On April 11, 1898, two months after the battleship U.S.S. Maine was destroyed by an explosion in Havana harbor, President McKinley sent a message to Congress requesting authority to use the U.S. armed forces to end a brutal civil war in the Spanish colony of Cuba. This lesson plan, through the use of elementary sources and a WebQuest Interactive, will focus on the causes of the war and the political debate in the United States over the advisability of intervening militarily in the affairs of countries.

The unwillingness of the Soviet Union to allow the creation of independent and democratic states in Eastern Europe, and the failure of East and West to reach a compromise on Germany, left many Americans puzzled. Why were the Soviets acting as they did? Moreover, how should the United States respond? This lesson will consider containment through the use of original documents, mostly from the Truman Presidential Library. They will study what it meant in theory, and then examine the first two major instances of its application"”the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan.

How was the role of "President" defined in the Articles of Confederation? What were the weaknesses in the Articles of Confederation regarding the role of the President?

This lesson examines the ways in which France challenged American sovereignty between 1796 and 1801.

The failure to restore royal authority in the northern colonies, along with the signing of an alliance between the American rebels and the French monarchy, led the British to try an entirely new strategy in the southern colonies. This lesson will examine military operations during the second, or southern, phase of the American Revolution.

This lesson prompts students to think about a poem's speaker within the larger context of modernist poetry. First, students will review the role of the speaker in two poems of the Romanticism period before focusing on the differences in Wallace Stevens' modernist"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.

Although it was the Japanese who attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, U.S. military planners decided that Germany, not Japan, was to be the elementary target of operations. This lesson plan will focus on the overall strategies pursued by the Americans and their British allies in the initial months of World War II in Europe.

What is the most compelling evidence explaining why the U.S. entered World War I? After completing the lessons in this unit, students will be able to: Take a stand on a hypothesis for U.S. entry into World War I, supported by specific evidence.

Over half of all English surnames used today are derived from the names of places where people lived. This type is known as a locative surname. For example, a man called John who lived near the marsh, might be known as John Marsh. John who lived in the dell was called John Dell. Other examples are John Brook, John Lake, and John Rivers.

Sometimes, people will fight to keep someone else from being treated poorly. Disagreement over slavery was central to the conflict between the North and the South. The nation was deeply divided.

Whether it be called the Civil War, the War between the States, the War of the Rebellion, or the War for Southern Independence, the events of the years 1861-1865 were the most traumatic in the nation's history. This lesson plan will introduce students to wartime politics.

The Civilian Conservation Corps, a New Deal recovery and relief program provided more than a quarter of a million young black men with jobs during the Depression. By examining elementary source documents students analyze the impact of this program on race relations in America and assess the role played by the New Deal in changing them.

This lesson examines the ways in which Great Britain and France countries challenged American neutrality during the Thomas Jefferson administration.

Another common type of medieval byname derived from how a man spent his time. Every farming village had a blacksmith to forge iron tools, a miller to grind wheat, a carpenter to craft furniture, and many other specialists.

As the delegates at the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 continued to develop a plan of government that would remedy the defects of the Articles of Confederation, one of the most difficult challenges was creating the office of the presidency. This lesson will focus on the arguments over the various characteristics and powers of the office of president as debated during the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

In this lesson, students closely examine Dickinson's poem "There's a certain slant of light" in order to understand her craft. Students explore different components of Dickinson's poetry and then practice their own critical and poetry writing skills in an emulation exercise. Finally, in the spirit of Dickinson's correspondences, students will exchange their poems and offer informed critiques of each others' work.

During the Revolutionary War there were several attempts made to end the fighting. In this lesson students will consider the various peace attempts made by both sides during the Revolutionary War.

In this lesson, students examine the use of multiple voices in narration while also exploring the use of symbolism.

In "The Sound and The Fury," Faulkner's presentation of time is unique and complex, as the Quentin chapter symbolically opens with a description of Quentin's watch, which was given to him by his father.

The rivalry between the Federalists and Republicans in the early days of the American Republic was bitter. What were the key positions of the parties? How important to the parties' positions were their basic attitudes toward constitutional interpretation (Federalists, broad interpretation / Democratic-Republicans, strict interpretation)? Which positions of either party resonate in the politics of today?