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Library of Congress: Teaching With Primary Sources
This website is an excellent resource for teaching with primary sources. This resource features Holocaust lessons, lesson plan strategies, and podcasts.
US National Archives
Nara: Teaching With Documents: Teaching With Documents
Site from National Archives provides copies of primary documents that can be used while presenting various topics in U.S. history.
Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media
Teaching History: Interactive Historical Thinking Poster (Secondary)
This is an interactive historical thinking poster. History is an argument about the past. Constructing a narrative about history involves several tasks: Analyzing Primary Sources, Examining Source Information,Using Evidence to Support...
Pennsylvania State University
Pennsylvania State University (Dr. Mc Clennen): How to Do a Close Reading
This guide is written for college students, but should be very useful for upper level high school students as well. The writer first describes fourteen steps to take in doing a close reading, then provides six pieces of advice on how to...
Other
Wisewire: Grades 9 10 Playlist: Analyze How an Author Unfolds an Argument
This is an example of how to analyze how an author unfolds an argument. It provides an example and links to use for practice. RI.9-10.3 author unfolds
CPALMS
Cpalms: Lafs.1112.rst.1.3: Follow Precisely a Complex Multistep Procedure
Find a collection of standards-aligned teacher and student resources where students follow procedural text.
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neh: Edsit Ement: I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Someone a Letter
Through the vast online resources available from EDSITEment, students can read the correspondence of the famous, the infamous and the ordinary, some of whom lived through extraordinary times. Use these fascinating letters as a starting...
Schools of California Online Resources for Education
Score: Guide to Reading Historical Documents
Here are some questions that serve as a guide while you read and study historical documents. The information at this website was originally written by the National Council for the Social Studies. W.11-12.9b US Doc Analysis
CommonLit
Common Lit: Text Sets
This is a collection of 35 Grade-Leveled text sets (4-11). They are great for social studies teachers or for building background knowledge in reading class, CommonLit's text sets cover a range of historical, cultural, and political...
Other
National Council on Public History: Evidence of the Past
Understand how historians are like detectives- studying evidence from the past.
Alabama Learning Exchange
Alex: Interpreting Documents on the Ahsge
Students will explore the documents that were used in shaping the United States, before, during, and after its creation. While studying these documents, students will use reading skills to interpret and analyze documents. By the end of...
Alabama Learning Exchange
Alex: Writing About Issues in the Media
For this lesson students analyze media coverage of current issues and present their findings in a formal research paper and class presentation.
Edutopia
Edutopia: Common Core in Action: 10 Visual Literacy Strategies
Explicitly teach a collection of competencies that will help students think through, think about, and think with pictures.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy: Approaches to Knowledge
An article addressing how knowledge is acquired from different media formats. The article also discusses how scholars from the past asked questions about knowledge and launched their own investigations.
University of Hawai'i
University of Hawaii: Have a Historical Question? Ask a Historian!
This site summarizes what a historian does, what tools they use, and how to prepare to ask a historical question.
Cynthia J. O'Hora
Mrs. O's House: Mystery Object Challenge
Practice historical investigation skills with this mystery object activity. Look at the image and try to determine its story.
Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media
Teachinghistory: History Content: Ask a Historian
Ask-an-expert resource for building skills in the art of asking historical questions.
PBS
Pbs Teachers: Written in Stone
A lesson that takes students through the process of examining tombstones as artifacts, identifying information that can be instrumental in investigating a community's past or an individual's genealogy. Students also make gravestone...
Other
Braindance: Reading More Selectively
Gives specific advice on the most effective way to gain information through reading, especially necessary because the glut of information has created "an increasing need for the ability to scan." There are suggestions on how to decide...
Other
Ten Rhetoric of War Writing Projects
Created by a teacher responding to the events in Kosovo, this list is a great start for a media literacy class project. Good discussion-starting questions are included with each item on the list. Requires some independent research to...
Other
How the Language Really Works: Restatement
Choosing when to read for simple comprehension is the focus of this brief article.
Other
College of William & Mary: Historical Scene Investigation Project
Looking for a way for your students to use more primary sources? This website contain cases that give students experiences similar to those of a real historian.
Other
Daniel J. Kurland: Critical Reading: Inference: Reading Ideas as Well as Words
This college instructor offers his insights into critical reading and how to develop skills to interpret as well as comprehend the written word. RL.9-10.1, RL.11-12.1, RI.9-10.1 textual evidence and inference.
TES Global
Blendspace: The Roaring 20's
A learning module with thirteen links to texts, images, and videos, with information about life during the 1920's. RI.9-10.7 different mediums