Pbs: American Experience: Primary Resources: Fireside Chat, May 7, 1933

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...

Looking for a new and exciting way to teach young historians the art of primary source analysis? Jazz up your activity with a resource that asks class members to analyze photos, travel documents, and letters written by some of New...

Why do we read primary source documents? What can they give us that other writings cannot? Provide your learners with any of the primary sources attached here (there are seven), and have them complete the graphic organizer (which opens...

This PBS series episode from American Experience entitled "A Midwife's Tale" features a dramatic film based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning story about a woman named Martha Ballard, a midwife and mother living in the wilds of Maine during...

A picture speaks a thousand words, no matter how old! Scholars use political cartoons from the era of Prohibition and the Temperance Movement to analyze what, a primary document (in this case, a bootlegger's notebook) is telling them...

What would be in your life's scrapbook? Scholars use short video clips, primary and secondary documents, and photos to investigate a 1909 scrapbook. They analyze and uncover what the Rogue Book tells them about the past in Western...

What did Jo write her stories with? How did the March sisters dress? A primary source set designed for Louisa May Alcott's Little Women prompts learners to look over images of household items and clothes from the 1860s before...

Students find out about the minds and thoughts of presidents through reading their actual letters. They explore the personal lives of presidents. They answer questions about a primary source. They write essays.

Excerpts from Franklin Roosevelt's delivery of the May 7, 1933 Fireside Chat highlighting the purpose and goals of the New Deal.

Spy games are not just for professionals anymore! Scholars use short video clips, primary documents, and photographs to investigate Nazi spies in America during World War II.  The young detectives analyze the paranoia warfare can...