Curriculum Units
The Monadnock Institute, with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, is encouraging middle and secondary school teachers to design and develop curriculum units that feature digital lesson plans and interactive student assignments. These units cover a wide range of humanities subjects, from American history to literature, American culture, art, and archaeology. Each of these units includes a focus on local content as a means of engaging students and illustrating significant regional and national themes. The faculty who designed these lesson plans participated in a study of place and local heritage facilitated by the Monadnock Institute with NEH support.

Impact of the Civil Rights Movement: The Jonathan Daniels Story
By Jonathan Perry, English teacher, Keene High School

In both Social Studies and American Studies, students are asked to explore the local impact of and involvement in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's. While almost every community across America can identify an individual who participated in the Civil Rights Movement, Jonathan Daniels, a young man who grew up in Keene, New Hampshire, played a significant national role. Daniels marched in the segregated South, served time in jail for his beliefs, and, on August 20, 1965, was shot dead by a storeowner in Lowndes County, Alabama. The story of his life and convictions forms the subject of this curriculum unit.
View Unit...

Passionate Politics: How the Modern Women's
Movement Changed America
By Amy Chapman, Social Studies teacher, Keene High School

As a result of the Women's Rights Movement of the 1970s, American women made great strides towards political, economic, social and personal equity. Politically, much legislation was passed in the seventies, such as Title IX, the Equal Pay Act and Educational Equity Act, which continue to guarantee freedom for American women today. However, the mass media's portrayal of the movement and its leadership was usually tinged with negative, demeaning commentaries and sexist stereotypes about feminism. Using both local and national resources, this curriculum unit explores the achievements and challenges of the Women's Rights Movement in the 1970s. View Unit...

Stay Here With Me: Coming of Age in Rural, Small Town
America in the Late 1960s and early 1970s
By Tony Dubois, English teacher, Keene High School
Sean Graves, Social Studies teacher, Keene High School
Chris O'Reilly, Social Studies teacher, Keene High School

The late 1960s and early 1970s represented the epicenter of twentieth century societal and cultural change. This unit is designed to acquaint students with the major individuals and events in American history during this period and with the challenges and confusion of one individual's coming of age in the summer of 1972. Robert Olmstead's short memoir Stay Here With Me provides a remarkable window into the heart and mind of an eighteen year old as he wrestles with the draft, the lure of drugs, first love, an alcoholic father, and a shrewd grandfather who encourages his grandson to remain with him on the family farm. View Unit...

The Westward Movement and Those Left Behind
By Elaine Landry, former Keene High School Social Studies and Women's Studies teacher

An American Studies unit for high school students which examines primary sources such as letters and journals, and includes the study of land use changes in the mid-to-late 19th Century. Students will understand the impact of the Westward migration as revealed in short stories, poetry and films about this era. View Unit...