A complete 3-week Reconstruction unit for AP US History (Period 5, KC-5.3, Topics 5.10–5.11), built as a student-facing assignment sequence. Every link carries a note written as the actual task — what to do, roughly how long, and which APUSH skill it builds. Tag the collection by week to run it in order, by skill to target DBQ or LEQ prep, or by source type to pull just the primary documents. Sources: National Archives, Library of Congress, Facing History, Stanford History Education Group, PBS, Zinn Education Project, NYPL.
01 — New Visions for Public Schools
Editor's note — New Visions' free scaffolded version of the Facing History unit, with end-of-unit assessments. Their advice is right: plan backward from the assessment, not forward from day one. Teacher materials need an access form.
02 — Zinn Education Project
Note — Zinn Education Project's full Reconstruction library: role plays, mixers, film clips, book recommendations. Where to go when you want a different entry point than the one above.
03 — Erasing the Black Freedom Struggle
Note — Closes the loop on the Foner reading with a live example: the Zinn report on how state standards still teach this era. Compare your own textbook's Reconstruction chapter to what you've now read. Optional but the strongest extension essay in the unit.
04 — The Nation
Note — Foner interview, and the sharpest claim in the unit: the Dunning School wasn't just wrong history, it was infrastructure for Jim Crow. Bad history justified taking the vote away. Pair with the preface PDF.
05 — nypl.org
Note — Foner's preface, free PDF. No period of US history has had its accepted interpretation overturned as completely as Reconstruction. Read it and answer: why did the story change, and what changed in America that made historians see differently?
06 — Digital Inquiry Group
Note — SHEG's dating exercise: given two documents, work out which is 1868 and which is 1898, using only internal evidence about civil rights and disenfranchisement. Tests whether you actually understand what ended in 1877. Free login required.
07 — docsteach.org
Note — Teacher-side version of the same DBQ: setup, discussion framing on what counts as a revolution, and how to run it whole-class or in groups. Read before assigning the student link.
08 — docsteach.org
Note — THE UNIT DBQ. Congressional records from the era; guiding question: to what extent was Reconstruction a revolution? 45–60 min, grades 10–12. Part 2 links from inside. Answer with a defensible thesis, not a summary.
09 — The Library of Congress
Note — LOC's curated Reconstruction set with comparison prompts built in. Do the corroboration exercise: find two sources that contradict each other and explain which you trust more, and why. That "why" is the skill.
10 — The Library of Congress
Note — Johnson's vetoes, the Tenure of Office Act, impeachment, and the violence. Build a causal chain from the 1866 midterms to the Compromise of 1877. Six links maximum — force yourself to choose what mattered most.
11 — Reconstruction 360
Note — Reconstruction 360's Black Codes room. Includes the 1866 affidavit of Archy Paine, a Tennessee freedman, on what happened when he tried to bargain over a contract. Short, first-person, and the reason abstractions like "labor control" have faces.
12 — National Leader in Civic Education Resources | Bill of Rights Institute
Note — Seven documents on the Black Codes. Central question: what legally changed after emancipation, and what stayed the same under a new name? Vagrancy law is the hinge — read it closely.
13 — Zinn Education Project
Note — Role play: you are freedpeople in 1865 deciding what to demand first — land, schools, the vote, or protection. Argue it out, then compare your priorities to what actually happened. Best single day of this unit.
14 — nypl.org
Note — NYPL Digital Collections walkthrough. Search "Reconstruction" under Topics and pull one image nobody else in class will find. You'll present it cold: what is it, who made it, what does it prove?
15 — PBS LearningMedia
Note — PBS LearningMedia's cut of the Gates series into classroom-length clips with support materials. Use this instead of assigning full episodes if you're short on time.
16 — pbs.org
Note — Episode 2 (55 min). 80% of eligible Black men in the former Confederacy registered to vote; 1,500+ took office. Note five specific facts that contradict what a textbook led you to expect. Bring them to seminar.
17 — khanacademy.org
Note — 6 min. Two historians on the 14th Amendment: birthright citizenship, equal protection, due process. Then answer in one sentence: what problem was each clause written to solve? Exam questions live here.
18 — The Library of Congress
Note — The competing Reconstruction plans and the fight over who counts as a citizen. Track one question across the sources: who gets to vote, and who decides? Congress vs. Johnson is a separation-of-powers story as much as a race story.
19 — National Archives
Note — National Archives document analysis worksheets. Pick the right one for your source type — photo, cartoon, written document. Use these all unit. Four steps: meet it, observe it, make sense of it, use it as evidence.
20 — dp.la
Note — DPLA's Freedmen's Bureau set with built-in discussion questions. Culminating prompt: write a day in the life of a newly freed person, using only evidence from the set. No inventing details.
21 — The Library of Congress
Note — The Freedmen's Bureau: food, medical care, and above all schools. Find one document showing what freedpeople asked for themselves — not what was given to them. Agency is the whole point.
22 — Facing History & Ourselves
Note — Freedmen's own words on what freedom meant. Read Henry Blake on sharecropping and Samuel J. Lee on schools. For each: who wrote it, when, and what they wanted the reader to believe. That's sourcing — you'll do it on every DBQ document this year.
23 — Amanpour & Company
Note — WATCH FIRST (15 min). Gates on why 12 years of Black freedom collapsed, and why the era stayed buried. Write three questions you want answered by the end of the unit. We return to them in Week 3.
24 — Facing History & Ourselves
Note — The 13-lesson spine this collection follows. Essential question: what does Reconstruction teach us about strengthening democracy now? Free account gets you everything in Google Drive.
25 — Facing History & Ourselves
Note — Read this before assigning anything else. Facing History's hub for the whole era: 3-week unit, videos, primary sources in English and Spanish. The "Preparing to Teach" section matters — this unit contains racist and violent material that needs sequencing, not surprise.
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