Your students are obviously clever, but now they can be C-L-E-V-E-R! Enhance a research project with an exercise that prompts learners to identify the creator, location, era, and value of the information source, as well as provide an...

Historians explain what happened during the Holocaust, but only primary sources portray the true horror of places such as Auschwitz. Using accounts from those who survived the camps, as well as a Nazi government official's memoirs, class...

While the use of the atomic bomb was the definitive end of World War II, the terrible weapons left new questions. Young scholars use primary sources and analytical worksheets to consider the implications of the fateful decision. Then,...

A lesson plan instills the importance of locating reliable sources. Scholars are challenged to locate digital sources, analyze their reliability, search for any bias, and identify frequently found problems that make a source unusable. 

Let's go for a walk. Learners complete the mid-unit assessment by completing a gallery walk to analyze different primary sources discussed while reading A Mighty Long Way. After viewing the sources, class members complete organizers and...

Invite your learners to research three different websites that pertain to a topic focused on in your syllabus. Students fill out a chart by answering questions about each site. Then, they compare how useful the sites are to one...

Middle schoolers will paraphrase a resource without plagiarizing. Then rewrite after reading text. They then evaluate the site or reference they are using for accuracy. In the end, they complete a note-taking organizer.

Sixth graders strengthen their understanding of what a high quality website is composed of. Learners evaluate three websites for accuracy, credibility, and reliability by completing a chart.

Students evaluate information they are given and identify the quality of the information as fact, fiction, and point of view. In this information quality lesson plan, students also discuss how they can pick out good information verses...

Fake or fact? Learners must decide while looking at two published "news" stories. A reading about why fake news exists and a checklist on how to evaluate sources rounds out the activity. 

Was Nat Turner a hero or a violent criminal? Using primary sources and images that discuss the rebellion of enslaved people he led in antebellum Virginia, scholars consider the question. Then, they create memorials to Turner and...

When women demanded their right to vote, did the Constitution already protect it? The New Departure Strategy in the women's suffrage movement made this claim through court hearings. Using documents, such as transcripts from Susan B....

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution propelled America's involvement into a bloody conflict—and it was based on a fallacy. Using the resolution and other documents from the Vietnam War, including declassified documents, young historians...

Rosie the Riveter may be an iconic image from World War II, but not all historians agree on how the conflict affected women in the workplace. Individuals evaluate the writings of well-known historians on the topic, and then decide: Was...

People in Ukraine, Rwanda, and Cambodia have all faced challenges to their human rights and even genocide. Using primary and secondary sources, scholars evaluate these challenges and the international community's role in them. The...

It may be hard to see through the fog of war, but primary sources describing what happened at the Battle of Saltville during the Civil War shed some light on what happened there. Using primary sources, including descriptions from...

The legacy of Reconstruction and the Freedman's Bureau is complicated. Using an interactive web resource, learners literally weigh the evidence using an online program in primary sources such as labor contracts and marriage records to...

With throngs of Americans out of work and hungry, Franklin D. Roosevelt made the bold move to establish a social safety net with programs such as Social Security. The move was—and still is—controversial. Using documents from the 1930s,...

"I want to be the president who educated young people to the wonders of their world." Readers examine the vision Lyndon B. Johnson presented for his presidency in this excerpt from his "The American promise" message delivered to Congress...

"Equal opportunity . . . is not enough." Johnson's 1965 commencement address to the students at Howard University provides an opportunity for participants to see how education was a key element in his vision for civil rights.

Needlework isn't just for home decor; it can also help record family history. Academics analyze a needlework sampler to understand how they were used to record marriages and births. The activity includes a series of written questions,...

Women's lifestyles before the Civil War made a huge impact as a point of causation. Give middle schoolers the opportunity to view firsthand the lives of women before the Civil War. They analyze primary source documents, view photographs,...

How can digital technology of today link us to the events of the past? Scholars use technology to uncover the vast number of historical resources available in lesson 12 of a 22-part America's History in the Making series. Using databases...

Historians use all kinds of information to make conclusions ... including statistics. Young scholars examine how two historians evaluate The Red Ball Express—a supply line staffed primarily by African Americans—using numbers. The...