I really appreciate this series of resources called "critical challenges" and have used ideas from them in different courses. They come with very workable lesson plans, nicely laid out handouts, information sheets, marking sheets, etc.. Usually more than you need.
This book really has two big ideas.
1) Writing a journal entry/diary about a given event
2) A "report card" for English, French, Immigrants, and Natives
(starting in 1815 and progressing through nine selected events to 1915)
The journal entry/diary lesson gives great ideas on how to improve student-work and could really be used for any topic. Ideally you do it twice in the course so that students can try it, be assessed, and improve. I usually do a journal entry assignment around immigration and students choose (potato famine, underground railroad, loyalist) and then later in the course around gold rush and students choose (Fraser, Cariboo, Klondike).
The "report card" concept is something I work into my first unit "what was Canada like in 1815" and last unit "what was Canada like in 1915". However, I have never tried maintaining the concept throughout the course and making a big timeline. To be honest, while I like the nine events chosen in the book, there are only three of them that I usually teach about. I wish maybe that different events were chosen to make it more useful.
Anyhow, I highly recommend checking this one out for some good teaching ideas. Looks like they only sell a digital copy now on the critical challenges website.
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