History · Grade 10

World History SEL activities

36 ready to use activities that teach World History content and build one Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) skill, about 20 minutes each.

Matched to textbook chapters: Modern World History, History Alive! World Connections.

Foundations and Democratic Revolutions

• Becoming a Historian Self-awareness · Week 1Students 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 · Week 2Students compare Plato and Aristotle on why tyranny is illegitimate and practice pausing strong feelings before deciding what is fair.
• Rights on Paper Social awareness · Week 3Students 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 · Week 4Students 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 · Week 5Students 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 · Week 6Students 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 · Week 7Students 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 · Week 8Students 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 · Week 9Students 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 · Week 10Students 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 · Week 11Students 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 · Week 12Students compare capitalism with the responses of utopians, social democrats, socialists, and communists and practice listening to an economic view they disagree with before responding.

Imperialism and Independence

• Why Empires Expanded Self-awareness · Week 13Students 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 · Week 14Students 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 · Week 15Students 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 · Week 16Students 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 · Week 17Students 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 · Week 18Students study how Gandhi and millions of Indians used nonviolent resistance to win independence and practice standing firm without harming others.

World War I and Its Aftermath

• How Nations Talked Themselves Into War Self-management · Week 19Students 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 · Week 20Students 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 · Week 21Students 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 · Week 22Students 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 · Week 23Students 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.
• Promises and Power in Russia Responsible decision-making · Week 24Students 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.

Totalitarianism and World War II

• Stalin and a Silenced Press Responsible decision-making · Week 25Students 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 · Week 26Students 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.
• Empires on the March Social awareness · Week 27Students 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 · Week 28Students 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 · Week 29Students 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 · Week 30Students 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.

The Cold War and the Contemporary World

• Building the United Nations Relationship skills · Week 31Students 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 · Week 32Students study how nuclear weapons and Cold War rivalry divided the world and practice calming strategies for facing big fears they cannot control.
• Voices Behind the Iron Curtain Self-management · Week 33Students follow uprisings in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland to the fall of the Soviet Union and reflect on how hope sustains people through long struggles.
• Mexico in the Modern World Social awareness · Week 34Students 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.
• A Connected Planet Responsible decision-making · Week 35Students trace how satellites, computers, and global trade connected the world and make a plan for using their own connections responsibly.
• Gratitude for the Story So Far Relationship skills · Week 36Students reflect on how people across centuries sought freedom and dignity and write a note of thanks to someone who carries history forward for them.

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.