Over the past week my students began our states Classroom Based Assessment known as a CBA for the state of Washington called Digging Deep. This project requires them to do the following:
1. Develop a historical question.
2. State a position on the historical question.
3. Provide reason(s) for your position that include:
- An explanation of how two or more primary sources support your position.
- Additional evidence from one or more of the following social science perspectives:
- geographic
- cultural
- political
- economic
- sociological
- psychological.
4. Make explicit references within the paper or presentation to three or more credible sources that provide relevant information AND cite sources within the paper, presentation, or bibliography.
One of the biggest stumbling points for my students was locating resource that they could use to find primary sources to support their position. So as the students worked I began collecting resources that they found to be useful in locating primary sources. This is not an exhaustive list by any means but was one that allowed my students to find the needed information on many different topics. As always if you know of a great resource that I have not mentioned please drop me a line and let me know so I can add it to the list.
Searchable Primary Sources Sites
These sites can be used to search for primary sources on American History.
- Yale University-Three ways to search for Primary Source Documents at Yale University.
- Library of Congress collections and searchable database.
- New Deal Network collection list and a searchable database.
- Northern Nevada Primary Source Catalogue Search.
- Smithsonian Institute search for primary source documents.
Primary Source Site Lists
These links provide you with many resources to locating primary sources on a variety of topics.
- Here is another great Primary List Resource for the Library of Congress thanks to Julie
- Primary Source Sets – Each set collects primary sources on a specific topic, all as easy-to-use PDFs, with historical background information and teaching ideas.
- Primary Sources by State – Selected primary sources for each of the fifty states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories.
- Browse by Topic in the Library of Congress- Easy browsing for primary sources across all the digital collections of the Library of Congress.
- Web Guides – List of primary documents arranged by topic.
- From Revolution to Reconstruction: http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/usa.htm
- The University of Oklahoma Law Center: A Chronology of US Historical DocumentsThis site offers a great set of historical documents from pre-colonial days to the present. http://www.law.ou.edu/hist/
- Repositories of Primary Sources great list of primary sources.
1763-1815: Primary Sources: The American Revolution and the New Nation
- 1815-1860: Primary Sources: National Expansion and Reform
- 1860-1877: Primary Sources: Civil War and Reconstruction
- Primary Source Documents: A very extensive list of Primary Resource websites. Treasury of Primary Resources pertaining to early American History.
- Top 100 links for Primary sources
- American History Primary documents categorized list of documents by era in American History.
- Historical Scene investigators 13 topics and primary resources on each topic.
- The Valley of the Shadow searchable database for the Civil War.
Other Primary Source Helpful sites
- Historical Scene investigators 13 topics and primary resources on each topic.
Filed under: Resources | Tagged: Historical document, History, K through 12, lesson plans, Library of Congress, Methods and Theories, online resources teachers, Primary source, Smithsonian Institution, successful teaching, teaching resources, United States, Washington D.C., Web Tool, webtools, Yale University | 1 Comment »
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