In 2013, I was fortunate enough to spend 3 weeks at the University of North Carolina at Asheville as a participant in the NEH Summer Seminar “Appalachia: The Power of Place“. Below, you will find the lessons I wrote for the seminar. They are intended for a 9th grade World Regional Geography course in Texas – so they are correlated to the TEKS (as part of updating my site, however, I will be adding the NGS soon). You are more than welcome to use the lessons in your own classroom or to share the files with your colleagues, as long I am credited as the author. If you would like to share them online, please link to my site, rather than posting the files themselves. Thanks!
1. Where is Appalachia? – This lesson uses a variety of maps to help students explore how a region such as Appalachia is defined. For this lesson, you may also need the following Power Point:
2. Perceptions of People and Place – In this lesson, students explore the perceptions people have about Appalachia, including the many stereotypes which exist about the people who live in this region.
3. Cades Cove and GSMNP – Cades Cove was once a thriving community, but now, it is a ghost town inside the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Students will explore the creation of the park and the destruction of the town from a variety of points of view.