Group items tagged

From the website: History Matters is "a project of the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning of the City University of New York and the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Visible Knowledge Project. . . . Designed for high school and college teachers and students of U.S. history survey courses, this site serves as a gateway to web resources and offers unique teaching materials, first-person primary documents, and guides to analyzing historical evidence. We emphasize materials that focus on the lives of ordinary Americans and actively involve students in analyzing and interpreting evidence."

Well, it looks like a student in this group shared this in the past, but what a great website! I'll put up some more sticky notes. This website features a large number of primary source material of different media and is strong in its content. Beyond that, this site features information about the methods historians use (interesting to high school students, applicable to college students), a database of reviewed websites, lesson plans, syllabi, and teaching tips. A pretty comprehensive resource.

In looking for primary sources and documents for lesson plans, I have noticed that most of the search results center on U.S. history and its related documents. I wanted to find a website that might provide links to a broader collection of documents on world history. This website has links to European historical documents, broken down by country as well as time period. Each link leads to a collection of other links where one can search for primary documents. It's admittedly a bit curious that this website is the product of an employee of Brigham Young University; I cannot tell if this bears any reflection on websites that are linked here, but the collection is extensive.

I was frustrated by my inability to find primary source documents on my last mini-lesson for the Conscription Act; however I was happy to stumble upon these in regards to this week's Takaki reading. PBS already provides a great wealth of resources to teachers - including lesson plans - and I couldn't resist posting this one. The rest of the site includes other primary source documents as well as images, all broken down over periods that correlate to episodes from their "The West" series.

This Library of Congress website provides access to primary documents including letters, notes, papers, Washington's inaugural address, and copies of the amendments to the US Constitution.

Any other ways in which teachers might use this site?

This site uses primary sources to document the source and evolution of key phrases and concepts in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

The Valley of the Shadow (also called the Valley Project) website is a part of the Virginia Center for Digital History at the University of Virginia. The material in the site documents the lives of two communities during the Civil War period; one community from the South and one community from the North. The site is an online library or an archive filled with primary resources such as letter, diaries, census records, government records, newspapers, speeches, maps, images and other materials. The site contains thousands of documents. The archive is divided into three sections: The Eve of War (Fall 1859-Spring 1861), The War Years (Spring 1861-Spring 1865), and The Aftermath (Spring 1865-Fall 1870). An example of one such document is a letter written in August, 1864 by a young militiaman to his parents telling them that he is well and that he will be sending home his pay. I have added a few lines because I find it so interesting and compelling. The letter comes from a camp near Petersburg. Dear Parents it is with the Greatest of Pleashure that I seat My self to inform you and My Brothers and Sisters that I like it well and am well feal Hartey like ite beter now than Ever I did I hope that youens Ar all well and all the Rest about [unclear: tomstorm] ile now state to you that I Received your Letter last Knight And was Glad to here from youens And was glad to here that Youenes wasened yet dissturbed By The Johneys Rebes you Stated in your letter that tha Wes moveing every thing out Of Town now if tha wold be men tha wold take In the same document but another page, the young man writes about his pay. Read this letter we ar getting Paid off to day I draw 1.20.10 that is one hundrad 20 dollars 10 cts Ile ex press 1 hundrade 10 dollars and mebbey fifteen dollars I dont want to ceep so mutch money here I cend it to you and if you want to make youse of it whi you may get the Chirldren wat ever tha want that is in the eating line And Close but you must be A littl

I ran out of room in the box above.....anyway, I am not certain what the citation rules are regarding this but I found the letter on the website that I have bookmarked, The Valley of the Shadow. Anyway, it is a great site….there is soooo much more.

FREE is a website pool of teaching and learning resources from various branches of the federal government. From the website: "More than 1,500 federally supported teaching and learning resources are included from dozens of federal agencies. New sites are added regularly. . . . FREE is maintained by Peter Kickbush and Kirk Winters, Office of Communications and Outreach, with support from the Development Services Team in the Office of the Chief Information Officer, U.S. Department of Education."

This site is amazing, I was just playing around with it and I am definitely using some of the resources for my unit. :)

The format of this website has changed a bit since I first learned of it over the summer. I don't think it is quite as user friendly as it used to be. However, it does provide some great primary documents for teachers to use when teaching certain moments.... in this case, the lesson I chose was Rosa Parks. By using some of these documents, students can become exposed to a more nuanced interpretation of the bus boycott and the events leading up to it.

You might let them know what you think about their new website design. They might find it helpful.

"Collections of primary resources compatible with the Common Core State Standards - historical documents, literary texts, and works of art - thematically organized with notes and discussion questions."

Because political cartoons are somewhat of special category of primary source images, I thought it would behoove us to find a particular strategy for analyzing and interpreting them - much along the same lines as the SOAPS method but one specifically designed for political cartoons. This lesson plan, and its "Cartoon Analysis Checklist" is a start.

Thanks for this add, I can use this for my lesson plan on Chinese immigration.

This site provides a history of the events of the Civil Rights Movement. It includes many interesting features including: a time line, encyclopedia and primary source documents.

This site provides history teachers with information for helping with their classes. This part of the site includes lesson plans with this one specifically on "Watergate and the Constitution." 

Media gallery for the ThisNation.com site has links to illustrations and reproductions of primary source documents. Also includes a presidents' gallery with links to brief biographical information and copies of inaugural and state of the union addresses for most, if not all, U.S. presidents.

Media gallery has links to illustrations and reproductions of primary source documents. Also includes a presidents' gallery with links to brief biographical information, copies of inaugural addresses, and copies of state of the union addresses for most, if not all, U.S. presidents.

This is the official website of the Tenement Museum in NYC. I LOVE this museum, and if you have yet to have seen it, I highly recommend visiting the next time you are in the city. I have added this page mostly because of the "virtual tour" you can take of one of their tenements, which could be used as a resource for teachers who cannot take students there in person. They also have a number of primary document lesson plans available for different age ranges. Their exhibits are revealing of the lives led by immigrants in late 19th and early 20th century New York City.

The National Archives and Records Administration has launched a new websites for teachers that includes thousands of primary source documents that are ready to use in classroom settings.

I talked to the education specialists at NARA this summer and they showed me how to use DocsTeach and it is AMAZING. Also, they have the most wonderful field trip opportunity. They have a simulation where the students become archivists and they go through the research process. I don't think there is anything else like it in the entire country. If you want to teach the research process and historical thinking, you need to book a trip ASAP!

National Archives Documents and Activities for teaching History

Primary sources across many millenia.

How might teachers use the site and its resources?

U.S. and Soviet Perspectives on their relations amidst the Cold War.

This site provided by the Smithsonian provides teachers with lessons that help students understand how to use primary sources in historical research. It would be very useful for any upper secondary social studies teacher. 

"The United Nations Cyberschoolbus was created in 1996 as the online education component of the Global Teaching and Learning Project, whose mission is to promote education about international issues and the United Nations. The Global Teaching and Learning Project produces high quality teaching materials and activities designed for educational use (at primary, intermediate and secondary school levels) and for training teachers. The vision of this Project is to provide exceptional educational resources (both online and in print) to students growing up in a world undergoing increased globalization." \n\n "Within the Cyberschoolbus site there are a number of activities and projects that teach students about global issues in an interactive, engaging and fun way."