Library of Congress
Loc: For Teachers: Analyzing Primary Source Documents
These student worksheets and activities help students analyze many different types of primary source documents. Life histories, objects, and photographs are all used to engage students.
Indiana University
The Center on Congress: Congressional Moments: Primary Sources Gallery
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...
Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Education: Artifact & Analysis: Historical Interpretation
A companion to American history courses, Artifact & Analysis features historical artifacts and documents about consumerism and the nation expanding, teacher's guide, writing assignments, and essays.
Other
Suny Albany: Talking History
SUNY Albany presents archives of the weekly broadcast/internet radio program, Talking History, begun in 1996 and focusing on all aspects of history. The goal is "to provide teachers, students, researchers and the general public with as...
Stanford University
Sheg: Document Based History: Reading Like a Historian: Historical Thinking
[Free Registration/Login Required] This chart elaborates on the historical reading skills of sourcing, corroboration, contextualization, and close reading. In addition to questions that relate to each skill, the chart includes...
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: America's History in the Making: Historical Thinking Interactives
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...
Library of Congress
Loc: Become a Historical Detective
Search American Memory collections and play the role of a detective in this instructional activity that seeks to find out if Billy the Kid really was killed by Pat Garrett at Fort Sumner, New Mexico.
University of California
World History for Us All: Getting Our Bearings: Maps of Time, Space, and History
Understanding history requires students to be able to see the big picture. This teaching unit introduces students to tools they can use to investigate history. Topics covered include cartography, chronography, and maps of space, time and...
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...
Harry S. Truman Library and Museum
Truman Library & Museum: Incorporating Primary Sources in the Classroom
Students and teachers are given direction in how to work with the primary source materials of the Harry S Truman Presidential Library.
Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Source: Resources for Teaching American History: Primary Sources
A varied collection of primary resources from American history. They include portraits, banknotes, artifacts, newspaper items, paintings, and illustrations.
Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media
Teaching History: Doing History Is Like Solving a Mystery!
Use this interactive poster to explore how students understand history and find resources about teaching historical thinking to students.
Indiana University
The Center on Congress: An Introduction to Primary Sources
Discover the difference between primary and secondary sources, then take a quiz to test your knowledge.
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: Let's Make History by Recording It
What if Anne Frank hadn't kept a diary? What if no one could listen to Martin Luther King's Mountaintop speech? What if the camera hadn't been rolling during the first moon landing? Actively listening to the voices of the past and the...
Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Libraries: Zoos, a Historical Perspective
An online sample of maps, drawings and photographs of zoos from over 30 states and 40 countries.
Ohio State University
Ohio State University: Cold Cases: Lessons in Historical Skills and Methods
Lessons using primary sources to figure out what happened in the past allows students to examine and perhaps crack the mysteries that swirl around Byrd and his expedition to Antarctica to this day. Primary sources are available on the...
Huntington Library
Huntington Library: Using Primary Sources in the Classroom [Pdf]
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.
Curated OER
Mc Graw Hill: Compare Primary and Secondary Sources
Learn how to analyze and compare the relationship between a primary and a secondary source.