Inquiring Minds is a for profit innovative education company founded in 2014 in Brooklyn, New York. Inquiring Minds USA Inc is a certified woman owned business. We also have a separate nonprofit called Inquiring Minds Institute which is a 501 C3.
In this lesson, students will analyze the visual and literary visions of the New World that were created in England during the early phases of colonization, and the impact they had on the development of the patterns of colonization that dominated the early 17th century. This lesson will enable students to interact with written and visual accounts of this critical formative period at the end of the 16th century, when the English view of the New World was being formulated, with consequences that we are still seeing today.
Learning Objectives:Evaluate how John Smith's written and cartographic descriptions of Virginia shape the colony's development.Analyze visual and literary images and the role they played in the English colonization of Virginia.
EDSITEment offers free resources for teachers, students, and parents searching for high-quality K-12 humanities education materials in the subject areas of history and social studies, literature and language arts, foreign languages, arts, and culture. All websites linked to EDSITEment have been reviewed for content, design, and educational impact in the classroom.
We’re collecting New Deal Curricula for High School and College courses. Please contact us if you would like to contribute to our collection. We would like to help disseminate curricula and teaching aids across the country.
Learning Objective:Integrating New Deal History with Civic Engagement
Related Skills: Analyzing Texts, Images, or Videos, Historical Thinking Skills, Building Evidentiary Claims
Did the American Dream Come True for Immigrants Who Came to New York?
Grades 3–5:
Lesson Plan
Source: C3 Teachers
Did the American Dream Come True for Immigrants Who Came to New York?
Grades 3–5: Lesson Plan
This is a fourth grade resource that guides students through the diverse experiences of immigrants that traveled to New York in the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth century. Students will use primary sources to form an argument to answer the question: Did the American Dream come true for immigrants in New York?
C3 Teachers aims to support educators using the C3 Framework. The C3 inquiry arc outlines the social studies habits of mind, disciplinary tools and conceptual content that students need to prepare for college, careers, and most importantly, civic life. Educators use C3 Teachers and the accompanying pedagogical resources to guide inquiry-based classrooms.
Harriet Tubman: What do we really know about the conductor of the Underground Railroad?
Grades 3–8:
Lesson Plan
Source: New American History
Harriet Tubman: What do we really know about the conductor of the Underground Railroad?
Grades 3–8: Lesson Plan
This learning resource investigates Harriet Tubman's life and legacy through historical documents and media. Students will compare the history told in textbooks to the reality of Tubman's incredible resistance as an abolitionist.
New American History explores America’s past, harnessing the power of digital media, curiosity and inquiry. Its core projects include Bunk, a curated remix of contemporary online content, and American Panorama, an interactive digital atlas.
In this learning resource, students will engage with the different histories of Fort Monroe in Hampton Virginia. Students will interpret the multiple historical events that occurred at Fort Monroe, starting with the arrival of the first enslaved Africans to North America to its formation as a safe haven for enslaved people during the Civil War.
Learning Objectives:Historical Thinking SkillsBuilding Evidentiary ClaimsEngaging in Difficult Conversations
Related Skills: Understanding Diverse Perspectives
New American History explores America’s past, harnessing the power of digital media, curiosity and inquiry. Its core projects include Bunk, a curated remix of contemporary online content, and American Panorama, an interactive digital atlas.
The Fight for Women's Suffrage: Did the 19th Amendment achieve the goals of the women’s suffrage movement?
Grades K–8:
Lesson Plan
Source: New American History
The Fight for Women's Suffrage: Did the 19th Amendment achieve the goals of the women’s suffrage movement?
Grades K–8: Lesson Plan
In this learning resources, students will delve into the women's suffrage movement and use different historical accounts to understand the ratification of the 19th Amendment. Students will also consider which groups were left out of the suffrage movement and the importance of voting patterns today.
Learning Objectives:Media LiteracyHistorical Thinking SkillsUnderstanding Diverse Perspectives
New American History explores America’s past, harnessing the power of digital media, curiosity and inquiry. Its core projects include Bunk, a curated remix of contemporary online content, and American Panorama, an interactive digital atlas.
This learning resources focuses on the Polio vaccination in the 1940s and 1950s and the problems this epidemic posed to public health. Students will also compare this to the current global pandemic and the debates around the COVID-19 vaccine.
Related Skills: Analyzing Texts, Images, or Videos, Historical Thinking Skills, Taking Informed Action
New American History explores America’s past, harnessing the power of digital media, curiosity and inquiry. Its core projects include Bunk, a curated remix of contemporary online content, and American Panorama, an interactive digital atlas.
This unit looks at migration patterns in the United States in from the 18th century through the 20th century. Students will look at the interactions between Native people and European settlers in the cessions of Indigenous lands. They will also engage with the forced migration of enslaved people into the South.
Learning Objectives:Media LiteracyHistorical Thinking SkillsEngaging in Difficult Conversations
Related Skills: Understanding Diverse Perspectives, Taking Informed Action
New American History explores America’s past, harnessing the power of digital media, curiosity and inquiry. Its core projects include Bunk, a curated remix of contemporary online content, and American Panorama, an interactive digital atlas.
This learning resource looks at the impact of Japanese-American internment camps following the Pearl Harbor attacks. Students will engage with accounts from families impacted by these injustices and how past xenophobic actions manifest today with the rise of anti-Asian hate across the globe. Students will look at the location of these camps and the legacy these places still hold today.
Learning Objectives:Historical Thinking SkillsBuilding Evidentiary ClaimsEngaging in Difficult Conversations
Related Skills: Understanding Diverse Perspectives, Taking Informed Action
New American History explores America’s past, harnessing the power of digital media, curiosity and inquiry. Its core projects include Bunk, a curated remix of contemporary online content, and American Panorama, an interactive digital atlas.
Download the Educating for American Democracy Roadmap and Report Documents
Get the Roadmap and Report to unlock the work of over 300 leading scholars, educators, practitioners, and others who spent thousands of hours preparing this robust framework and guiding principles. The time is now to prioritize history and civics.
Your contact information will not be shared, and only used to send additional updates and materials from Educating for American Democracy, from which you can unsubscribe.
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We the People
This theme explores the idea of “the people” as a political concept–not just a group of people who share a landscape but a group of people who share political ideals and institutions.
This theme explores how social arrangements and conflicts have combined with political institutions to shape American life from the earliest colonial period to the present, investigates which moments of change have most defined the country, and builds understanding of how American political institutions and society changes.
This theme explores the contemporary terrain of civic participation and civic agency, investigating how historical narratives shape current political arguments, how values and information shape policy arguments, and how the American people continues to renew or remake itself in pursuit of fulfillment of the promise of constitutional democracy.
This theme explores the relationship between self-government and civic participation, drawing on the discipline of history to explore how citizens’ active engagement has mattered for American society and on the discipline of civics to explore the principles, values, habits, and skills that support productive engagement in a healthy, resilient constitutional democracy. This theme focuses attention on the overarching goal of engaging young people as civic participants and preparing them to assume that role successfully.
This theme begins from the recognition that American civic experience is tied to a particular place, and explores the history of how the United States has come to develop the physical and geographical shape it has, the complex experiences of harm and benefit which that history has delivered to different portions of the American population, and the civics questions of how political communities form in the first place, become connected to specific places, and develop membership rules. The theme also takes up the question of our contemporary responsibility to the natural world.
This theme explores the place of the U.S. and the American people in a global context, investigating key historical events in international affairs,and building understanding of the principles, values, and laws at stake in debates about America’s role in the world.
The Seven Themes provide the organizational framework for the Roadmap. They map out the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that students should be able to explore in order to be engaged in informed, authentic, and healthy civic participation. Importantly, they are neither standards nor curriculum, but rather a starting point for the design of standards, curricula, resources, and lessons.
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Driving questions provide a glimpse into the types of inquiries that teachers can write and develop in support of in-depth civic learning. Think of them as a starting point in your curricular design. Learn more about inquiry-based learning in the Pedagogy Companion.
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Sample guiding questions are designed to foster classroom discussion, and can be starting points for one or multiple lessons. It is important to note that the sample guiding questions provided in the Roadmap are NOT an exhaustive list of questions. There are many other great topics and questions that can be explored.
The Seven Themes provide the organizational framework for the Roadmap. They map out the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that students should be able to explore in order to be engaged in informed, authentic, and healthy civic participation. Importantly, they are neither standards nor curriculum, but rather a starting point for the design of standards, curricula, resources, and lessons.
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The Five Design Challenges
America’s constitutional politics are rife with tensions and complexities.Our Design Challenges, which are arranged alongside our Themes, identify and clarify the most significant tensions that writers of standards, curricula, texts, lessons, and assessments will grapple with. In proactively recognizing and acknowledging these challenges, educators will help students better understand the complicated issues that arise in American history and civics.
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Motivating Agency, Sustaining the Republic
How can we help students understand the full context for their roles as civic participants without creating paralysis or a sense of the insignificance of their own agency in relation to the magnitude of our society, the globe, and shared challenges?
How can we help students become engaged citizens who also sustain civil disagreement, civic friendship, and thus American constitutional democracy?
How can we help students pursue civic action that is authentic, responsible, and informed?
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America’s Plural Yet Shared Story
How can we integrate the perspectives of Americans from all different backgrounds when narrating a history of the U.S. and explicating the content of the philosophical foundations of American constitutional democracy?
How can we do so consistently across all historical periods and conceptual content?
How can this more plural and more complete story of our history and foundations also be a common story, the shared inheritance of all Americans?
How do we simultaneously teach the value and the danger of compromise for a free, diverse, and self-governing people?
How do we help students make sense of the paradox that Americans continuously disagree about the ideal shape of self-government but also agree to preserve shared institutions?
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Civic Honesty, Reflective Patriotism
How can we offer an account of U.S. constitutional democracy that is simultaneously honest about the wrongs of the past without falling into cynicism, and appreciative of the founding of the United States without tipping into adulation?
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Balancing the Concrete & the Abstract
How can we support instructors in helping students move between concrete, narrative, and chronological learning and thematic and abstract or conceptual learning?
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Each theme is supported by key concepts that map out the knowledge, skills, and dispositions students should be able to explore in order to be engaged in informed, authentic, and healthy civic participation. They are vertically spiraled and developed to apply to K—5 and 6—12. Importantly, they are not standards, but rather offer a vision for the integration of history and civics throughout grades K—12.
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Helping Students Participate
How can I learn to understand my role as a citizen even if I’m not old enough to take part in government? How can I get excited to solve challenges that seem too big to fix?
How can I learn how to work together with people whose opinions are different from my own?
How can I be inspired to want to take civic actions on my own?
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America’s Shared Story
How can I learn about the role of my culture and other cultures in American history?
How can I see that America’s story is shared by all?
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Thinking About Compromise
How can teachers teach the good and bad sides of compromise?
How can I make sense of Americans who believe in one government but disagree about what it should do?
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Honest Patriotism
How can I learn an honest story about America that admits failure and celebrates praise?
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Balancing Time & Theme
How can teachers help me connect historical events over time and themes?
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The Six Pedagogical Principles
EAD teacher draws on six pedagogical principles that are connected sequentially.
Six Core Pedagogical Principles are part of our Pedagogy Companion. The Pedagogical Principles are designed to focus educators’ effort on techniques that best support the learning and development of student agency required of history and civic education.
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This resource aligns with the core pedagogical principle of:
EAD teachers commit to learn about and teach full and multifaceted historical and civic narratives. They appreciate student diversity and assume all students’ capacity for learning complex and rigorous content. EAD teachers focus on inclusion and equity in both content and approach as they spiral instruction across grade bands, increasing complexity and depth about relevant history and contemporary issues.
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This resource aligns with the core pedagogical principle of:
Growth Mindset and Capacity Building
EAD teachers have a growth mindset for themselves and their students, meaning that they engage in continuous self-reflection and cultivate self-knowledge. They learn and adopt content as well as practices that help all learners of diverse backgrounds reach excellence. EAD teachers need continuous and rigorous professional development (PD) and access to professional learning communities (PLCs) that offer peer support and mentoring opportunities, especially about content, pedagogical approaches, and instruction-embedded assessments.
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This resource aligns with the core pedagogical principle of:
Building an EAD-Ready Classroom and School
EAD teachers cultivate and sustain a learning environment by partnering with administrators, students, and families to conduct deep inquiry about the multifaceted stories of American constitutional democracy. They set expectations that all students know they belong and contribute to the classroom community. Students establish ownership and responsibility for their learning through mutual respect and an inclusive culture that enables students to engage courageously in rigorous discussion.
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This resource aligns with the core pedagogical principle of:
Inquiry as the Primary Mode for Learning
EAD teachers not only use the EAD Roadmap inquiry prompts as entry points to teaching full and complex content, but also cultivate students’ capacity to develop their own deep and critical inquiries about American history, civic life, and their identities and communities. They embrace these rigorous inquiries as a way to advance students’ historical and civic knowledge, and to connect that knowledge to themselves and their communities. They also help students cultivate empathy across differences and inquisitiveness to ask difficult questions, which are core to historical understanding and constructive civic participation.
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This resource aligns with the core pedagogical principle of:
Practice of Constitutional Democracy and Student Agency
EAD teachers use their content knowledge and classroom leadership to model our constitutional principle of “We the People” through democratic practices and promoting civic responsibilities, civil rights, and civic friendship in their classrooms. EAD teachers deepen students’ grasp of content and concepts by creating student opportunities to engage with real-world events and problem-solving about issues in their communities by taking informed action to create a more perfect union.
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This resource aligns with the core pedagogical principle of:
Assess, Reflect, and Improve
EAD teachers use assessments as a tool to ensure all students understand civics content and concepts and apply civics skills and agency. Students have the opportunity to reflect on their learning and give feedback to their teachers in higher-order thinking exercises that enhance as well as measure learning. EAD teachers analyze and utilize feedback and assessment for self-reflection and improving instruction.
X
This resource aligns with the core pedagogical principle of:
EAD teachers commit to learn about and teach full and multifaceted historical and civic narratives. They appreciate student diversity and assume all students’ capacity for learning complex and rigorous content. EAD teachers focus on inclusion and equity in both content and approach as they spiral instruction across grade bands, increasing complexity and depth about relevant history and contemporary issues.
X
This resource aligns with the core pedagogical principle of:
Growth Mindset and Capacity Building
EAD teachers have a growth mindset for themselves and their students, meaning that they engage in continuous self-reflection and cultivate self-knowledge. They learn and adopt content as well as practices that help all learners of diverse backgrounds reach excellence. EAD teachers need continuous and rigorous professional development (PD) and access to professional learning communities (PLCs) that offer peer support and mentoring opportunities, especially about content, pedagogical approaches, and instruction-embedded assessments.
X
This resource aligns with the core pedagogical principle of:
Building an EAD-Ready Classroom and School
EAD teachers cultivate and sustain a learning environment by partnering with administrators, students, and families to conduct deep inquiry about the multifaceted stories of American constitutional democracy. They set expectations that all students know they belong and contribute to the classroom community. Students establish ownership and responsibility for their learning through mutual respect and an inclusive culture that enables students to engage courageously in rigorous discussion.
X
This resource aligns with the core pedagogical principle of:
Inquiry as the Primary Mode for Learning
EAD teachers not only use the EAD Roadmap inquiry prompts as entry points to teaching full and complex content, but also cultivate students’ capacity to develop their own deep and critical inquiries about American history, civic life, and their identities and communities. They embrace these rigorous inquiries as a way to advance students’ historical and civic knowledge, and to connect that knowledge to themselves and their communities. They also help students cultivate empathy across differences and inquisitiveness to ask difficult questions, which are core to historical understanding and constructive civic participation.
X
This resource aligns with the core pedagogical principle of:
Practice of Constitutional Democracy and Student Agency
EAD teachers use their content knowledge and classroom leadership to model our constitutional principle of “We the People” through democratic practices and promoting civic responsibilities, civil rights, and civic friendship in their classrooms. EAD teachers deepen students’ grasp of content and concepts by creating student opportunities to engage with real-world events and problem-solving about issues in their communities by taking informed action to create a more perfect union.
X
This resource aligns with the core pedagogical principle of:
Assess, Reflect, and Improve
EAD teachers use assessments as a tool to ensure all students understand civics content and concepts and apply civics skills and agency. Students have the opportunity to reflect on their learning and give feedback to their teachers in higher-order thinking exercises that enhance as well as measure learning. EAD teachers analyze and utilize feedback and assessment for self-reflection and improving instruction.
