The Transcontinental Railroad was completed on this day in 1869.

I have many related resources at our ELL U.S. History Class blog, including a series of downloadable Read Alouds I’ve used in a literal/interpretative lesson — sharing read alouds related to the building of the transcontinental railroad, modeling the two different kinds of questions, and then having students develop their own and teach them in small groups.

Here’s another resource I’ve previously shared here:

A Nation on the Move: Exploring the Promise of the First Transcontinental Railroad is a lesson from The New York Times Learning Network. It’s too advanced for English Language Learners. However, I did find two links within that post that I use with my ELL students.  One is a piece from PBS on its impacts, which I use as a jigsaw, and the other is a Times’ column connecting the Transcontinental Railroad to today’s controversial bullet train being built in our state.