Teaching U.S. History

The Age of Imperialism
http://www.smplanet.com/imperialism/toc.html
Lesson plan.

Anne Frank the Writer: An Unfinished Story
http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/af/htmlsite/
Presents an in depth look at her writings through the use of a narrated exhibition, interviews, an opportunity for site users to respond, artifacts from the museum, and links to other recommended sites.

American Civil War (Teacher’s Guide)
http://www.theteachersguide.com/Civilwarlessons.html
Provides a variety of lesson plans, thematic units and teaching ideas for intermediate and secondary level students who are studying the American Civil War.  

American Notes: Travels in America, 1750-1920 (American and California History)
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/lhtnhtml/lhtnhome.html
Comprised of 253 published narratives by Americans and foreign visitors recounting their travels in the colonies and the United States and their observations and opinions about American peoples, places, and society from about 1750 to 1920.

America's Story from America's Library
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi
An extensive resource for both students and teachers offering information on American history, people, and culture.

Battle of Shiloh Video
http://www.140thShilohVideo.com/
Help your students understand the Civil War with this battlefield recreation.

BellSouth's Digital Storyteller (American History- WWII, esp.)
http://www.knowitall.org/bellsouthdigitalstoryteller/
An opportunity for students to learn history first hand by interviewing veterans from WWII and Korea. Using video technology, the students interview the veterans, capture footage, edit the story, and record a living memory, putting learning into practice while developing communication, research, and technology skills.

Crossroads A K-16 American History Curriculum
http://www.eduref.org/Virtual/Lessons/crossroads/
Crossroads is composed of thirty-six units equally distributed among elementary, middle, and high school grade levels. Lesson plans and student worksheets are included.

Curriculum of U.S. Labor History for Teachers
http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/curricul.htm
Guide features thirteen lesson plans which integrate labor history into the U.S. History curriculum from the Colonial Period to the Present. Objectives, procedures, and documents are included for each lesson plan.

Documents and Symbols of American Freedom
http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/score_lessons/symbols_freedom/
Includes a glossary, resources, and Teacher Lesson Plans. Suitable for upper elementary through high school.

Early America.com
http://earlyamerica.com/
Provides a wealth of “primary source” newspapers, documents, maps and images which focus on the late 18th to early 19th Centuries in the United States. Allows students opportunities to critically evaluate the typical secondary-tertiary sources, such as textbooks.

First Thanksgiving
http://teacher.scholastic.com/thanksgiving/
Includes: Picture Time Line, Voyage on the Mayflower, Plimoth: 1621, and Thanksgiving CyberChallenge. The accompanying Teacher's Guide features: assessment and rubrics, learning objectives, description of components, lesson planning suggestions, project text, national standards, cross curricular extensions, and additional resources.

Gilder Lehrman Center for Slavery, Abolition, and Resistance
http://www.yale.edu/glc/
Many primary sources such as court decisions, cartoons, letters, and maps, which may be useful to educators. There is also a page on the Amisted with related web links.

Hamrick Software: American Surname Mapper
http://hamrick.com/names/
Allows students to type in their last name and plot the distribution of that name on a map of the US, through time.  Would be excellent for students in lower grades doing “personal history” projects as well as geography and general US History, migration and ethnicity.

Historian's Sources Lesson Overview
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/lessons/psources/pshome.html
Introduces secondary level students to primary sources. Students learn techniques for analyzing primary sources and then apply these techniques to analyze documents about slavery in the United States. The site includes Teacher Material and Student Lesson.

Independence Hall Association in Philadelphia
http://www.ushistory.org
Includes virtual tours of Philadelphia’s Historic District,.  Tours include historical information and interesting trivia.  Provides a rich “Congress of Websites” full of rich history.

Indiana University: Thanksgiving Dinner Maps
http://www.libraries.iub.edu/index.php?pageId=1954
Series of maps that show where the various foods come from that constitute the menu at a traditional Thanksgiving meal.

Justice Learning:  Civic Education in the Real World
www.justicelearning.org/home.asp
Lesson plans for current social justice issues.  Includes historical and current information on the most provocative social issues of our time.

Library of Congress
http://www.loc.gov
Includes The Learning Page which houses lesson plans and activities for using primary sources in the classroom;  American Memory, which includes millions of digital items that document American history and culture;  The Library of Congress Presents:  Music, Theatre and Dance, a collection of scores, sheet music, audio, and films; and Lyrical Legacy, an in-depth look at unique song and poetry documents from the Library’s digital collections. 

Library of Congress: Words and Deeds in American History
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/mcchtml/corhome.html
Collection and postings of original manuscripts and letters archived at the Library of Congress.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
http://www.educationworld.com/holidays/archives/mlking.shtml
Lesson plans for the Martin Luther King holiday from Education World.

PBS Online: History
http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/soc_stud.htm
Contains a wealth of information relating to PBS broadcasts on history.

Picture History
http://www.picturehistory.com/
A very large collection of pictures from American History.

September 11 Digital Archive
http://911digitalarchive.org/
Uses electronic media to collect, preserve, and present the history of the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania and the public responses to them.

Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research
http://www.socallib.org
Offers access to collections and programs on Southern California’s social and progressive history.  Home of an online archive of California.

Teaching with Historic Places
http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/twhp/
A guide to teaching American History using the National Register of Historic Places. There are lesson plans on the middle school level.

Truman Presidential Museum & Library
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/
Over 7000 document pages, photos, letters, cartoons, speeches, etc pertaining to the life and presidency of President Harry S. Truman. The site includes Teacher Lessons which feature lesson plans and student activities incorporating inquiry-based learning, technology, and primary sources.

US History and Children's Literature
http://www.carolhurst.com/subjects/ushistory/ushistory.html
Teach history through children's literature. By Carol Hurst.

Virtual Marching Tour of the American Revolution (EARLY AMERICAN HISTORY)
http://www.ushistory.org/march/
Extensive resource of Revolutionary information presented in an interactive format.

The Virtual Smithsonian (General Resources)
http://2k.si.edu/
This multi-media exhibit highlights 360 specimens from the fourteen Smithsonian museums along with a virtual walk to the Castle (as the Smithsonian Institution Building is affectionately known.)  Great resource for teaching arts and American history from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Virtual Tour of the National Mall (Civics/History)
http://dcpages.com/Tourism/
Take a virtual 360 degree spin around ten monuments and museums of the National Mall, courtesy of D.C. Pages.