US History · Week 1 · Founding Ideals, Faith, and Reconstruction
Becoming a Citizen Historian
Students explore the Enlightenment ideas behind the nation's founding and name the questions about belonging and fairness they bring to the American story.
- Students will
- Students describe how Enlightenment ideas about natural rights and consent shaped the founding and use questions about individuals and groups to judge whose stories belong in the American story.
- SEL skill
- Name the question about belonging that you bring to a story from american history
- What it looks like
- Students recognize the questions about belonging and fairness they bring to American history and name the feelings that come with them.
- Content focus
- Becoming a citizen historian
- Format
- Think write pair share
Self-awareness
Self-awareness means recognizing your own emotions, thoughts, values, and strengths and how they influence what you do. More self-awareness activities
What you get
A teacher guide with what to say, step by step, plus student pages and a supports page for students with diverse learning needs, including those with IEPs. Print or Project it, or assign it in Google Forms and Google Docs for Google Classroom. Your first 10 activities are free.
Standards
- 11.1.1: CA History Social Science Content Standard, Grade 11: United States History and Geography: Continuity and Change in the Twentieth Century (standard 11.1, item 1)
- CA HSS Analysis Skill: HI3 Interpret past events in the context in which they unfolded rather than solely by present day norms and values. (Historical Interpretation)
- C3 Framework (national): D2.His.3.9-12 Use questions about individuals and groups to assess how the significance of their actions changes over time and is shaped by context.
- Literacy in history: WHST.11-12.2 Write informative and explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events.
Fits these textbook chapters
- American History: Reconstruction to the Present, Module 1: American Beginnings (Prologue)
- History Alive! Pursuing American Ideals, Chapter 1: What Is History?
- History Alive! Pursuing American Ideals, Chapter 2: Defining and Debating America's Founding Ideals
Textbook names are used only to help you find activities that fit what you teach. RoseThread Connect is not affiliated with these publishers.
More self-awareness activities for US History
- Americanization and Identity Self-awarenessStudents examine the Americanization movement's pressure on immigrants to give up language and customs and reflect on the parts of their own identity they carry proudly.
- Social Darwinism or Social Gospel Self-awarenessStudents compare Social Darwinism and the Social Gospel as explanations for poverty and success and examine their own beliefs about why some people struggle.
- Fear and Civil Liberties Self-awarenessStudents analyze the Palmer Raids, the Ku Klux Klan, and immigration quotas alongside the responses of the ACLU, NAACP, and Anti Defamation League and learn to recognize fear driven thinking in themselves.
- Harlem Renaissance Voices Self-awarenessStudents read poems by Langston Hughes and work by Zora Neale Hurston and use writing to express an emotion and an identity of their own.
Next: Unalienable Rights, Unfinished Promises
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.