Website Wednesday
Primary Resources
The Internet provides access to a wide range of primary resources such as letters, diaries, journals, logs, data, documents, speeches, and videos. Primary sources fascinate students because they are real and they are personal; history is humanized through them. Using original sources, students touch the lives of the people about whom history is written. Teachers can design lessons using primary resources to help enhance learning.
 The Learning Page: American Memory Project
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/index.html
Click Lesson Plans to see dozens of teacher created, classroom tested lesson plans.  Click Features and Activities to see curricular themes and activities that make history come alive.  (Grades K-12)

Digital Classroom
http://www.archives.gov/digital_classroom/teaching_with_documents.html
This site contains reproducible copies of primary documents from the holdings of the National Archives of the United States, teaching activities correlated to National History Standards and cross-curricular connections. Click Teaching with Documents for lesson plans. (Grades 5-12)
 
Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/#collections
Click Digitized Collections to see an extensive collection of historical documents in many forms and subject areas.  (Grades 8-12)
 
American Treasures of the Library of Congress
http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/
This site contains an exhibition of the rarest, most interesting or significant items relating to America's past, drawn from every corner of the world's largest library. (Grades 3-12)
 
I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Someone a Letter
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?ID=294
This lesson plan incorporates primary document analysis with critical thinking and letter writing skills.  (Grades 3-5)
 
MSD Perry Township      Media/Technology Staff Development Department