Stanford University
Sheg: Document Based History: Reading Like a Historian: Mapping the New World
[Free Registration/Login Required] Students read primary source documents to solve a problem surrounding a historical question. This document-based inquiry lesson allows students study two 17th-century maps of Virginia and think...
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Research Sources
This slideshow lesson focuses on research sources by listing 10 types of sources: books, periodicals/magazines, newspaper articles, scholarly articles, databases, reviews, interviews, lectures, media (film, television), and websites. It...
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: Artifacts & Fiction Pair Finder
Pair artifacts with appropriate literary texts, and find tips for using them together in the classroom by selecting a literary movement and a discipline with this handy tool.
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: America's History in the Making: Historical Thinking Interactives
Six interactive activities are presented that walk students through how to use their critical thinking skills in the analysis of historical artifacts and documents. The sixth one explains how to balance the various perspectives that...
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: Invitation to World Literature
Multimedia course focuses on thirteen literary classics from many different times and many different cultures. Each lesson centers on a half-hour video offering multiple perspectives on a particular work. Read excerpts from each work and...
Media Smarts
Media Awareness Network: Lesson Plan: How to Analyze the News [Pdf]
Lesson plan focusing on the importance of understanding how the news is a product with a specific scope, structure, slant and style at the forefront of its production.
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: Interactives: Historical and Cultural Contexts
This interesting interactive website explains kinds of primary sources and gives you the chance to identify them in some games.
Virginia Tech
Digital History Reader: Introduction
An online learning module for the U.S. and European history. Presents central questions of key events in history. Students explore data, evaluate conflicting accounts or interpretations, and develop conclusions based on primary evidence....
Library of Congress
Loc: Primary Documents in American History: United States Constitution
A compendium of primary resources that are valuable pieces of American history, as well as exhibitions, teaching resources, and bibliographies. Together, this site is a goldmine of materials for studying constitutional history.
Department of Defense
Do Dea: Justice and Injustice
In this self-guided unit, you will be exploring the themes of justice and injustice. Included are lessons, self-assessments, background information, and learning activities. At the end of the unit, you will follow the research process to...
Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Learning Lab: Teaching With Primary Sources
Five lesson plans, complete with videos, primary sources, and document-based questions (DBQ) to encourage students to utilize primary sources and incorporate thinking and writing into daily learning. Topics include: Artifact &...
Other
Reading Quest: Making Sense of Social Studies
Teaching students to read well in areas other than language arts requires teaching and reinforcing the kinds of reading strategies taught here. There are 27 strategies, ranging from brainstorming to word mapping. The site includes PDF...
Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian: Engaging Students With Primary Sources
This reference guide is designed to highlight the benefits of using primary source materials in any classroom and to provide the teacher with practical suggestions and examples of how to do this. It includes a bibliography and links to...
US National Archives
Nara: Teaching With Documents: u.s. Constitution Workshop
A workshop, appropriate for elementary, middle school, and high school students, through which participants examine a variety of primary documents and their relationship to the U.S. Constitution. This resource provides workshop...
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: News and Media Literacy
This collection, which includes videos, blog articles, student handouts, lesson plans, and tip sheets for families, helps students identify, analyze, and investigate the news and information they get from online sources. Media literacy...
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: News and Media Literacy Collection
This collection, which includes videos, blog articles, student handouts, lesson plans, and tip sheets for families, helps students identify, analyze, and investigate the news and information they get from online sources. Media literacy...
Edutopia
Edutopia: How to Put Self Directed Learning to Work in Your Classroom
Self-directed learning is a natural pathway to deep understanding and efficacy. This article discusses the benefits of self-directed learning, the components necessary for this type of learning, and how to implement it in your school.
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Learning From the People Collection
The ECHO Collection provides rich, multi-disciplinary educational resources in science, literacy and language arts, fine art, and social studies. The combined skills, experience, and collections of our six institutions provide...
Thinkport Education
Thinkport: A Revolutionary Time
In this activity, students analyze and explain the interrelationships between events in 18th Century Revolutionary Time.
Thinkport Education
Thinkport: Causes of World War I
In this activity, students analyze and explain the interrelationships between events in World War I.
Thinkport Education
Thinkport: Read Like This, Too Central Ideas and Supporting Details
Begin practicing skills that will help identify the central idea and details while reading literary nonfiction.
Thinkport Education
Thinkport: Read Like This: A Strategy for Analyzing Literary Nonfiction
Read, analyze and answer text-dependent questions about several excerpts from a famous slave narrative called The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano.
Other
Harvest
Three modules explain what primary sources are; how to find primary sources in the UIUC archives; how to make sense of a primary source document by examining its creator, the context, and purpose of its creation.
Thinkport Education
Thinkport: Revolution and the Power of Words
A module where students will determine the meaning of unfamiliar terms using prior knowledge, context clues and examination of word parts.