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Free Teacher Discussion Guides

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Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Spice, Magic, Slavery, Freedom, and Science

Witch-Hunt: Mysteries of the Salem Witch Trials

This teaching guide is designed to enhance students’ mastery of key content and skills in social studies, language arts, and other disciplines through examination of the Salem Witch Trials. It is intended to be used in conjunction with Witch-Hunt: Mysteries of the Salem Witch Trials by Sibert Award-winning author Marc Aronson, along with other materials. The lessons will compliment curriculum in the social studies, particularly early colonial American history and McCarthyism, but also language arts, focusing on Arthur Miller’s portrait of the psychology of witch-hunts, The Crucible. Each lesson is designed with multiple objectives in mind, to make the most efficient use of teacher’s time.

  • The teaching guide consists of six lesson plans drawn from topics investigated in Witch-Hunt. It is organized around six guiding questions:
  • What was the world-view of the accusers and their contemporaries?
  • What was the relationship between individuals and authority in Puritan society?
  • Why did the accusers do it?
  • What is moral courage and what forms did it take during the Salem Witch Trials? (This activity may be used in conjunction with the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library Foundation Profiles in Courage high school essay contest.)
  • How were good, evil, and witchcraft understood by the accusers and their contemporaries?
  • How does the historian’s work differ from the dramatist’s work in writing about the Salem Witch Trials?

Witch-Hunt: Mysteries of the Salem Witch Trials
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John Winthrop, Oliver Cromwell, and the Land of Promise

This study guide is designed to enhance students’ mastery of key content and skills in social studies, language arts, and other disciplines through examination of the Puritans and their legacy. It is intended to be used in conjunction with John Winthrop, Oliver Cromwell, and the Land of Promise by Sibert Award-winning author Marc Aronson, along with other materials. The lessons will compliment curriculum in the social studies, particularly early colonial Anglo-American history (including key figures in the history of religious toleration, Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams) and the rise of representative institutions. Each lesson is designed with multiple objectives in mind, to make the most efficient use of teachers’ time. The guide consists of four lesson plans drawn from topics investigated in John Winthrop, Oliver Cromwell, and the Land of Promise:

  • America, Land of Promise
  • Anne Hutchinson’s Trial: Conscience in Conflict
  • Roger Williams and John Winthrop
  • Democracy’s Debate: From Rex is Lex to the Levellers

John Winthrop, Oliver Cromwell, and the Land of Promise
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The Real Revolution – AP and IB Programs

This study guide is designed to enhance students’ mastery of key content and skills in U.S. and World History, geography, economics and other disciplines through examination of the people, ideas, and trade networks that created the American Revolution. It is intended to be used in conjunction with The Real Revolution: The Global Story of American Independence by Sibert Award-winning author Marc Aronson, along with other materials. The lessons will complement curriculum in the social studies, particularly colonial and pre-Revolutionary U.S. history, mercantilism and colonialism in world history, boom-bust economic cycles and the origins of representative institutions. Each lesson is designed with multiple objectives in mind, to make the most efficient use of teachers’ time.

The Real Revolution
Free Teaching Guide Downloads – McREL Standards:

Race: A History Beyond Black and White – McREL Standards

No greater challenge exists for people today than combating racism, yet nothing is more challenging to teach. Sibert Award winner Marc Aronson wrote Race and is providing this study guide with historic source materials so that teachers and students may examine the history of race and racism in an educationally sound but sensitive manner. Because school system guidelines along with the comfort level of teachers and students vary tremendously, the historic sources are wide-ranging and the accompanying lessons are filled with options and choices. The lessons are an invitation to learn about a complex, often controversial issue, but one whose consequences are too far-reaching to ignore.

Synopsis

People have always been aware of differences in physical appearance, religion, and language. However, the idea that human beings belong to biologically distinct races emerged quite recently in world history, in the 1700s. This lesson is intended to help students begin to think about how we categorize and organize people in the world around us. Students will focus on the familiar, schools and textbooks, as they learn about Jane Elliott’s “blue eyes-brown eyes” experiment and survey their own textbooks. The lesson is designed for grades 9-12, although it may be readily adapted by middle school teams, grades 6-8.

Race: A History Beyond Black and White
Free Teaching Guide Downloads – McREL Standards:

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