Elementary Library Services
Subject Links Page
Primary Sources
- Powerful primary sources
links to a variety of primary source web sites including the American Memory Collection from the Library of Congress, historical speeches, interviews, ads, historical cookbooks and more. The specific web pages are located below as well.
- NH Historical Society - Working with sources
a wealth of resources for primary source material specific to New Hampshire.
- Awesome Stories
AwesomeStories.com uniquely uses the Internet to link its story content to hundreds of thousands of the world's best on-line primary sources. Enjoy an interactive learning experience as you see relevant maps, pictures, artifacts, manuscripts and documents, IN CONTEXT, within each story. Take advantage of human-based searches for a safe, fast and fun way to learn the real story behind historic events, famous people, heroic exploits, legends, disasters, movies, plus topics of current and general interest.
Why Use Primary Sources?
www.emsc.nysed.gov/ciai/dbq/ssindex.html
The standards-based online courses offered here will give a boost to any teacher who wants to use historical sources in his or her classroom. Learn how to ask exciting “document-based questions” to motivate inquiry.
Why use primary sources in the classroom - a framework from the Library of Congress.
learning.loc.gov/learn/lessons/fw.html
Using primary sources in research papers and projects is a time-honored way to engage students with primary historical materials. Yet primary sources can be incorporated into all phases of instruction. This framework will help you use primary sources throughout your teaching.
American Memory
http://rs6.loc.gov/amhome.html
To find primary source material for American history units at every level, search this Library of Congress site first. The “Learning Page” for teachers includes lessons on the early colonies, the Civil War, and more.
This Nation
http://www.thisnation.com/library/
ThisNation.com is dedicated to providing factual, unbiased information about government and politics in the United States of America. The primary source library includes many historical documents from including Supreme Court decisions, Executive Orders, War Messages, Inaugural Addresses, treaties, political essays, and much more.
Today in History
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/today.html
Part of the Library of Congress´ “American Memory” site (see above), this page highlights an historical daily event and provides links to related primary sources. Have your middle to upper graders take turns presenting information to the class.
Wonders From a World-Class Library
www.nypl.org/digital
Photographs of endangered animals, astronomical phenomena, and depression-era workers are just some of the resources available from this comprehensive site. Don't miss the “Maps, Atlases & Charts” section, which offers a glimpse of the evolutionary nature of map-making.
Journey to the Ancient World
www.perseus.tufts.edu
If you teach a unit on Ancient Greece or Rome, you'll find the digital collections available here helpful. There are links to hundreds of images, texts, and museum works, so you can easily show students Greek poetry, Roman coins, or whatever else you need to support your lessons.
Ads Through the Ages
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu
Click on “Digitized Collections” to access rich resources for grades four and up. Kids will especially love looking at the nineteenth-century advertisements in “Ad*Access,” which you can use to teach history, media literacy, and critical-thinking skills.
Africans in America
www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/home.html
This Web site component to the PBS series on “Africans in America” features an excellent collection of primary sources, including paintings, photographs, and documents. Click on “Resource Bank Index” to see portraits of abolitionists, slave narratives, and more.
Foodie History
http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/
Invite your students to explore American history by studying what Americans have eaten, from the Revolution onwards. This site has digitized hundreds of cookbooks, with special sections on regional and ethnic cooking. Weave together history and math lessons by sharing, for example, an 1881 recipe for “Jumble Cake.”
Historical Speeches
www.americanrhetoric.com
This continually-updated site offers streaming audio and video of thousands of historical speeches, from Martin Luther King´s “I Have a Dream” to many of George W. Bush´s reflections on September 11, 2001. Check out “Figures in Sound,” a bank of historical speech clips each showcasing a different rhetoric device, such as
metaphor,
parallelism, and
synecdoche.
Legendary Interviews
www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/audiointerviews
At this online archive, part of the BBC´s site, students can listen to anyone — from late cartoonist Charles Schulz, explaining how he likes to get his readers´ attention, to Frances Crick, who describes discovering DNA. Interviews are broken down into small, labeled audio files, so there´s no hunting down the part you´d like to share.
Primary Sources for Primary Kids
www.americasstory.com
This site is easier to navigate than the popular “American Memory” page, so it's perfect for students in younger grades. Children will love finding primary sources tied to their birthdays. They can also click on an interactive map of the United States to explore state histories, ending report woes.
The Digital Classroom
www.archives.gov/digital_classroom
The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration maintains a fantastic site for tracking down primary sources. Their “Digital Classroom” provides teachers with document analysis worksheets, professional development tips, and lesson plans on the Revolution, the Great Depression, and much more.
Elementary Library Services
Send suggestions or comments to Charlotte Lesser
Director of Elementary Library Services, Monadnock Regional School District
email to:clesser@mrsd.org
Last revised: 5/23/06
The links included within the Monadnock Regional School District (MRSD) web pages may let you leave the MRSD's Web site. The selection of links is limited to those that meet our educational purpose. The linked sites are not under the control of the MRSD and the MRSD is not responsible for the contents of any linked site or any link contained in a linked site, or any changes or updates to such sites. The MRSD is not responsible for Webcasting or any other form of transmission received from any linked site. The MRSD is providing these links only as a convenience, and the inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement by the MRSD.