study of these issues so that as students recognize the power of citizenship they will take a more hopeful view of what our nation will look like in the future. By engaging in the sophisticated discussions of the past, identifying why some groups supported each other and scapegoated others, and learning about the importance of supporting efforts at inclusion, our students should become more informed, open-minded, and ready for the globalized world of the 21 st Century.

The unit will focus on four groups that have experienced the “Citizenship Complex”: African-American slaves, women, Asian immigrants, and the LGBTQIA community. By comparing these groups over time, we will really be able to unearth the cycles behind the Citizenship Complex and understand that American citizenship means at different times in our country’s history.

Democracy in Brief touches on topics such as rights and responsibilities of citizens, free and fair elections, the rule of law, the role of a written constitution, separation of powers, a free media, the role of parties and interest groups, military-civilian relations and democratic culture.

Does Democracy Matter in My Life?- Own It! Handbook is the guide book for a transformative after-school, trauma-informed enrichment program. It provides five  lessons & activities about essential elements of American democracy since the 1780s. Own It! also nurtures academic skills, personal growth and leadership. It uses history to connect our past to our future, as part of the Own Your History® (OYH) Collection. But Own It! is not “school” and it differs from traditional approaches to history.  Own It! helps students learn more about themselves, as well as their community and the country. Own It! enhances students’ engagement in being creative, making things happen, and  achieving goals. Its mission is to help them step up and enrich their lives, especially by understanding that they live in history. 

The 12th grade learning experience consists of 7 mostly month-long units aligned to the Common Core State Standards, with available course material for teachers and students easily accessible online. Over the course of the year there is a steady progression in text complexity levels, sophistication of writing tasks, speaking and listening activities, and increased opportunities for independent and collaborative work. Rubrics and student models accompany many writing assignments.Throughout the 12th grade year, in addition to the Common Read texts that the whole class reads together, students each select an Independent Reading book and engage with peers in group Book Talks. Language study is embedded in every 12th grade unit as students use annotation to closely review aspects of each text. Teacher resources provide additional materials to support each unit.

Who decides who among us is civilized? What rules should govern immigration into the United States? Whom should we let in? Keep out? What should we do about political refugees or children without papers? What if they would be a drain on our economy?

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Students read William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest and write a short argument about who in the play is truly civilized.
Students participate in a mock trial in which they argue for or against granting asylum to a teenage refugee, and then they write arguments in favor of granting asylum to one refugee and against granting it to another.
Students read an Independent Reading text and write an informational essay about a global issue and how that relates to their book.

GUIDING QUESTIONS

These questions are a guide to stimulate thinking, discussion, and writing on the themes and ideas in the unit. For complete and thoughtful answers and for meaningful discussions, students must use evidence based on careful reading of the texts.

What role do national identity, custom, religion, and other locally held beliefs play in a world increasingly characterized by globalization?
How does Shakespeare’s view of human rights compare with that in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
Who is civilized? Who decides what civilization is or how it’s defined?
How do we behave toward and acknowledge those whose culture is different from our own?

In this lesson, students will write about and discuss this question: Who is enslaved in The Tempest? They’ll read, annotate, write about, and discuss act 5. Then students will take on the persona of one of the characters and explain their actions.

Drawing on the author's four decades of experience as a concert oboist, this open access book studies a number of foundational issues in the philosophy of music, such as musical meaning and expression, musical ontology and the existence of the musical work, the relation between music and language, and the phenomenology of music. The book surveys the development of Western classical music from the Baroque era through to the 20th century, both from the perspective of contemporary Lithuanian philosophers such as Girnius, Maceina, Šliogeris, and Jackūnas, and 20th century European philosophy. In addition to discussing key questions in the philosophy of music, the book also analyses technical musical terms such as articulation, phrasing, and rhythm.

This collection uses primary sources to compare and explore the relationships between Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

Freedom for some meant slavery for others. The cruel irony of this nation’s founding and its “Temple of Liberty”—the U.S. Capitol—is that both were made possible by the enslavement of African Americans.

The labor of enslaved and free blacks helped build the Capitol. An enslaved African American man helped to cast the Statue of Freedom, which was placed atop the Dome during the Civil War.

Since the end of the Civil War, African Americans have struggled to move out of the shadows and into the Temple of Liberty as full participants.

This the online version of a traveling exhibit by the U.S. Capitol Historical Society that depicts the journey of African Americans from slavery to freedom and political representation in the U.S. Capitol. The exhibit opened February 2006 in Baltimore, Maryland at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture.

Students play a game of “Simon Says” as an example of having and following rules, followed by free dance/movement time to experience freedom of movement without rules. Students will participate in whole group discussion to analyze what freedom means and how people have a responsibility to exercise their freedom with the needs and safety of others in mind. Students will then draw a picture of either “freedom” or “responsibility,” and share their drawings with another student in class.

Through learning about the lives of an abolitionist and a suffragist from Oregon’s history, students will identify ways that real people fought for their rights and ways that people fight against injustice every day, highlighting that in every place and time, people have fought for their rights and freedom. 

The “Own It!” Handbook for Adults & Teens is a step-by-step guide to a fourteen topic after-school program, such as a Boys & Girls Club, or an adult Community Building group. For adults, it seeks to bridge divides and  explore what Americans have in common. For teens, it is a transformative after-school, trauma-informed enrichment program. It nurtures academic skills, personal growth and leadership. For all, it uses history to connect our past to our future, as part of the Own Your History® (OYH) Collection. Our inheritances from family history and the American experience provide the starting point for our personal journeys.  Our individual stories are part of a complex American history. We each can choose consciously to write our life story and work for a greater future. Own It! is not “school” but enhances students’ engagement in being creative, making things happen, and  achieving goals. Its mission is to help them step up and enrich their lives, especially by understanding that they live in history.

This course explores fundamental questions about the causes and nature of revolutions by looking at how people overthrow their rulers and establish new governments. Considers a set of major political transformations throughout the world and across centuries to understand the meaning of revolution and evaluate its impact. Examines how revolutionaries have attempted to establish their ideals and realize their goals. Asks whether radical upheavals require bloodshed, violence, or even terror. Seeks to explain why some revolutions succeed and others fail. Materials include the writings of revolutionaries, declarations and constitutions, music, films, art, novels, memoirs, and newspapers.

Students will read General Order #3, the order that notified enslaved people in Texas that the Civil War had ended and they were to be emancipated. They will then analyze a primary source broadside from the Virginia Museum of History and Culture related to the earliest celebrations of Juneteenth. They will then be asked to write a letter to a member of their division’s central office regarding the celebration of Juneteenth.

 The Declaration of Independence and the words “all men are created equal” provided thousands of enslaved Africans high expectations and many were ready to fight for the Country and their own personal freedom. Thousands of enslaved Africans impacted the war right from the start at Lexington and Concord, all the way to the end at Yorktown. This lesson will explore the life of James Armistead Lafayette, an enslaved African Virginian. Working as an undercover spy for George Washington, James risked his life to gather key intelligence about the British that helped secure an American victory at Yorktown. In this lesson, we will discuss whether his efforts in service of the American cause helped or hindered his ability to achieve emancipation. 

This course explores the history of the ideal of personal freedom with an eye towards contemporary debates over the pros and cons of the regulatory state. The first part of the course surveys the sociological and theological sources of the concepts of freedom and civil society, and introduces liberty’s leading relatives or competitors: property, equality, community, and republicanism. The second part consists of a series of case studies in the rise of modern liberty and libertarianism: the abolition of slavery, the struggle for religious freedom, and the twentieth-century American civil liberties movement. In the last part of the course, we take up debates over the role of libertarianism vs. the regulatory state in a variety of contexts: counter-terrorism, health care, the financial markets, and the Internet.