One of a series of curriculum materials in U.S. history designed to teach critical thinking skills systematically, this teacher's guide presents high school students with supplementary lessons on the Reconstruction period, industrialism, labor and immigration, and progressivism and populism. The student booklet begins with a guide to critical thinking, which offers an explanation of types of arguments in history, examples of fallacies, a checklist for evaluating evidence, a method for analyzing value positions, ways of identifying assumptions, and models for analyzing arguments. Lesson topics include legislatures and radical Republicans in the Reconstruction era; the establishment of the Freedman's Bureau and of the Ku Klux Klan; motives of the radical Republicans; Andrew Johnson's presidency; the roles of John D. Rockefeller, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and Ulysses Grant during the industrial period; Social Darwinism; Carnegie's and Pullman's roles in labor issues; immigration; the Pullman strike; Indians and trusts; the failure of populism; progressive reforms; and the populist platform in 1892. Student booklets are keyed to detailed lesson plans in the accompanying teacher's guide. (LH)