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...
Alabama Learning Exchange
Alex: Using Primary Sources
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...
Stanford University
Stanford History Education Group: Roman Republic
[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.
Other
Using Sources Effectively
This site provides hints and guidelines on how to effectively use sources.
Stanford University
Sheg: Reading Like a Historian: 1898 North Carolina Election
[Free Registration/Login Required] Lesson using primary resources on the 1898 election in North Carolina during the Gilded Age. Includes handouts, primary sources, and student questions. Requires free registration to access resources.
Stanford University
Sheg: Document Based History: Reading Like a Historian:examining Passenger Lists
[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...
Stanford University
Sheg: Document Based History: Reading Like a Historian: Chicago Race Riots
[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...
Curated OER
Mc Graw Hill: Key Ideas and Details: Use Text Evidence
Learn how to analyze primary and secondary sources using text evidence. An example is provided. (Note: Exercises don't load in archived copy.)
Stanford University
Sheg: Document Based History: Reading Like a Historian: Soldiers in Philippines
[Free Registration/Login Required] Students read primary source documents to solve a problem surrounding a historical question. This inquiry lesson allows students to use close reading skills to read a variety of primary source...
Stanford University
Sheg: Document Based History: Reading Like a Historian: The Puritans
[Free Registration/Login Required] Young scholars solve a problem surrounding a historical question by reading primary source documents. This historical inquiry lesson plan allows students to source, corroborate, and contextualize...
Stanford University
Sheg: Document Based History: Reading Like a Historian: Homestead Strike
[Free Registration/Login Required] Students solve a problem surrounding a historical question by reading primary source documents. This historical inquiry lesson allows students to use the historical thinking skills of corroboration,...
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...
National Archives (UK)
National Archives: Wwii Evacuation to Canada
Through the lens of the British National Archives and with the use of primary sources, learners assess the quality of care children received when they were evacuated into Canada during World War II.
US National Archives
National Archives: To What Extent Was Reconstruction a Revolution? (Part 1)
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.
Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance Center
Yad Vashem: Liberation and Survival
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...
New Deal Network
New Deal Network: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute: Dear Mrs. Roosevelt
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.
Stanford University
Stanford History Education Group: Egyptian Pyramids
[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.
Other
The Road to Revolution
This is a site for a 14-day United States History unit on the events leading up to the American Revolution. The point of this unit is to help students form an understanding of events by using multiple primary accounts (teaching...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neh: Edsit Ement: The First Amendment
This resource presents lessons on the First Amendment. It contains many resources for use with children, and links to primary source documents.
Library of Congress
Loc: Family Customs Past and Present: Exploring Cultural Rituals
In this lesson, learners will use photos, documents, and music from the Library's digital collection. Then they will students investigate rituals and customs of various cultures.
TES Global
Tes: Shakespeare's Macbeth Image Bank
[Free Registration/Login Required] This is a collection of 18th and 19th-century images from the Victoria and Albert Museum which includes three images inspired by Shakespeare's Macbeth. Ideas for their use is also provided.
Digital Public Library of America
Dpla: Puerto Rican Migration to the Us
This primary source set uses maps, documents, and photographs to tell the story of Puerto Rican migration to the United States.
Patrick McSherry
Spanish American War Centennial: A Letter From Thomas Henry Dunn: 7th u.s. Infantry
Letter written by Thomas Henry Dunn, a corporal in the 7th U.S. Infantry, while in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, referring to the Battle of Las Guasimas in his letter.
US National Archives
Docsteach: Comparing Civil War Recruitment Posters
Learners will compare and contrast military recruitment posters to analyze various perspectives regarding the role of African Americans during the Civil War. They will determine the purpose of each poster - one recruiting black men for...