I'm a US History teacher, and our STAAR tests will be complete next week. This leaves us with about 3 weeks of school to fill before finals. I always have the students (11th grade) complete research projects over any topic pertaining to US History that they want and present it to the class.

It gets very boring watching 150 projects over the same old subjects, so I'm trying to create a list of interesting topics that my less creative students can choose from. I'm not going to let them present over something we've covered in class unless it was something we barely touched on or unless it's a more specific topic within a subject we covered (such as a specific WWII battle or war hero).

Can any of you recommend some historical stories or people since the Reconstruction Era that would be appealing to 17 year olds? Obscure topics or events are probably better than obvious ones since we cover most of those in our curriculum. Very broad topics like "Serial Killers" would be fine. Even risque or controversial topics would be OK up to a point ("The History of the KKK" and "The History of the Weed Legalization Movement" turned out to be pretty solid projects last year). I'm considering the idea of allowing conspiracy theories as well, such as "The Moon Landing Was Fake" if they can present evidence to support it, although I'm not sure if I want to open that can of worms. So if any of you have any common conspiracy theories in mind, feel free to share.

I've made a fairly decent list already, but I need a lot more and I'm pretty tapped out at the moment. I also figured this might be an interesting topic for the History in general.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Maybe include the impact certain court cases have had on the way we live our life today. Something along those lines.

I always enjoy helping students research topics on immigration, especially specific ethnic groups. Most people know about the big waves, Irish, Italians, etc but the smaller groups such as Scandinavians, Serbs, Greeks and Russian Jews get overlooked. You can carry that throughout the entire time period. Hmong and Vietnamese after the war to various Central American groups today.

Have 'em look at Operation Paperclip and the impact that had on the mid-late 20th century. Teddy Roosevelt is someone you could spend a whole semester on and never cover completely, Howard Hughes' life was all sorts of crazy, have a girl do one on Hedy Lamarr, she's a pretty good story.

Like some of Watson's ideas, too.

I think what your doing is awesome! I've taught 8th Grade for 28 years, and when our STAAR test was in April, we still had 6 weeks of school left, so the reading teacher did the research paper using my history topics. Then in my history class, the students would build a movie-maker project over their topic. The kids loved it, mostly because they got to showcase and use all kinds of technology. So, if your kids are bored by just doing a research paper, I guess you could let some use their computer skills and build a movie. The still have to do all the research to build the movie (especially in chronological order). It lets them incorporate some great movie scenes from youtube (which could really be cool for your class if you were doing something related to WWII or the Kennedy Assassination, etc.).......then they picked their own music to go with the movie (school appropriate of course!). We gave out "Academy Awards" for best picture, best screenplay, best movie/sound, etc.........they had alot of fun with it and then you get to watch everyone's movies the last week of school. Just another idea...

the Hampton Roads conference of 1865 in which the Confederates tried to settle the war and how Lincoln used it to push for the 13th Amendment.

The Mason County War.

Pancho Villa's raid on Columbus New Mexico

the Taylor-Sutton feud

the parts Thomas Jefferson wrote for the Declaration of Independence that the other members of the committee took the red pencil to.

Here's a neat one. The very act of getting into it will inform them greatly regarding unfolding events in the future in the Pacific.

The 1889 Typhoon at Apia Harbor, Samoa -- the storm that is credited by some with stopping a war between the great powers including the United States. It sank our warships, German ones, and the British managed to escape to sea damaged. A major confrontation and tempers rising was in motion when the storm broke it all up and literally "cooled" things off.

But it is a classic story of the context of "island meddling" that would lead to the Great White Fleet, and was the dawn of the Imperial powers (including America at that time) activity in the Central and South Pacific that would set the stage for events to come.

As a Puerto Rican, I am always being asked if I joined the Army to get my Citizenship. I've also lived in Alaska, Saudi Arabia, Colorado, California and immigrated to Australia. So... that background gives me a few ideas that might be out of the norm for your students to research.

Puerto Rico

• Statehood arguments for/against, voting, taxation, representation, plebiscite
• Citizenship and service - when did they become Citizens? What about the military contribution of Puerto Ricans
• Migration to the USA - primarily from the Island to New York - why NY?
• Government schemes to prevent Puerto Ricans from breeding
• American usage of Puerto Rico - Arecibo SETI, Vieques bombing range

Alaska

• Purchase from Russia
• WWII - Alcan Highway, Castner's Cutthroats, Japanese Invasion of the Aleutians
• 9.2 Magnitude Earthquake and Tsunami that wiped out Valdez
• Discovery of Oil and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline (if you're anywhere near Waco, I'm sure my dad would love to be interviewed)
• Whittier and its role in WWII and its role today

Saudi Arabia

• FDR meeting with Abdul-Aziz at the Great Bitter Lake
• Discovery of Oil and the role of American companies from Texas & California
• Operation Desert Storm - lots of good resources at the GHW Bush Library in College Station
• Iranian Hostage Crisis (not KSA but... close by)
• Arab Oil Embargoes and gas lines in the 1970s

California, Colorado

• Migration - intrastate, immigration, emigration, economic impacts, social impacts
• Weed - seriously, medical, recreational, economic impacts, social impacts
• Firearms legislation and murders, especially mass shootings - what are the facts? what is the hype?

Australia

• Americans involvement in WWII in the South Pacific. New Guinea, Philippines. Where were the Brits?
• Australia's support for American military operations since WWII - Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.
• Nuclear Navy issues with making port calls in New Zealand
• American Marines being stationed permanent party in Darwin
• Listening Posts/Satellite monitoring, the role of "The Dish" in the US Space Program
• Australian Beef/Cattle Exports versus American Beef Exports

Other random stuff that I don't have personal knowledge of but am interested in.

• Nixon opening up China and the follow on effects
• Nixon "freeing" the Russian Jews (as told to me by a taxi cab driver in Sydney)
• US Support of Taiwan versus China

The battle of AC and DC between Edison and Tesla.

Doc Watson and Titan offer some really interesting topics.

Given the times and political climate you might throw Operation Wet Back out there, real interesting back ground behind it and like the Ranger situation of the early 1900's in South Texas, another interesting period and occurances, it had a lasting effect on Texas and in particular South Texas.

The influence of small arms technology on US history. Examples: rifled muskets in the hands of the colonials vs the smoothbore musket of the Brits, revolvers in the hands of settlers and Rangers vs Comanches, the M1 rifle and BAR in WW 2 in the hands of US infantry along with our more accurate .45 caliber SMGs.

Thank you so much for all the responses!

A few things I didn't mention in the original post is that my 150+ students are split about 50/50 between white & Hispanic, and they're almost entirely low-income. None of them are AP or Dual Credit, and maybe only 10-15% will graduate from college. Most will never attend any college at all. With that in mind, I have to keep these somewhat simple, yet informative. The format is a presentation with 10 facts and 10 pictures with a poster, powerpoint (or the equivalent), or video to support the presentation along with a written description of each fact.

There have been some really terrific ideas!!! Some are things I didn't even know about, and others are awesome ideas that just hadn't crossed my mind.

I struggle with coming up with topics that girls may enjoy researching, so I appreciate those of you who threw out some ideas for girls. Also, there have been a few that will be really interesting for my Hispanic students, but if you have any more ideas that may appeal specifically to that demographic, I'm all ears.

And to HollywoodBQ, I have a "Hurricane Maria refugee" who was forced to move from Puerto Rico in the fall. Researching PR's relationship with the US is exactly what I'm going to get her to do. She struggles with lots of things we do in class and struggles socially with other students, and I think this is a topic she will do well while hopefully helping the others to understand her background a little better. So thank you for the idea!

Y'all have been a tremendous help! Thank y'all so much, and keep the ideas coming!

Huisachel:

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the Hampton Roads conference of 1865 in which the Confederates tried to settle the war and how Lincoln used it to push for the 13th Amendment.

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Shame, shame you bought into history by Spielberg and not reality. One of my big gripes about the Lincoln movie. They made it seem like one happened before the other when in it was the other way around. The 13th Amendment passed in January and the Hampton Roads Conference was in February.

I recently read Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. The main plot of an Osage Indian serial killer trying to get their oil money was interesting enough, but the subplot about the early years of the FBI was really interesting too. The transition from regional police forces and sheriffs to a more national approach.

If you are looking for more female topics, try Jerrie Cobb and the First Lady Astronaut Trainees.

I'm not sure if there is enough information on this topic available, but there is quite a debate over what song the Titanic band played as it was sinking.

Lindbergh is an interesting topic. One of my childhood heroes, who turned out to be so deeply flawed. A small side story to that is how he wouldn't help the war effort in Europe, but went to the Pacific and gave pointers on saving fuel on long over-water missions. It's also quite likely he flew one or more missions in P-38s, and maybe scored a kill.

I've gotten to be sort of a buff on the Manhattan Project. There's a ton of material on it.

And for whatever reason, I'm really interested in the Santa Fe Trail. Just this last week, was in the Kansas City area and saw a few sites. One was the swales where the Oregon/California/Santa Fe Trails all crossed the Blue River. The other was the cemetery at the site of New Santa Fe. A very obvious swale crosses the cemetery. It also is a site important to the Civil War Battle of Westport.

I teach Texas History in the Houston area. Some ideas I would utilize

- Comparing Prohibition to the War on Drugs
- Impact of women in early 20th century politics and society
- Populism/Free Silver Movement
- Integration and its impact on Civil Rights (Executive Order 9981, Jackie Robinson in baseball, etc)
- Just... the Sixties

Never saw the film; my suggestion is based on my current reading of volume 10 of Nicholay and hay's life of Lincoln. Lincoln misled some people about whether a conference was in the works

By the way, that volume has the easiest to follow description of Hood's calamitous move north I have ever read and does so in less than 40 pages. Renewed my thought that George Thomas was the most under appreciated of Union generals

bq78: I think Spielberg probably drank too deeply from the trough of Doris Kearns' Goodwin's hagiographic study of Lincoln's cabinet but I usually avoid history movies for the reasons you allude to.

Re the Hampton Roads conference, it was first proposed prior to the final vote by the House on the amendment and kept quiet. Lincoln authorized Francis Preston Blair to talk with the Confederates and then sent Seward to meet with Alexander Stephens et al before the vote. After he secured the needed votes on the 31st he went to see the men in person a couple of days later and told them to their faces that they were not two countries, that there would be no compromise on the slavery issue and that he would entertain any other suggestions they might have if they kept those ideas in mind. Surrender in other words.

When he had been asked by one of the men trying to sway recalcitrant Congress critters to his side if there was a peace delegation coming to or in DC, he said there was not and he knew nothing of any plans for one. Which was true----they were meeting elsewhere.

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bq78: I think Spielberg probably drank too deeply from the trough of Doris Kearns' Goodwin's hagiographic study of Lincoln's cabinet but I usually avoid history movies for the reasons you allude to.

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Perhaps too drastic an action? What such movies sometimes are gettng right, and more so by the year, are the physical appearance of things and the settings. History movies can be good for how they romanticize and make accessible a period or event, and any who will then take the trouble to read deeper will find plenty to become further engrossed in. But without the `gateway' drama to elicit interest, many `mainstream' would never hear of or even have the slightest acquaintance with a subject. Your concern goes more imo to just be damn careful not to use a movie as the basis for what you think really happened or even what the issues really were.