History Lab: Rise of New Right Conservatism

The Rise of New Right Conservatism History Lab is designed for students in US History who are studying the 1970s - 1980s. During the lab, students examine eight sources to address the following focus question:

What issues galvanized and united the conservative movement in the 1970s and 1980s?

Students share their interpretations by creating a class list of issues that galvanized and united the conservative movement. Groups are tasked with ranking those issues and defending their rankings with evidence from the documents. Students' learning from the lab is assessed with an assignment in which students individually write a letter from the perspective of one of the groups making up the conservative coalition of the 1970s/1980s to the Republican National Committee.