This teaching unit represents a specific "dramatic moment" in history that can allow students to delve into the deeper meanings of selected landmark events and explore their wider context in the great historical narrative. Studying a crucial turning point in history helps students realize that history is an ongoing, open-ended process, and that the decisions they make today create the conditions of tomorrow's history. This unit is about the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance is part of the post-World War I cultural upheaval that found all of U.S. society trying to come to terms with the shift from a rural way of life to an urban and industrialized one. The unit can be taught after studying World War I or as a transition to the era of the Great Depression and the New Deal. The unit is based on primary sources taken from documents, artifacts, journals, diaries, newspapers, and literature from the period under study. Within the unit are teacher background materials that provide an overview of the entire unit and the historical information and context necessary to link the "dramatic moment" to the larger historical narrative. Lesson plans include a variety of ideas and approaches. An extensive bibliography contains 7 items about painting and sculpture, 13 poem citations, 12 articles and maps, and 7 recording dates. (BT)