Era of Reconstruction: Interactive Activities

This resource is designed to have students critically explore the period of Reconstruction. Two highly engaging, interactive Slide Presentations will vicariously draw students into the lives of the Freedmen during this historical period of time.

LESSON ONE: Reconstruction Era [Intro]

Includes:

• 45 Slide Presentation & Guided Notes Handout
• POV Freedmen Scenario Activity

LESSON ONE will have students examine;

• the different ways in which newly freed slaves expressed their emancipation
• the POV of a Freedmen (POV Activity). Students will respond and debate four questions central to this time period from a Freedman's perspective;

1. Now that the Civil War is over, who should own and control the plantations?
2. What do you propose should happen to the ex-Confederate leaders?
3. Who should be allowed to vote in the new South? Everyone? Only formerly enslaved people? Only those who were loyal to the United States during the war? Women?
4. How will African Americans be protected from the revenge of the defeated soldiers and from the plantation owners?
5. What conditions should be put on the Southern states before they are allowed to return to the Union?

LESSON TWO: The Pursuit to Vote

Includes:

• 48 Slide Presentation & Guided Notes Handout
• Black Codes Scenarios Matching Game
• Louisiana State Literacy Test

LESSON TWO will have students examine;

• the Black Codes (Matching Game included)
• Three Reconstruction Plans
• the POV of a Freedmen in regards to the different obstacles they faced in their pursuit to vote (Inequality of land, the Grandfather Clause, Literacy Test, Poll Tax, Intimidation & Violence)

*Class discussion, simulations, and critical thinking is promoted throughout the entire resource.

*All THREE lessons (Era of Reconstruction, the Ku Klux Klan, & Jim Crow) is available in the BUNDLE for a discounted %.