Research Guides: Special Collections Resources for Teachers: Lesson Plan Repository

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Call for Contributions

Are you a pre-service teacher who has used our primary sources in your coursework? Are you an Arkansas K-12 teacher who has used our digital collections in your classroom?

We hope you'll consider contributing your lesson plans to our Lesson Plan Repository! Through your contributions, our goal is to create a repository of lesson plans that other teachers across the state can access to use as inspiration for their own teaching with primary sources. Please follow the template linked below if you are considering contributing to the repository.

If you are interested in contributing to the repository, please email Kara Flynn, Research & Educational Services Archivist, at kf025@uark.edu.

Lesson Plan Template

Lesson Plan Repository

Grade 3: All About Maps
Throughout the week the students will learn about the existence of the Arkansas Post as well as the fur trade and exchanges that took place there. Upon reviewing the Arkansas Post maps, the students will learn how to read maps, with the ultimate goal of later making their own. The students could then create a treasure hunt activity based on maps their classmates made of the school.
Grade 3: Arkansas Map Treasure Hunt
This lesson will explore the idea of fur trade, and exchange and eventually a map of the Arkansas Post. The map of the Arkansas Post will show students that map making is a skill that has been used for a long time and students will understand the use of a map and how to read one and eventually students will create their own map.
Grade 3: History of Fayetteville
This lesson aims to teach about the main idea of chronology, change over time, and contextualization by looking at Fayetteville, Arkansas specifically.
Grade 3: The Development of Business in Arkansas
This lesson will aim to teach students which factors brought people to Arkansas in the late 1800s compared to what attracts people to Arkansas today. While back then it was mostly agriculture that brought people to Arkansas, now there are so many business opportunities here. After discussing Arkansas business in the past, students will research the businesses and corporations here now that influence Arkansas in different ways.
Grade 4: Apple Business in NWA
Students will complete an activity where they will either be apple growers or apple buyers. In this activity, events out of their control will be drawn in order to show the effect these have on the supply and demand of apples in Arkansas.
Grade 4: History of the Buffalo River
What are the pros and cons of damming a river? What effects does that have on both the community and the environment? In this lesson, students will learn about the controversial history of the natural flowing Buffalo River. Students will evaluate primary sources to learn about the history of the river and then determine the pros and cons President Nixon was faced with when deciding whether or not to sign legislation establishing the Buffalo as a national river. Once the students have been given enough information, they must develop their own ideas on the subject and determine if they would have chosen to dam the river or not.
Grade 4: Homecoming Change/Continuity Over Time
This lesson asks students to think about how the school practice of homecoming changed has changed, and how this tradition is different in different places.
Grade 4: The Buffalo River Debate
Students will evaluate this question: Would damming the Buffalo River have a positive or negative impact on the environment and the people? Should the Buffalo River be dammed? After watching a video and researching, students will take a stance and have a debate.
Grade 5: Can You Run It Alone?
The goal for this lesson is to teach students that when work is divided by people who specialize in it, things will run smoother and faster. The lesson asks students to try and create their own newspaper in a day and then group them to create a new one the next day.
Grades 4-6: Primary Source Bingo Lesson Plan
What was life like in colonial Arkansas? And how did later historians conduct research on this topic in the 20th century? The activities in this lesson are designed to help students learn both about life in colonial Arkansas, and to think about the research process and how historians compile and use different types of sources.

Grades 4-6: Primary Source Bingo Lesson Plan
What was life like in colonial Arkansas? And how did later historians conduct research on this topic in the 20th century? The activities in this lesson are designed to help students learn both about life in colonial Arkansas, and to think about the research process and how historians compile and use different types of sources.

Grades 8-12: Personal Experiences of the Civil War Lesson Plan
What was the Civil War and reconstruction like for those who lived through it? How might their experiences sound different to us than what we read in history books? This lesson plan aims to build historical empathy and to think critically about the lasting impact of the Civil War by reading firsthand accounts from those who lived through these periods.

Grades 8-12: Personal Experiences of the Civil War Lesson Plan
What was the Civil War and reconstruction like for those who lived through it? How might their experiences sound different to us than what we read in history books? This lesson plan aims to build historical empathy and to think critically about the lasting impact of the Civil War by reading firsthand accounts from those who lived through these periods.
Grades 8-12: WWII Lesson Plan
What was life like for those on the fringes of Arkansas during WWII? The activities in this lesson aims to help students think about those who were on the margins in Arkansas during WWII: German POWs housed in the state, and Japanese Americans who were held in internment camps. Both of these groups of people endured forms of imprisonment and detainment, but for different reasons and under different conditions. This lesson plan aims to help students think critically about this aspect of the war, and to compare and contrast these two types of “prisoners” held in the state during this time period.

Grades 8-12: Personal Experiences of the Civil War Lesson Plan
What was the Civil War and reconstruction like for those who lived through it? How might their experiences sound different to us than what we read in history books? This lesson plan aims to build historical empathy and to think critically about the lasting impact of the Civil War by reading firsthand accounts from those who lived through these periods.
Grades 8-12: WWII Lesson Plan
What was life like for those on the fringes of Arkansas during WWII? The activities in this lesson aims to help students think about those who were on the margins in Arkansas during WWII: German POWs housed in the state, and Japanese Americans who were held in internment camps. Both of these groups of people endured forms of imprisonment and detainment, but for different reasons and under different conditions. This lesson plan aims to help students think critically about this aspect of the war, and to compare and contrast these two types of “prisoners” held in the state during this time period.

Grades 9-12: African American Experiences, Reconstruction- Jim Crow
What was life in Arkansas like for African Americans who lived through Reconstruction and the Jim Crow Era? This lesson plan aims to help students think critically about the social, economic, and political experiences of African Americans during these periods by having them interact with oral history transcripts recorded by WPA Federal Writers Project workers interviews with African American Arkansans who lived through Reconstruction and Jim Crow.
Grades 8-12: WWII Lesson Plan
What was life like for those on the fringes of Arkansas during WWII? The activities in this lesson aims to help students think about those who were on the margins in Arkansas during WWII: German POWs housed in the state, and Japanese Americans who were held in internment camps. Both of these groups of people endured forms of imprisonment and detainment, but for different reasons and under different conditions. This lesson plan aims to help students think critically about this aspect of the war, and to compare and contrast these two types of “prisoners” held in the state during this time period.

Grades 9-12: African American Experiences, Reconstruction- Jim Crow
What was life in Arkansas like for African Americans who lived through Reconstruction and the Jim Crow Era? This lesson plan aims to help students think critically about the social, economic, and political experiences of African Americans during these periods by having them interact with oral history transcripts recorded by WPA Federal Writers Project workers interviews with African American Arkansans who lived through Reconstruction and Jim Crow.