Reading Like a Historian 2025 Classroom Materials

To complete all requirements for the Reading Like a Historian project, we ask that you teach 6-10 lessons and use 6-10 accompanying assessments.

Please select at least one lesson and use the accompanying assessment from each of the following categories:

Category 1: Introductory lesson

Senior Prank
- Accompanying assessment: Senior Prank, Lee's Testimony, Boston Massacre, Italian Atrocities, WWI Advertising, Migrant Mother, Lewis Hine, Watergate Testimony, Paris Exposition, or Life in California (available soon)
Frances Rollin Whipper and Reconstruction
- Accompanying digital literacy assessment: Evaluating Wikipedia - Frederick Douglass, Evaluating Wikipedia - George W. Bush, Evaluating Wikipedia - George Washington, or Evaluating Wikipedia - Statue of Liberty
Who Was Biddy Mason?
- Accompanying digital literacy assessment: Evaluating Wikipedia - Frederick Douglass, Evaluating Wikipedia - George W. Bush, Evaluating Wikipedia - George Washington, or Evaluating Wikipedia - Statue of Liberty
Evaluating Historical Sources with accompanying assessment (available soon)
Intro to Historical Thinking Skills with accompanying assessment (available soon)

Category 2: Modeling lesson

Battle of Lexington
- Accompanying assessment: The First Thanksgiving, Signing of the Mayflower Compact, Washington Crosses the Delaware, Declaration of Independence, Pickett's Charge, or John Brown.
Reconstruction Massacre
- Accompanying assessment: Colfax Massacre
Battle of Little Bighorn
- Accompanying assessment: Boston Massacre, World War I Advertising, Migrant Mother, Lewis Hine, Paris Exposition, or Watergate Testimony
Great Railroad Strike of 1877
- Accompanying assessment: Albert Parsons Autobiography
Homestead Strike
- Accompanying assessment: Boston Massacre, World War I Advertising, Migrant Mother, Lewis Hine, Paris Exposition, or Watergate Testimony
Progressive Era modeling lesson and accompanying assessment (available soon)
WWI-Era modeling lesson and accompanying assessment (available soon)

Category 3: Civic Online Reasoning lesson

Intro to Lateral Reading with Reconstruction Sources
- Accompanying assessment: Reconstruction Source Evaluation
How to Evaluate Online Sources
- Accompanying assessment: 1994 Source Evaluation
Porvenir Massacre of 1918
- Accompanying assessment: Reconstruction Source Evaluation

Category 4: Evaluating Historical Photos lesson

Historical Chinatown Photos
- Accompanying assessment: Chinatown Image
Civil War Photographs
- Accompanying assessment: Jacob Riis
Great Plains Homesteaders
- Accompanying assessment: Jacob Riis
Child Labor
- Accompanying assessment: Jacob Riis
Jacob Riis
- Accompanying assessment: Children Working in Mines
Edward Curtis
- Accompanying assessment: Children Working in Mines

Additionally, you may choose (but are not required) to teach one or more of our other new lessons:

Verifying Historical Claims on Social Media
Jim Crow Opening Up the Textbook
How to Verify Claims on Social Media (available soon)
World War I Videos (available soon)
Japanese Incarceration Resistance (available soon)
Second Red Scare and the Supreme Court
1974 Puerto Rican Riots