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Wisconsin Historical Society
Wisconsin Historical Society: A Handbook for Using Historical Documents [Pdf]
Teachers will find this a superb guide book for teaching students how to critically examine documents from the past. The guide contains lessons and resources for Wisconsin history but the teaching methodology can be adapted for anywhere.
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Object of History: Guide to Doing History With Objects
Explore the dimensions of America's rich history by taking a detailed look at objects from our past. Examine stories, important moments, and the evolution of the American people via primary documents, photos, and other artifacts.
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Best Evidence Encyclopedia: Middle and High School Reading
Looking for opportunities to improve your readers or to help your readers get ahead? BEE presents a number of programs that have been evaluated by their researchers to bring educators the best programs on the market. Learn about programs...
Other
Archives Pei: Heritage Fair Projects a Guide to Sources [Pdf]
A comprehensive resource for students and teachers for planning and researching a project for a heritage fair. While it is intended for Prince Edward Island residents, it offers excellent tips, web links and books for guidance.
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Note Taking Skills
This site contains information on taking good notes and how to use them effectively. Check out all three note-taking and listening links as the information varies.
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Georgia Tech Research Institute: Chronicling America: Us News Map
A fascinating way to look at history, this interactive map lets you search for a person, event, issue, etc. over a specified time frame and it maps newspapers containing related content onto a map of the United States. An additional...
Other
Sweet Briar College: Note Taking Skills
This site contains information for you to evaluate your current note-taking strategies and gives hints on more effective ways to take notes.
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George W. Bush Library: What Do Historical Objects Tell Me? [Pdf]
A comprehensive lesson training learners to analyze historical objects to determine features, reliability, authenticity, and provenance through observation skills encouraged through a variety of activities.
American Rhetoric
American Rhetoric: News and Information Index
This website is a news and information index that offers links to news sources, newspapers, magazines and journals, search engines, polling data, legal resources, and citation guides.
Other
Houston Independent School District: Social Studies Strategies [Pdf]
Hone in on methods for historical thinking and the process of historical inquiry when studying social studies.
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: Balancing Sources
This is from an American history course designed for teachers to enrich their knowledge and their teaching practice. This interactive is a set of nine exercises where teachers evaluate primary resources related to a specific event in...
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: Opb American History Interactive: Evaluating Evidence
Use this interactive lesson to practice evaluating evidence from primary sources in order to draw conclusions about a historical event. In this particular case, the event is the Civil War. The challenge is to decide for yourself which of...
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: Analyzing Artifacts
Learn the steps in the 5-step process that historians use when they analyze an artifact as you investigate what you can learn from Native American and other items.
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Monash University Library: Evaluating Web Pages
Use this guide to learn how to evaluate web pages. This concise guide also addresses why evaluation is important. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.7
Smithsonian Institution
National Postal Museum: A Student's Guide to Historical Research
This resource focuses on teaching students how to do historical research via a series of steps. Historical photos and documents are included as examples.
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: American Passages: A Literary Survey: Archive
This search engine provides access to more than 3000 items including visual art, audio files, primary source materials, and additional texts supporting and enriching the understanding of American Literature. RI.9-10.9 US Documents,...
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Newsela
[Free Registration/Login Required] Newsela offers new current events articles daily in areas ranging from the arts to war and peace. Each article is available at five different reading levels; grade level and word count are displayed for...
Google
Google for Education: Finding Patterns in Spelling Errors and History
In this lesson, students analyze spelling errors and large sets of data to find patterns, develop abstractions, and discover how large amounts of data can tell us much about our society.
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Bowdoin: Reading, Writing, Researching for History: A Guide for College Students
Reference guide material discusses how to research, write and read for history.
Read Works
Read Works: Passages: Sandra Day O'connor
[Free Registration/Login Required] Students read a nonfiction text Sandra Day O'Connor and a linked passage about Margaret Thatcher and then complete questions over the paired texts.RI.11-12.5 Evaluate text structure
PBS
Pbs: Ken Burns America
Find assets by location and call up specific item information including films, connected themes and related classroom resources. A wealth of primary source images from events in American history.
Stanford University
Sheg: Document Based History: Reading Like a Historian: Evaluating Sources
[Free Registration/Login Required] Are all historical sources equally trustworthy? How might the reliability of a historical document be affected by the circumstances under which it was created? For this activity, students sharpen their...
Stanford University
Sheg: Document Based History: Reading Like a Historian: Historical Thinking
[Free Registration/Login Required] This chart elaborates on the historical reading skills of sourcing, corroboration, contextualization, and close reading. In addition to questions that relate to each skill, the chart includes...
Stanford University
Sheg: Reading Like a Historian: Intro to Historical Thinking: Lunchroom Fight
[Free Registration/Login Required] A fight breaks out in the lunchroom and the principal needs to figure out who started it. But when she asks witnesses what they saw, she hears conflicting accounts. Why might these accounts differ? As...