Engaging Students with Primary Source

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...

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...

Can we learn a thing or two about history by looking at pictures from the past? As young historians view 2-D and 3-D primary source photographs, they respond to a series of worksheets that guides them toward unveiling clues about the past. 

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...

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...

Use primary sources to delve into seven different perspectives of the Boston Massacre. Here, historians read and examine images taken from the Boston Massacre's witnesses and participants. Then, they answer questions dissecting each...

Middle schoolers look at different types of primary sources. They work with partners to analyze three popular culture primary sources. They write a paragraph telling whether they think it belongs in a time capsule. They will also...

Connect historical text to primary sources. Researchers observe and discuss primary sources. Then, historians bring in their own personal artifacts and connect them back to their history.

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.