American battlefield trust
Resources about major wars such as the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Civil War
https://www.battlefields.org/search?resource%5B%5D=primary_source
Resources about major wars such as the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Civil War
https://www.battlefields.org/search?resource%5B%5D=primary_source
ICivics
“We champion equitable, non-partisan civic education so that the practice of democracy is learned by each new generation. We work to inspire life-long civic engagement by providing high-quality and engaging civics resources to teachers and students across our nation.”
“iCivics first-of-its-kind digital civic library includes more than 260 curricular resources, digital literacy tools, professional learning materials, and educational video games.”
https://www.icivics.org/
“We champion equitable, non-partisan civic education so that the practice of democracy is learned by each new generation. We work to inspire life-long civic engagement by providing high-quality and engaging civics resources to teachers and students across our nation.”
“iCivics first-of-its-kind digital civic library includes more than 260 curricular resources, digital literacy tools, professional learning materials, and educational video games.”
https://www.icivics.org/
Project Mikva:
Our Mission at Mikva Challenge is to develop youth to be empowered, informed, and active citizens who will promote a just and equitable society.
Professional Development & Teacher Resources
Mikva Action Civics curricula:· Issues to Action
Our Mission at Mikva Challenge is to develop youth to be empowered, informed, and active citizens who will promote a just and equitable society.
Professional Development & Teacher Resources
- Discusses how to create democratic classrooms (build community, develop empathy ), how to have courageous conversations, and how to teach across difference (examining implicit and explicit biases and the impact on teaching)
- https://mikvachallenge.org/teacher-resources/professional-development/
Mikva Action Civics curricula:· Issues to Action
- This cornerstone curriculum provides a six-step process for youth activism that asks students to examine their communities, identify issues of importance to them, conduct intensive primary research about these issues, analyze power, develop strategies, and take action to impact policy — while reflecting on the process throughout.
- Project Soapbox teaches students how to develop and deliver a speech on an issue they feel passionately about. Students identify qualities of a good speech, learn how to structure a speech, employ rhetorical devices and qualities of effective speech delivery. Project Soapbox culminates with students presenting their speeches to their peers and community.
- This curriculum provides a framework and structure for implementing a youth governance body at your school. The activities are written for use in an after school program for youth to work in collaboration with their principal to institute changes within their school.
- Elections in Action is a curriculum that engages students in learning about campaigns and elections by having them explore their own ideologies, learn about the candidates and get involved in electoral politics through a variety of scaffolded actions.
- The Creating Democratic Classrooms curriculum helps build a positive and inclusive learning environment where students feel empowered, safe, and challenged, and where leadership and community are practiced regularly.
EDSITEment is a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Trust for the Humanities.
EDSITEment offers free resources for teachers, students, and parents searching for high-quality K-12 humanities education materials in the subject areas of history and social studies, literature and language arts, foreign languages, arts, and culture.
Features:
· Lesson plans composed of primary-source-rich activities suitable for elementary, middle school, high school, and Advanced Placement classrooms.
· Resources for National History Day projects, including “Ask an Expert” videos and Learning Lab collections specific to the annual theme.
· Teacher’s Guides that provide resources, project ideas, and access to NEH funded projects and programs on a variety of topics, eras, and people.
· Google Classroom compatible student activities that incorporate multi-media resources and interdisciplinary learning.
· Chronicling America, the database of historic newspapers from across the United States developed in collaboration with the Library of Congress.
https://edsitement.neh.gov/about
EDSITEment offers free resources for teachers, students, and parents searching for high-quality K-12 humanities education materials in the subject areas of history and social studies, literature and language arts, foreign languages, arts, and culture.
Features:
· Lesson plans composed of primary-source-rich activities suitable for elementary, middle school, high school, and Advanced Placement classrooms.
· Resources for National History Day projects, including “Ask an Expert” videos and Learning Lab collections specific to the annual theme.
· Teacher’s Guides that provide resources, project ideas, and access to NEH funded projects and programs on a variety of topics, eras, and people.
· Google Classroom compatible student activities that incorporate multi-media resources and interdisciplinary learning.
· Chronicling America, the database of historic newspapers from across the United States developed in collaboration with the Library of Congress.
https://edsitement.neh.gov/about
History Matters
Welcome to History Matters, 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
Some features
Many Pasts:This feature contains primary documents in text, image, and audio about the experiences of ordinary Americans throughout U.S. history. All of the documents have been screened by professional historians and are accompanied by annotations that address their larger historical significance and context. Browse the list of documents below (sorted by time period, beginning with the earliest). The full search feature allows you to quickly locate documents by topic, time period, or keyword.
Making Sense of Evidence: helps students and teachers make effective use of primary sources. “Making Sense of Documents” provide detailed strategies for analyzing online primary materials (including film, music, numbers, photographs, advertisements, oral history, and letters and diaries) with interactive exercises and a guide to traditional and online sources. “Scholars in Action” segments show how scholars puzzle out the meaning of different kinds of primary sources (from cartoons to house inventories), allowing you to try to make sense of a document yourself and then providing audio clips in which leading scholars interpret the document and discuss strategies for overall analysis.
WWW.History: is our annotated guide to more than 850 useful websites for teaching U.S. history and social studies. We have carefully selected and screened each site for quality and provide a 1-paragraph annotation that summarizes its content, its strengths and weaknesses, and its utility for teachers. Information is provided on the type of resource (text, images, audio, and video) available. Browse sites by topic and time period or look through a list of some of our favorite sites. Or visit the Advanced Search to quickly locate WWW.History sites by topic, time period, keyword, kind of primary source, or type of resource. We also include extended scholarly web reviews as a regular feature of History Matters. In collaboration with the Journal of American History (JAH) we review approximately 25 websites per year. The reviews are co-published by the JAH and History Matters and appear in both venues. The archive page offers all featured web reviews.
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6226/
Welcome to History Matters, 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
Some features
Many Pasts:This feature contains primary documents in text, image, and audio about the experiences of ordinary Americans throughout U.S. history. All of the documents have been screened by professional historians and are accompanied by annotations that address their larger historical significance and context. Browse the list of documents below (sorted by time period, beginning with the earliest). The full search feature allows you to quickly locate documents by topic, time period, or keyword.
Making Sense of Evidence: helps students and teachers make effective use of primary sources. “Making Sense of Documents” provide detailed strategies for analyzing online primary materials (including film, music, numbers, photographs, advertisements, oral history, and letters and diaries) with interactive exercises and a guide to traditional and online sources. “Scholars in Action” segments show how scholars puzzle out the meaning of different kinds of primary sources (from cartoons to house inventories), allowing you to try to make sense of a document yourself and then providing audio clips in which leading scholars interpret the document and discuss strategies for overall analysis.
WWW.History: is our annotated guide to more than 850 useful websites for teaching U.S. history and social studies. We have carefully selected and screened each site for quality and provide a 1-paragraph annotation that summarizes its content, its strengths and weaknesses, and its utility for teachers. Information is provided on the type of resource (text, images, audio, and video) available. Browse sites by topic and time period or look through a list of some of our favorite sites. Or visit the Advanced Search to quickly locate WWW.History sites by topic, time period, keyword, kind of primary source, or type of resource. We also include extended scholarly web reviews as a regular feature of History Matters. In collaboration with the Journal of American History (JAH) we review approximately 25 websites per year. The reviews are co-published by the JAH and History Matters and appear in both venues. The archive page offers all featured web reviews.
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6226/
Iowa department of cultural affairs
Primary Source Sets“Through the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) grant, the State Historical Society of Iowa developed free and downloadable Primary Source Sets to help K-12 educators meet the Iowa Core Content Anchor Standards for Social Studies. These Primary Source Sets address national and international history as well as Iowa-specific history. Educators are encouraged to explore sets beyond a particular grade level – great sources are available at all grade levels that can be tailored for students.”
Primary Source Sets“Through the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) grant, the State Historical Society of Iowa developed free and downloadable Primary Source Sets to help K-12 educators meet the Iowa Core Content Anchor Standards for Social Studies. These Primary Source Sets address national and international history as well as Iowa-specific history. Educators are encouraged to explore sets beyond a particular grade level – great sources are available at all grade levels that can be tailored for students.”
- Compelling and supporting questions guide each Primary Source Set
- An introduction, with an Iowa focus, offers an overview for each set
- Source-dependent questions (available for each source) are provided to aid student understanding
- Transcripts and grade-appropriate text excerpts are available for ease of use
- Search the Primary Source Sets by grade level Content Anchor Standards, subject or time period
National Park Service
offers an extensive collection of primary sources, education materials, student activities, and teacher reference materials related to historical parks, battlefields, and monuments.
https://www.nps.gov/teachers/teacher-resources.htm?#fq%5B%5D=Type_Group%3A%22Classroom+Materials%22&fq%5B%5D=Type%3A%22Primary+Sources%22
offers an extensive collection of primary sources, education materials, student activities, and teacher reference materials related to historical parks, battlefields, and monuments.
https://www.nps.gov/teachers/teacher-resources.htm?#fq%5B%5D=Type_Group%3A%22Classroom+Materials%22&fq%5B%5D=Type%3A%22Primary+Sources%22
Teaching U.S History
Website Features:
Primary source timeline & Lessons plans based on the primary sources
http://www.teachingushistory.org
Teaching American History
Features an interactive timeline of American history in documents
Features many collections of documents, which have been curated by historians
https://teachingamericanhistory.org/documents/
Features an interactive timeline of American history in documents
Features many collections of documents, which have been curated by historians
https://teachingamericanhistory.org/documents/
Digital Public Library of America
"Primary source collections exploring topics in history, literature, and culture developed by educators — complete with teaching guides for class use."
https://dp.la/primary-source-sets
"Primary source collections exploring topics in history, literature, and culture developed by educators — complete with teaching guides for class use."
https://dp.la/primary-source-sets
American Social History Project
“Social History for Every Classroom (SHEC) is a database of primary documents, classroom activities, and other teaching materials in U.S. history. SHEC (formally HERB) reflects ASHP/CML's mission of making the past, and the working people and ordinary Americans who shaped it, vivid and meaningful."
"Since 1989, educators at ASHP/CML have worked with K-12 and college instructors in professional development seminars in New York City and around the country. Over the years, we have developed an extensive archive of primary documents, teaching strategies, and other resources that look at how ordinary people both influenced and were influenced by the nation's economic and political transformations. We created SHEC to share these resources with a wider public. We hope teachers, students, and those who love to learn about the past will use SHEC to improve their understanding and teaching of United States history."
"We have edited almost all of SHEC's documents to make them more classroom-friendly; in some cases, there are versions that are even shorter (titled "short version.") If a complete version of a document is available elsewhere online, we have indicated the URL in the source field. If a document has added vocabulary, questions, or other interventions to support student reading and analysis, it is titled "with text supports" and also has the tag "Reading Supports." In addition, you can copy and paste content from any of SHEC's PDF files into a new document in order to customize it further for your students.”
https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/solr-search?facet=38_s:%22Three+Worlds+Meet+%28to+1620%29%22
“Social History for Every Classroom (SHEC) is a database of primary documents, classroom activities, and other teaching materials in U.S. history. SHEC (formally HERB) reflects ASHP/CML's mission of making the past, and the working people and ordinary Americans who shaped it, vivid and meaningful."
"Since 1989, educators at ASHP/CML have worked with K-12 and college instructors in professional development seminars in New York City and around the country. Over the years, we have developed an extensive archive of primary documents, teaching strategies, and other resources that look at how ordinary people both influenced and were influenced by the nation's economic and political transformations. We created SHEC to share these resources with a wider public. We hope teachers, students, and those who love to learn about the past will use SHEC to improve their understanding and teaching of United States history."
"We have edited almost all of SHEC's documents to make them more classroom-friendly; in some cases, there are versions that are even shorter (titled "short version.") If a complete version of a document is available elsewhere online, we have indicated the URL in the source field. If a document has added vocabulary, questions, or other interventions to support student reading and analysis, it is titled "with text supports" and also has the tag "Reading Supports." In addition, you can copy and paste content from any of SHEC's PDF files into a new document in order to customize it further for your students.”
https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/solr-search?facet=38_s:%22Three+Worlds+Meet+%28to+1620%29%22
Library of Congress US History Primary Source Timeline:
"The Library of Congress offers classroom materials and professional development to help teachers effectively use primary sources from the Library's vast digital collections in their teaching."
https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/colonial-settlement-1600-1763/
"The Library of Congress offers classroom materials and professional development to help teachers effectively use primary sources from the Library's vast digital collections in their teaching."
https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/colonial-settlement-1600-1763/
Stanford History Education Group
Reading like a historian
"The Reading Like a Historian curriculum engages students in historical inquiry. Each lesson revolves around a central historical question and features a set of primary documents designed for groups of students with a range of reading skills. This curriculum teaches students how to investigate historical questions by employing reading strategies such as sourcing, contextualizing, corroborating, and close reading. Instead of memorizing historical facts, students evaluate the trustworthiness of multiple perspectives on historical issues and learn to make historical claims backed by documentary evidence."
Beyond the Bubble
"Unlocks the vast digital archive of the Library of Congress to create History Assessments of Thinking (HATs). Explore over 100 easy-to-use assessments that measure students' historical thinking rather than recall of facts."
Civic online reasoning
"Students are confused about how to evaluate online information. We all are. The COR curriculum provides free lessons and assessments that help you teach students to evaluate online information that affects them, their communities, and the world."
https://sheg.stanford.edu/history-lessons
Reading like a historian
"The Reading Like a Historian curriculum engages students in historical inquiry. Each lesson revolves around a central historical question and features a set of primary documents designed for groups of students with a range of reading skills. This curriculum teaches students how to investigate historical questions by employing reading strategies such as sourcing, contextualizing, corroborating, and close reading. Instead of memorizing historical facts, students evaluate the trustworthiness of multiple perspectives on historical issues and learn to make historical claims backed by documentary evidence."
Beyond the Bubble
"Unlocks the vast digital archive of the Library of Congress to create History Assessments of Thinking (HATs). Explore over 100 easy-to-use assessments that measure students' historical thinking rather than recall of facts."
Civic online reasoning
"Students are confused about how to evaluate online information. We all are. The COR curriculum provides free lessons and assessments that help you teach students to evaluate online information that affects them, their communities, and the world."
https://sheg.stanford.edu/history-lessons
Facing History & Ourselves
“At Facing History and Ourselves, we believe the bigotry and hate that we witness today are the legacy of brutal injustices of the past. Facing our collective history and how it informs our attitudes and behaviors allows us to choose a world of equity and justice. Facing History’s resources address racism, antisemitism, and prejudice at pivotal moments in history; we help students connect choices made in the past to those they will confront in their own lives. Through our partnership with educators around the world, Facing History and Ourselves reaches millions of students in thousands of classrooms every year.”
https://www.facinghistory.org/
“At Facing History and Ourselves, we believe the bigotry and hate that we witness today are the legacy of brutal injustices of the past. Facing our collective history and how it informs our attitudes and behaviors allows us to choose a world of equity and justice. Facing History’s resources address racism, antisemitism, and prejudice at pivotal moments in history; we help students connect choices made in the past to those they will confront in their own lives. Through our partnership with educators around the world, Facing History and Ourselves reaches millions of students in thousands of classrooms every year.”
https://www.facinghistory.org/
AntiRacist APUSH
About Antiracist APUSH
"The purpose of Antiracist APUSH is to help students identify and expose the racist policies that have led to the deplorable racial disparities in American society. This is achieved by exposing students to the research of leading professional historians. If our society is to have a more equitable 21st century, all Americans must be able to contextualize Black suffering and articulate the history of injustice. Much structural change and healing is needed. As history teachers, we have an immense responsibility to confront racism and call it what it is."
Steps to create an Antiracist History Class
#1 Recognize that all races are inherently equal because race is not a biological reality
#2 Recognize how deeply saturated our history is with racist policies, and how prevalent racism is in today’s society
#3 An antiracist recognizes that racism comes from racist policies and works to expose those policies
https://www.antiracistapush.com
Learning for Justice
“Our free educational resources—articles, guides, lessons, films, webinars, frameworks and more—help foster shared learning and reflection for educators, young people, caregivers and all community members. Our engagement opportunities—conferences, workshops, and school and community partnerships—provide space where people can harness collective power and take action.”
“Established by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Learning for Justice is a social justice and activism program for schools. The site itself, primarily aimed at educators, has materials to promote equity and reduce discrimination in schools. Teachers can use the site's classroom resources, professional development materials, and blog, as well as a host of other resources. The site provides film kits and lesson plans on a range of topics, such as school integration, anti-bullying, social justice, and gender equity.
The site's search function uses topic and grade-level filters to help teachers find appropriate lessons for their classes -- many of the materials here are Common Core-aligned. There's also a link to the Teaching Tolerance magazine, which any teacher can receive free of charge. The articles can help teachers further their own understanding of diversity issues, as well as provide tips that can easily be integrated into the classroom. Included on the site is an overview of the program's popular Mix It Up at Lunch activity, including detailed information on how to get started” (description credits: https://www.commonsense.org/education/website/learning-for-justice)
Highlights
Social Justice Standards
The Social Justice Standards provide a road map for anti-bias education at every grade level.
Teaching Hard History
Teaching Hard History: American Slavery is a comprehensive guide to teaching this critical topic and to helping students understand how slavery influences us in the present day.
National Standards
The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Social Studies State Standards are critical frameworks for many educators. You’ll find them embedded in select LFJ classroom resources.
https://www.learningforjustice.org/classroom-resources/learning-plans
About Antiracist APUSH
"The purpose of Antiracist APUSH is to help students identify and expose the racist policies that have led to the deplorable racial disparities in American society. This is achieved by exposing students to the research of leading professional historians. If our society is to have a more equitable 21st century, all Americans must be able to contextualize Black suffering and articulate the history of injustice. Much structural change and healing is needed. As history teachers, we have an immense responsibility to confront racism and call it what it is."
Steps to create an Antiracist History Class
#1 Recognize that all races are inherently equal because race is not a biological reality
#2 Recognize how deeply saturated our history is with racist policies, and how prevalent racism is in today’s society
#3 An antiracist recognizes that racism comes from racist policies and works to expose those policies
https://www.antiracistapush.com
Learning for Justice
“Our free educational resources—articles, guides, lessons, films, webinars, frameworks and more—help foster shared learning and reflection for educators, young people, caregivers and all community members. Our engagement opportunities—conferences, workshops, and school and community partnerships—provide space where people can harness collective power and take action.”
“Established by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Learning for Justice is a social justice and activism program for schools. The site itself, primarily aimed at educators, has materials to promote equity and reduce discrimination in schools. Teachers can use the site's classroom resources, professional development materials, and blog, as well as a host of other resources. The site provides film kits and lesson plans on a range of topics, such as school integration, anti-bullying, social justice, and gender equity.
The site's search function uses topic and grade-level filters to help teachers find appropriate lessons for their classes -- many of the materials here are Common Core-aligned. There's also a link to the Teaching Tolerance magazine, which any teacher can receive free of charge. The articles can help teachers further their own understanding of diversity issues, as well as provide tips that can easily be integrated into the classroom. Included on the site is an overview of the program's popular Mix It Up at Lunch activity, including detailed information on how to get started” (description credits: https://www.commonsense.org/education/website/learning-for-justice)
Highlights
Social Justice Standards
The Social Justice Standards provide a road map for anti-bias education at every grade level.
Teaching Hard History
Teaching Hard History: American Slavery is a comprehensive guide to teaching this critical topic and to helping students understand how slavery influences us in the present day.
National Standards
The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Social Studies State Standards are critical frameworks for many educators. You’ll find them embedded in select LFJ classroom resources.
https://www.learningforjustice.org/classroom-resources/learning-plans
Joe Schmidt: Social Studies, Civics, and Education
Joe Schmidt was recently elected to the NCSS Board of Directors, and also serves on the iCivics National Educator Network. He sat four years on the Teaching Tolerance advisory board, and works with a number of other organizations that advocate and work actively to improve social studies education. Joe is passionate about ensuring that social studies educators have the resources and support they need to succeed and to impart upon their students an education that will prepare them to be active and informed members of society.
Recommended Resources for Social Studies Educators
Divided into categories: Civics and Government, Geography, Personal Finance and Economics, History, and DEI+ Anti-Bias
https://joeschmidtsocialstudies.com/recommended-resources
Courageous Conversations about Contentious Topics
https://joeschmidtsocialstudies.com/blog/f/courageous-conversations-about-controversial-topics
Civil Discourse: Classroom Conversations for Stronger Communities
By Joe Schmidt, Nichelle Pinkney
Build civil discourse with courage, understanding, belonging, and empathy.
Discomfort lies at the heart of all learning, especially concerning discussions on difficult and complex topics like climate change, slavery, and police brutality. This book presents ways to help teachers become strong facilitators―not endorsers―of contentious conversations to promote community. There are four themes that arise when exploring civil discourse: courage, understanding, belonging, and empathy. This book is organized around these themes, with each chapter providing:
Joe Schmidt was recently elected to the NCSS Board of Directors, and also serves on the iCivics National Educator Network. He sat four years on the Teaching Tolerance advisory board, and works with a number of other organizations that advocate and work actively to improve social studies education. Joe is passionate about ensuring that social studies educators have the resources and support they need to succeed and to impart upon their students an education that will prepare them to be active and informed members of society.
Recommended Resources for Social Studies Educators
Divided into categories: Civics and Government, Geography, Personal Finance and Economics, History, and DEI+ Anti-Bias
https://joeschmidtsocialstudies.com/recommended-resources
Courageous Conversations about Contentious Topics
https://joeschmidtsocialstudies.com/blog/f/courageous-conversations-about-controversial-topics
Civil Discourse: Classroom Conversations for Stronger Communities
By Joe Schmidt, Nichelle Pinkney
Build civil discourse with courage, understanding, belonging, and empathy.
Discomfort lies at the heart of all learning, especially concerning discussions on difficult and complex topics like climate change, slavery, and police brutality. This book presents ways to help teachers become strong facilitators―not endorsers―of contentious conversations to promote community. There are four themes that arise when exploring civil discourse: courage, understanding, belonging, and empathy. This book is organized around these themes, with each chapter providing:
- How-to tips for bringing work beyond the classroom
- Checklists to guide progress and assess learning
- Exploration of different types of discourse and when to use each
- Steps for preparing a classroom for contentious conversations
- Activities to practice discourse and disagreement