Center on Congress: Teaching With Primary Resources

Engage your middle schoolers with Pastor Martin Niemoller's famous poem that begins, "First they came for the communists." Now that you have their attention, send learners to the various work stations you created to have them explore...

By reviewing and analyzing these nine selected points from Martin Luther's 95 Theses, your young historians will discern the major tenets of the revolutionary challenge made against the Catholic Church in the seventeenth century. This is...

This is a great lesson plan from the Library of Congress that shows how to use primary sources in the examination of the Spanish Conquistadors in America. The lesson offers many possible activities for students to use with the primary...

Scholars study a historical photograph to make predictions of what happened right after the picture was taken. They research a variety of different topics and use primary sources to answer questions about common food, fashion trends, and...

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...

Primary sources—even those that seem mundane—offer a window into those who experienced history. Using a Red Cross map offered to soldiers stationed in Paris after World War II alongside worksheet questions, scholars consider what life...

Dwight D. Eisenhower's message to troops for D-Day is iconic. Individuals examine Eisenhower's words and compare that to historians' understanding of the epic events of that day using primary sources, an essay, and a Venn diagram to...

View a wide variety of primary source materials that relate to these six topics: Child Labor, Women's Suffrage, Civil Rights, National Park Service, Securities and Exchange Commission, and The Marshall Plan. Transcripts are available for...

What does it mean to be American? Explore the constitution and what it really means to be a citizen here. First, learners of all ages will investigate different primary source documents. Then, they establish each document's...

Students explore the usage of primary sources, what they are and how they originate. Artifacts are compared and contrasted as part of this historical inquiry as questions are formulated and conclusions drawn.