Charlotte Forten, an educated young African American woman from a prosperous Philadelphia family, joined the project in 1862, moving to the island of St. Helena, where she served for two years as a teacher of former slaves. While there, she kept a detailed account of her experiences, which she sent to her friend, the activist and poet John Greenleaf Whittier. Deeming her observations worthy of wider attention, he passed them along to The Atlantic's editor, James T. Fields, who published them in two installments in 1864.

This is a map of the wheel-ruts of modern English. Etymologies are not definitions; they're explanations of what our words meant and how they sounded 600 or 2,000 years ago.

Historical maps laid over Google Maps. 

The site offers bibliographic information and digital facsimiles for selected collections of manuscript codices, texts, documents, papers, and leaves held by Penn's Rare Book & Manuscript Library as well as those privately owned by Lawrence J. Schoenberg (C'53, WG'56). Penn holds over 2,000 Western manuscripts produced before the 19th century; medieval and Renaissance manuscripts comprise approximately 900 items, the earliest dating from 1000 A.D. Its holdings of Indic manuscripts is the largest in the Western hemisphere with more than 3,000 items. The Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection emphasizes secular topics, especially science and mathematics, and includes tablets from the 21st to 18th centuries B.C.

"Find and use activities crafted by educators using documents from the National Archives. Turn your students into historians with primary-source based activities that develop historical thinking skills. Activities are ready to use in your classroom. Or alter an existing activity to fit your unique needs. Exchange primary source documents and modify activity instructions. Log in to borrow from an even larger selection from fellow educators."

A Summer Workshop for Educators on Using Historical Documents in the Classroom  --one week workshop in Waltham July 21-25

Teaching with primary sources. On the right side column there are some analysis tools (pdf and doc versions)

Gives guides for general primary sources, oral histories, books, photographs/prints, manuscripts, political cartoons, maps, sheet music, motion pictures, and sound recordings.

Use this tool to record your responses to a primary source. If you need guidance, use the sample questions. 

Resources of books for both educators and students pertaining to westward expansion

PDF containing a variety of definitions of literary devices, examples, etc.

Examples and rubrics based on Calkins' 

Not sure, Berni. I don't think I'll be showing this particular video, but I thought I'd link it with the idea that we might be able to find similar videos that might be more appropriate.

- Links to Folklife Resources

In addition, dialogue can be a wonderful way to elegantly reveal back-story or exposition.  Too often, however, dialogue is under-nourished and ignored.