Resource Library
Find compelling classroom resources, learn new teaching methods, meet standards, and make a difference in the lives of your students.
We are grateful to The Hammer Family Foundation for supporting the development of our on-demand learning and teaching resources.
Introducing Our US History Curriculum Collection
Draw from this flexible curriculum collection as you plan any middle or high school US history course. Featuring units, C3-style inquiries, and case studies, the collection will help you explore themes of democracy and freedom with your students throughout the year.
Aggressive Assimilation
Facing the resilience of indigenous traditional education in Canada, Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald, who was also Minister of Indian Affairs, commissioned Nicholas Flood Davin, a journalist, lawyer, and politician, to go to Washington, DC, in 1879 to study how the United States tackled the same issue.
Confronting Denial of the Armenian Genocide through Art (en español)
Learn how Los Angeles-area artists marked the 100 year anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. This resource is in Spanish.
Navigating Multiple Identities (en español)
Armenian American writer Diana Der Hovanessian reflects on how her family history influences her identity in her poem "Two Voices." This resource is in Spanish.
Words Matter (en español)
Reflect on the power of the words that we attach to people through an Anishinaabe woman’s memory of being called an “Indian” while growing up in Canada. This resource is in Spanish.
Who Are The Indigenous Peoples of Canada?
Introduce yourself to the important historical events and issues that are explored throughout the rest of the book Stolen Lives: The Indigenous Peoples of Canada and the Indian Residential Schools.
First Nations
The term First Nations, as of 2013, refers to some 617 different communities, traditionally composed of groups of 400 or so who lived in America long before European contact.
The Inuit
The term Inuit refers broadly to the Arctic indigenous population of Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. Today, the Inuit communities of Canada live in the Inuit Nunangat—loosely defined as “Inuit homeland”—which is divided into four regions.
Historical Background: The Indian Act and the Indian Residential Schools
Go deeper into the history of the Indian Act and the founding of the Residential Schools system.
Dispossession, Destruction, and the Reserves
Reserves existed in Africa, in the British American colonies, and in Canada, where the colonizers had to address the people they dispossessed— people who seemingly stood in the way of the political and economic plans of European settlers.
Defining the Indian
Two main pieces of legislation laid the foundation for what was to be the new Dominion’s policy regarding relations with First Nations: the Gradual Civilization Act of 1857 and the Gradual Enfranchisement Act of 1869.
Banning Indigenous Culture
The ultimate goal of the Indian Act has always been the assimilation of the Indigenous Peoples as separate nations into mainstream Canada.