History · World History

SEL activities for History Alive! World Connections

34 RoseThread Connect activities matched to the chapters of History Alive! World Connections (TCI). 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.

Lesson 1: Themes of World History

• 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.

Lesson 12: Transformations in Europe

• 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.

Lesson 14: Era Overview: An Age of Global Revolutions, 1700s to 1914

• 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.
• 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.

Lesson 15: Political Revolutions and Their Legacies

• 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.

Lesson 16: 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.
• 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.

Lesson 17: Imperialism Throughout the World

• 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.

Lesson 18: Era Overview: Global Crisis and Achievement, 1900 to 1945

• 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.
• Why People Followed Dictators Self-awareness · World HistoryStudents analyze how disillusionment, economic despair, and fear opened the door to fascist and communist dictators and name how their own need to belong can be used by others.
• Counting the Human Cost Self-awareness · World HistoryStudents trace the war's turning points and the staggering civilian and military losses across many nations and take a quiet moment to honor the people behind the numbers.

Lesson 19: World War I

• 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.
• Letters From the Trenches Social awareness · World HistoryStudents read letters from soldiers on many sides, including colonial troops, and practice attuning to the feelings beneath another person's words.
• Remembering the Armenian Genocide Social awareness · World HistoryStudents learn about the Ottoman government's genocide against Armenian citizens through survivor testimony and practice bearing witness with respect for the people who suffered.
• 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.
• 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.

Lesson 20: The Russian Revolution

• Promises and Power in Russia Responsible decision-making · World HistoryStudents examine why Russians welcomed promises of peace, land, and bread and how Lenin used totalitarian means to keep control, then weigh promises against actions in their own decisions.
• Stalin and a Silenced Press Responsible decision-making · World HistoryStudents learn how Stalin's control of the press hid the Terror Famine in Ukraine and practice checking whether information is honest before they share it.

Lesson 21: Foreign Influences and Revolutions in the Americas

• 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.
• Mexico in the Modern World Social awareness · World HistoryStudents explore Mexico's recent history, resources, and ties to California and the Coachella Valley and describe cross border connections they notice in the community, such as food, music, work, or travel.

Lesson 22: North Africa and the Middle East

• 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.

Lesson 23: The Rise of Fascism and Totalitarian States

• Stalin and a Silenced Press Responsible decision-making · World HistoryStudents learn how Stalin's control of the press hid the Terror Famine in Ukraine and practice checking whether information is honest before they share it.
• Why People Followed Dictators Self-awareness · World HistoryStudents analyze how disillusionment, economic despair, and fear opened the door to fascist and communist dictators and name how their own need to belong can be used by others.

Lesson 24: World War II

• Empires on the March Social awareness · World HistoryStudents map the drives for empire by Germany, Italy, and Japan in the 1930s, including atrocities against civilians in Nanjing, and honor the dignity of those who suffered.
• The Cost of Looking Away Responsible decision-making · World HistoryStudents weigh the reasons leaders gave for appeasement and isolationism and practice making a hard choice when avoiding conflict feels easier.
• 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.
• Counting the Human Cost Self-awareness · World HistoryStudents trace the war's turning points and the staggering civilian and military losses across many nations and take a quiet moment to honor the people behind the numbers.

Lesson 25: Forces for Independence and Revolution in Asia

• 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.

Lesson 26: Era Overview: The Cold War and Beyond, 1945 to Present

• 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.
• 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.
• A Connected Planet Responsible decision-making · World HistoryStudents trace how satellites, computers, and global trade connected the world and make a plan for using their own connections responsibly.

Lesson 27: The Cold War and the Third World

• 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.

Lesson 28: Movements Toward Independence and Democracy

• Voices Behind the Iron Curtain Self-management · World HistoryStudents follow uprisings in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland to the fall of the Soviet Union and reflect on how hope sustains people through long struggles.

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.