iCivics
I Civics: News Literacy
Use this library of mini-lessons to teach students to recognize high-standards journalism so they can make informed judgments about the information coming at them and to help them identify and deal with misinformation, bias, opinion, and...
Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Libraries: Library & Archival Exhibitions on the Web
This index of links offers the opportunity to explore important and interesting topics. Visiting links on the desired topic is most likely to provide primary sources or at least point students in the right direction.
Online Writing Lab at Purdue University
Purdue University Owl: Evaluating Sources: General Guidelines
This entry focuses on evaluating your sources while reading them, giving suggestions on what to look for when reading.
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...
Other
Usa Gov: u.s. History and Historical Documents
Discover highlights from American history, including military events and founding documents.
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.
Other
Livius: Herodotus of Halicarnassus
Rich site provides a biography of Herodotus as well as a discussion of his sources and originality. Contains exhaustive material concerning the "world's first historian." Highlights include a study that explores how Herodotus described...
Thinkport Education
Thinkport: Researching With Reliable Web Sources
A module to learn essential skills needed to research a topic.
Other
Harvest
Three modules explain what primary sources are; how to find primary sources in the UIUC archives; how to make sense of a primary source document by examining its creator, the context, and purpose of its creation.
Thinkport Education
Thinkport: The Revolutionary Americas
Find relationships among primary and secondary sources of information that identify where information from different sources converges and where it differs.
George Mason University
George Mason University: World History Sources: Material Culture: Images
Investigate the meaning of different cultures' images and materials. Learn to examine different questions such as what is the image, what is the meaning, what is the function, and what is the social condition.
George Mason University
George Mason University: World History Sources: Newspapers
Discover how historians use newspapers and learn about the development of the modern newspaper. Get answers to many questions about different newspapers.
George Mason University
George Mason University: World History Sources: Official Documents
A guide to dissecting official documents. Learn how to find the author of documents, the primary audience, and other important information.
Library of Congress
Loc: Primary Source Investigation
Choose from a list of photos from the Civil War, Reform, Harlem Renaissance, and Campaign to study and record observations.
George Mason University
Chnm: Children & Youth History
"Children & Youth in History is a world history resource that provides teachers and students with access to sources about young people from the past to the present."
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neh: Edsit Ement: Evaluating Eyewitness Reports
In this lesson, students practice working with primary documents by comparing accounts of the Chicago Fire and testing the credibility of a Civil War diary.
Library of Congress
Loc: Creating a Primary Source Archive: All History Is Local
A lesson plan where young scholars collect local primary documents and examine the interplay between national, state, local, and personal history.
Digital History
Digital History: An Intro to the Study of History: The Four Questions [Pdf]
How does one study history? Find four basic questions that historians use to examine events in an effort to explain them and put them in historical context. By examining the Battle of Lexington and Concord, students can practice using...
Digital History
Digital History: Social Class in Colonial America [Pdf]
By examining primary sources such as diaries and tax records, and a chapter from a secondary source, learn about the social classes apparent in colonlial America. Suggested student exercises guide crtitical thinking assessment of the...
Library of Congress
Loc: Oral History and Social History
This lesson presents social history content and topics through the voices of ordinary people. It draws on primary sources from the collection, American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940.
Library of Congress
Loc: Change in Early 20th Century America: Doing the Decades
This unit provides a flexible investigative structure for the study of selected themes in U.S. history and culture using the American Memory collections and related resources. Core goals are the development of relationships between...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neh: Edsit Ement: Using Historic Digital Newspapers for National History Day
In this lesson plan, students will consider "Using Historic Digital Newspapers for National History Day." The plan includes worksheets and other student materials that can be found under the resource tab.
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Content Area Literacy: History
The ability to read historical documents including contemporary explications about societal, economic and political issues provides a direct link to literacy as preparation for citizenship. As in the other disciplines, schools are unique...
US National Archives
Nara: History in the Raw
Site offers excellent reasons to approach history by using primary documents -- diaries, letters, drawings, and memoirs. Also gives teachers suggestions on where to find great sources.