Teachers will find this a superb guide book for teaching young scholars how to critically examine documents from the past. The guide contains lessons and resources for Wisconsin history but the teaching methodology can be adapted for...

Six interactive activities are presented that walk students through how to use their critical thinking skills in the analysis of historical artifacts and documents. The sixth one explains how to balance the various perspectives that...

Read three letters, one at a time, about events of historical significance. Identify the region and era particular to each letter, and answer additional questions about the information it contains.

Students will explore the documents that were used in shaping the United States, before, during, and after its creation. While studying these documents, students will use reading skills to interpret and analyze documents. By the end of...

Students become detectives, reading and analyzing documents and artifacts as clues to the life of a nineteenth century woman, Annie Steel. The students then use various materials to create a series of collages.

Site from National Archives provides copies of primary documents that can be used while presenting various topics in U.S. history.

[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] Young scholars solve a problem surrounding a historical question by reading primary source documents. This historical inquiry lesson allows students to source, corroborate, and contextualize speeches...

Library of Congress collection of books, pamphlets, and photographs that are tied together for a special presentation "The Progress of a People." Proceed through the three sessions: Segregation and Violence, Solving the Race Problem, and...

As part of 'Creating the United States' interactive resource, this section deals with creating the Declaration of Independence. Connect particular phrases and ideas set down in the Declaration of Independence with texts that preceded it....

Visit this virtual museum exhibit to learn about New York City's divided opinions about slavery before and during the Civil War. There are three themes covered: Pro-Southern City, Fighting Slavery, and Civil War. Students use a...

This lesson provides guidelines for teaching students how to use primary sources such as images, text, or statistics (e.g., maps, census). Includes a document analysis worksheet.

[Free Registration/Login Required] Learners 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...

[Free Registration/Login Required] Students solve a problem surrounding a historical question by reading primary source documents. This historical inquiry activity allows students to use the historical thinking skills of corroboration,...

[Free Registration/Login Required] Students use primary source documents to investigate central historical questions. In this structured academic controversy, students examine constitutional amendments, a Black Code, a personal account...

[Free Registration/Login Required] Students use primary source documents to solve a problem surrounding a historical question. This document-based inquiry instructional activity allows students to read two Populist speeches in order to...

[Free Registration/Login Required] Students use primary source documents to investigate central historical questions. In this investigation students use nineteenth-century maps and art, and consider the roots of American exceptionalism.

[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 examine how advocates and critics of American...

[Free Registration/Login Required] Learners use primary source documents to investigate central historical questions. In this investigation students read speeches by Thaddeus Stevens and Andrew Johnson in order to explore why the Radical...

[Free Registration/Login Required] Students use primary source documents to investigate central historical questions. For 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 central historical questions. In this investigation students weigh contrasting interpretations by prominent historians to answer the question: Why...

[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 must determine whether John Brown was a "misguided fanatic," by examining a speech by...

[Free Registration/Login Required] Young scholars use primary source documents to investigate central historical questions. For this investigation, students read six different sources that provide insight into what happened at Haymarket...