This site explains the difference between a primary and secondary source. It also provides students with questions to ask when gathering evidence about a primary source document.

This is an interdisciplinary inquiry-based lesson that focuses on critical thinking. Students are introduced to the true story of the first Thanksgiving with the reading of a NCSS Notable Trade Book Thanksgiving: The True Story. Working...

[Free Registration/Login Required] Lesson using primary resources in which students investigate how democratic the Roman Republic was. Includes downloads for student materials, teacher mateials, PowerPoint, and original sources.

Libraries and archives hold documents and books that can be used for your research projects. Learn how to divide and identify them into primary and secondary sources in this tutorial.

[Free Registration/Login Required] Students use primary source documents to investigate central historical questions. In this investigation, students use evidence to explore whether Pocahontas actually saved John Smith's life and...

[Free Registration/Login Required] Students use primary source documents to investigate central historical questions. In this investigation, students critically examine the passenger lists of ships headed to New England and Virginia to...

[Free Registration/Login Required] Students use primary source documents to investigate the central historical question about slavery. In this investigation students consider the positions of delegates to the Constitutional Convention...

[Free Registration/Login Required] Students use primary source documents to investigate central historical questions. In this investigation, students deliberate the origins of the Chicago race riots by exploring five documents that...

Learn how to analyze primary and secondary sources using text evidence. An example is provided. (Note: Exercises don't load in archived copy.)

[Free Registration/Login Required] Learners solve a problem surrounding a historical question by reading primary source documents. This historical inquiry lesson plan allows students to source, corroborate, and contextualize speeches...

[Free Registration/Login Required] Students read primary source documents to solve a problem surrounding a historical question. This document-based inquiry lesson allows students to use four historical sources to build a more textured...

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...

This link from the Election Central 2016 website focuses on elections throughout history with the use of primary source documents such as campaign posters, newspaper headlines, and video clips from various Presidential elections...

Through the lens of the British National Archives and with the use of primary sources, young scholars assess the quality of care children received when they were evacuated into Canada during World War II.

Should Reconstruction be viewed as a revolution or not? Using primary source documents, students can weigh the evidence and come up with their conclusion. This lesson can be used as a whole class, small group, or individual activity.

The return to life after liberation was a hard time for many Jewish survivors. Many of the people had no home, family, or community to return to. Using primary sources such as pictures and testimonies, students will learn how the Jewish...

Resources and lesson plans concerning the thousands of letters Mrs. Roosevelt received from young people asking for help during the Depression. Students learn how to use primary source documents.

[Free Registration/Login Required] Lesson on the Egyptian Pyramids in which students use primary resources to determine who the workers were that built the pyramids. Lesson plan, PowerPoint and original documents included.

This activity includes primary sources from the official records of the U.S. District Court at Boston that tell the story of William and Ellen Craft, a young couple from Macon, GA, who escaped to freedom in Boston in 1848. Students will...

Using primary source documents, high school lesson plan focuses on John Brown, the events at Harper's Ferry, and his trial and execution. Included are excerpts from 16 primary source documents to aid in the research of writing this paper.

This resource presents lessons on the First Amendment. It contains many resources for use with children, and links to primary source documents.

In this lesson, students will use photos, documents, and music from the Library's digital collection. Then they will students investigate rituals and customs of various cultures.

Electricity is the flow of electrical power or charge. It is a secondary energy source which means that we get it from the conversion of other sources of energy, like coal, natural gas, oil, nuclear power and other natural sources, which...

In this activity, students will analyze documents from the War Department's Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands - better known as the Freedmen's Bureau - that Congress established on March 3, 1865, as the Civil War was...