The Mystery of History - Original Sources

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...

Discover the rich Native American culture that existed at the time of early European exploration into the Chesapeake region through analysis of several primary and secondary sources.

How reliable is a painting of the first Thanksgiving if it was created 300 years after the fact? Learners assess the validity of a primary source image to determine what it can actually reveal about this event. 

Students research the events surrounding the Alamo in 1863, and explore the differences between primary and secondary sources of information. They brainstorm lists of items used to research a subject and categorize them as primary or...

A research project is only as good as the credibility of its sources. Teach elementary learners to evaluate their sources by identifying author, time of publication, and area where the source was published, among other details.

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.

Introducing, hypothesizing, and analyzing are the three steps of learning in the concept attainment model. Upper elementary scholars apply this process to understand the differences between primary and secondary sources and how to use...

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.

Distinguish between primary and secondary source documents using the theme of philanthropy. Middle schoolers discuss Anne Frank: The Diary of Young Girl as a way to study the past using a primary source. Then they investigate how to...

Who is Mary Maverick and why is she important? the focus of this, the second in a series of five lessons that are designed to introduce middle schoolers to how historians use primary source documents to understand the past, is on how to...