Women’s History – High School

Independent Lens Women’s History Month Collection

This collection celebrates Women’s History Month by focusing on women and girls around the world. The films tell powerful, personal stories. Through activities, students learn and understand international struggles and take an active role in addressing local concerns.

Women with Character who Inspire – Lesson Plan from PBS News Hour

Women’s History: Parading Through History – Spotlight on a pennant for women’s suffrage from the early 1900s.

Women’s History: Activity Pack

Women make important but often little-known contributions to American history. These lesson plans and videos are based on History Detectives episodes. They examine artifacts which provide clues to how women have been essential in the visual arts, in fighting political causes and on battlefields. After engaging with these materials, students can hold a history-based political convention, create visual arts designs, and do biographical research.

“Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History” Lesson Plan

Use this PBS NewsHour Extra lesson to challenge students’ negative stereotypes towards women. Additionally, allow them to use their creative writing skills to produce their own profile on another “rule-breaking” woman in history.

History of Women in Soul Music: A Workshop with Michelle Obama

Michelle Obama welcomes students to an afternoon workshop celebrating historical and social perspectives on the significance of Soul music. Grammy Museum Executive Director Bob Santelli leads the program. Through its entirety, he highlights the most important moments throughout the history of the Soul genre and its influence on the women’s rights movement. Speakers like Patti LaBelle, Janelle Monae, and Melissa Etheridge are featured.

Baseball: The Tenth Inning – Women in Baseball

In this lesson, student groups role-play sports marketing firms looking to match female baseball players with product endorsement deals. To sell the promotion to their client, groups must present multimedia projects highlighting the success of their athlete. In addition, they must show examples of how they would market the player, such as baseball cards and cereal boxes.

Dolley Madison: Deleted Scene on Women’s History

Learn about the important role of women in political history in this excerpt from American Experience: “Dolley Madison.”