Searching for the American Dream helps high school students to learn critical thinking skills in a way that incorporates various genres of literature. Students engage in the reading of short stories, articles and poetry and watch clips from a movie. Through the lessons, students are able to understand that themes such as altering traditions, women's roles, or arranged marriages can carry across not only various readings, but also various countries and time periods. A major focus of the unit is on teaching students to understand ideas from other points of view by engaging in the "believing game", an activity that forces them to consider the issues of a character that has different views from their own. Students use the web to access readings, publish their findings, and to vote on a new name for the unit to suit their understanding of it.

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