American Memory Primary Sources

Six lessons for which instructional support and teaching steps are provided in the unit curriculum guide. Each lessons unfolds in four stages: Inquiry, Observation, Analysis, Synthesis. In this unit students explore for themselves the nature of national identity and its links to the past. They began by considering the meaning of national identity and how primary sources may reveal the role of past events in shaping it. In subsequent lessons students investigate the impact of significant episodes in United States history - the years from colonization to independence, the writing and adoption of the Constitution, the period of early national growth, and the Civil War. In the final project students conduct oral history interviews and create a time line as means of discerning for themselves ways that shared memories confer an American identity on a diverse citizenry and how that identity is continually refined by contemporary events.