History · World History

SEL activities for Modern World History

24 RoseThread Connect activities matched to the chapters of Modern World History (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). Each one teaches the chapter's content and builds one Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) skill in about 20 minutes.

We look only at each book's table of contents (chapter titles and topics) to suggest activities that fit the flow of your course. We don't use or reproduce any textbook content, and your edition's chapter order may differ slightly. RoseThread Connect is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by these publishers.

Absolute Monarchs in Europe

• When Revolutions Turn Self-management · World HistoryStudents follow France from constitutional monarchy through the Terror to Napoleon and practice noticing how fear and anger escalate in a group and how to steady themselves.

Enlightenment and Revolution

• Becoming a Historian Self-awareness · World HistoryStudents meet ancient thinkers in Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem who asked what a person owes others, then name the questions and curiosity they bring to history as young historians.
• Rule of Law, Not Rule of One Responsible decision-making · World HistoryStudents compare Plato and Aristotle on why tyranny is illegitimate and practice pausing strong feelings before deciding what is fair.
• Rights on Paper Social awareness · World HistoryStudents trace rights from the Magna Carta to the Bill of Rights and imagine how each document looked to people it included and people it left out.
• Ideas That Start Revolutions Self-awareness · World HistoryStudents connect the ideas of Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Jefferson, and Bolívar to the revolutions they inspired and name the beliefs that drive their own choices.
• When Revolutions Turn Self-management · World HistoryStudents follow France from constitutional monarchy through the Terror to Napoleon and practice noticing how fear and anger escalate in a group and how to steady themselves.
• Liberty Crosses the Atlantic Relationship skills · World HistoryStudents learn how Toussaint Louverture in Haiti and Simón Bolívar in South America adapted revolutionary ideas and practice listening to how others make shared ideas their own.

The French Revolution and Napoleon

• When Revolutions Turn Self-management · World HistoryStudents follow France from constitutional monarchy through the Terror to Napoleon and practice noticing how fear and anger escalate in a group and how to steady themselves.

Revolutions Sweep the West

• Becoming a Historian Self-awareness · World HistoryStudents meet ancient thinkers in Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem who asked what a person owes others, then name the questions and curiosity they bring to history as young historians.
• Rule of Law, Not Rule of One Responsible decision-making · World HistoryStudents compare Plato and Aristotle on why tyranny is illegitimate and practice pausing strong feelings before deciding what is fair.
• Rights on Paper Social awareness · World HistoryStudents trace rights from the Magna Carta to the Bill of Rights and imagine how each document looked to people it included and people it left out.
• Ideas That Start Revolutions Self-awareness · World HistoryStudents connect the ideas of Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Jefferson, and Bolívar to the revolutions they inspired and name the beliefs that drive their own choices.
• When Revolutions Turn Self-management · World HistoryStudents follow France from constitutional monarchy through the Terror to Napoleon and practice noticing how fear and anger escalate in a group and how to steady themselves.
• Liberty Crosses the Atlantic Relationship skills · World HistoryStudents learn how Toussaint Louverture in Haiti and Simón Bolívar in South America adapted revolutionary ideas and practice listening to how others make shared ideas their own.

The Industrial Revolution

• Why England First Responsible decision-making · World HistoryStudents map the coal, rivers, capital, and labor that let England industrialize first and take stock of the resources they bring to solving their own problems.
• From Farm to Factory Town Social awareness · World HistoryStudents study the move from villages to crowded industrial cities and consider what helps newcomers feel they belong in a new place.

An Age of Democracy and Progress

• Why England First Responsible decision-making · World HistoryStudents map the coal, rivers, capital, and labor that let England industrialize first and take stock of the resources they bring to solving their own problems.
• Machines That Changed Everything Self-management · World HistoryStudents examine how steam power and new inventions remade daily life at different speeds and practice strategies for coping when change feels too fast.
• From Farm to Factory Town Social awareness · World HistoryStudents study the move from villages to crowded industrial cities and consider what helps newcomers feel they belong in a new place.
• Children at Work Responsible decision-making · World HistoryStudents evaluate testimony from child factory workers given to the British Parliament in the 1830s and practice weighing a source's purpose while staying attuned to the people behind it.
• Workers Speak Together Relationship skills · World HistoryStudents learn how early unions organized for shorter hours and safer workplaces and practice voicing a shared need respectfully as a group.
• Capitalism and Its Critics Responsible decision-making · World HistoryStudents compare capitalism with the responses of utopians, social democrats, socialists, and communists and practice listening to an economic view they disagree with before responding.

The Age of Imperialism

• Two Sides of the Colonial Story Social awareness · World HistoryStudents compare accounts of imperialism written by colonizers and by colonized people and practice seeing an event through the eyes of someone with less power.
• Why Empires Expanded Self-awareness · World HistoryStudents analyze how markets, resources, national rivalry, and beliefs of superiority drove the new imperialism and examine assumptions about who is better than whom.
• Mapping Colonial Rule Self-awareness · World HistoryStudents study maps of Africa and Asia before and after colonial rule and name the feelings that arise when borders are drawn by outsiders.
• Resistance and Resilience Self-management · World HistoryStudents learn how colonized peoples resisted through armed revolt, diplomacy, and keeping language and faith alive and identify sources of their own resilience.

Modernization in Japan

• Why Empires Expanded Self-awareness · World HistoryStudents analyze how markets, resources, national rivalry, and beliefs of superiority drove the new imperialism and examine assumptions about who is better than whom.
• Mapping Colonial Rule Self-awareness · World HistoryStudents study maps of Africa and Asia before and after colonial rule and name the feelings that arise when borders are drawn by outsiders.
• Two Sides of the Colonial Story Social awareness · World HistoryStudents compare accounts of imperialism written by colonizers and by colonized people and practice seeing an event through the eyes of someone with less power.
• Resistance and Resilience Self-management · World HistoryStudents learn how colonized peoples resisted through armed revolt, diplomacy, and keeping language and faith alive and identify sources of their own resilience.
• Sun Yat-sen and a New China Self-management · World HistoryStudents examine how Sun Yat-sen built a movement to end imperial rule in China through years of setbacks and set a goal that keeps them going after a failure.
• Gandhi and Nonviolent Resistance Relationship skills · World HistoryStudents study how Gandhi and millions of Indians used nonviolent resistance to win independence and practice standing firm without harming others.

World War I

• Making Peace at Versailles Relationship skills · World HistoryStudents compare the Fourteen Points with the Treaty of Versailles and consider what makes a peace last or fail after serious harm.
• How Nations Talked Themselves Into War Self-management · World HistoryStudents analyze how alliances, nationalism, and propaganda mobilized whole populations for total war and practice pausing when group excitement pushes them toward conflict.
• A Lost Generation Makes Art Self-awareness · World HistoryStudents explore how writers and artists after the war expressed grief and disillusionment and use a quick sketch or poem to name a feeling of their own.

World War II

• The Holocaust and the Choice to Rescue Relationship skills · World HistoryStudents learn how Nazi racial policy became the Final Solution that murdered 6 million Jews and millions of others, and study rescuers and resisters to consider what it takes to be an upstander.

Cold War Conflicts

• Living Under the Nuclear Shadow Self-management · World HistoryStudents study how nuclear weapons and Cold War rivalry divided the world and practice calming strategies for facing big fears they cannot control.

Global Interdependence

• Building the United Nations Relationship skills · World HistoryStudents examine how the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights aimed to prevent another world war and set shared norms for working together.

RoseThread Connect activities are drafted with the help of AI and shaped by educators. Students never have to share anything personal. Our five SEL skills are informed by CASEL's SEL Framework; RoseThread Learning is not affiliated with or endorsed by CASEL.