What is a primary source? Primary sources are direct, first-hand accounts that describe a particular time period or event. Examples of primary sources include published materials (books, magazine and ...

The new question-of-the-week is: What are good ways to have students learn about—and use—primary sources? Part One featured suggestions from Donna L. Shrum, Kevin Thomas Smith, Sarah Cooper, and ...

Newspapers, photographs, postcards, maps and other primary sources offer firsthand testimonies of the past. Materials like these provide inside looks into history, often humanizing what we’ve read ...

In this lesson, students view an excerpt from the Rogue Book that introduces a 1909 book featuring hundreds of clippings for lost and wanted men from the early 20th century. They analyze pages from ...

This resource provides a brief introduction to writing in the field of History through the lens of threshold concepts. It includes: An overview of what writing characteristics are valued in History ...

When students learn from primary sources, they have an opportunity to connect with the past. But such interactions with primary sources—items connected to a topic of study and time period—shouldn’t be ...

Primary sources provide learners of all ages with opportunities for deep engagement. Staff from across the Smithsonian share memorable moments in their work that have helped audiences activate their ...

In this lesson, students learn about the Temperance Movement and New York in the 1890s by watching an excerpt from the Bootlegger’s Notebook, investigation and examining period images, including ...

How to use lateral reading to verify information from a post or article. When to click through to a link or search result and when to move on to the next one. The difference between primary and ...

The Linda Lear Center provides a unique active learning opportunity for students to handle rare books, archival material, and cultural heritage items. The Center encourages the use of primary source ...