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An unmatched archive of primary sources that students can explore and use to shape their historical thinking skills.

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The online library of the National Endowment for the Humanities contains a vast array of lesson plans, project based learning activities and interactives for the classroom.

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More than just a website about Washington's home, mtvernon.org provides interactive, lesson plans, and a wealth of primary sources to help students learn about the foundations of our government.

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George Washington's Mount Vernon website is your place for information on visiting Washington's home and in learning more about the remarkable life of George Washington.

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Historical multimedia archive of all current and past Supreme Court sessions in a student-friendly format.

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Need legal statistics, information about sitting judges, or court records? Look no further than the US Courts website.

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The Director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts reports on activities of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.

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A student-friendly secondary school resource where students can explore how the judicial branch of the government operates.

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Advancing Civic and Law-Related Education to Empower all People to Positively Transform Their World

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An unparalleled, research-based resource that contains lesson plans, a vast library of primary sources, and assessment resources for civics and social studies instruction.

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I came across your site while researching to update and improve my U.S. History classes. I was amazed at the quality of the lessons present here and will use them frequently in my classes.

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Mock elections, e-congress and more provided by this program that is part of the University of Virginia Center for Politics

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An amazingly vast resource of documents, games, lesson plans, and multimedia learning focused on the colonial period of North America.

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Home page of History.org : The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation's official History and Citizenship site

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In Colonial Williamsburg's 301-acre Historic Area stand hundreds of restored, reconstructed, and historically furnished buildings. Costumed interpreters tell the stories of the men and women of the 18th-century city-black, white, and native American, slave, indentured, and free-and the challenges they faced. In this historic place, we help the future learn from the past.

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An interactive civics experience focused on the judicial branch.

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Courts in the Classroom Animated Web Site

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An amazing way for students to experience our nation's past through the eyes of children in history. Be sure to screen this before using as some missions are very sensitive

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Developed for use in middle and high school classrooms, Mission US engages students in the study of transformational moments in American history. Each mission consists of an interactive game and a set of curriculum materials that are aligned to national standards and feature document-based activities.

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Get your students "talking" while they are listening! Today's Meet provides a chat room experience for students - great for instant feedback and assessment.

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Students and teachers love to use Quizlet to find study sets or create their own. Vocabulary review has never been easier!

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Socrative provides quick assessments to drive instruction and student engagement.

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Create a "Jeopardy" style review game using this teacher-created website

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Slightly "calmer" than Kahoot, Quizizz provides on screen quiz games complete with memes and avatars.

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Playable on laptops, tablets, and phones, Kahoot is a student favorite for review competitions

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Kahoot! app | Free study app for iOS and Android

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Play learning games at home and in class, study, and review content. Download the Kahoot! app for free for iOS, Android and Chromebooks.

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A daily 10-minute news show perfect for middle and high school students.

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CNN 10 is an on-demand digital news show ideal for explanation seekers on the go or in the classroom.

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A long-time favorite with students, Channel One provides up-to-date daily news in a format that is fast and student-friendly.

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Daily News for kids, teens, students and teachers

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Lesson plans, student-written articles, videos and more regarding current events.

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The Journalism in Action website allows students to investigate the role journalism has played in U.S. history and what it means to have a free press.

Using the Library of Congress' databases, students analyze primary sources ranging from Civil War photographs to broadcasts of the Watergate hearings.

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The Journalism in Action website allows students to investigate the role journalism has played in U.S. history and what it means to have a free press. Using the Library of Congress' databases, students analyze primary sources ranging from Civil War photographs to broadcasts of the Watergate hearings.

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Need age-appropriate informational texts to teach current events? TIME Edge provides Spanish translation, read aloud, and the ability to chose reading levels on all articles.

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Login | TIME Edge | Current Events and Literacy for Middle Schools

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Current events, nonfiction text, assessments, close-reading and literacy tools for middle school ELA, social studies and science classrooms.

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Keep students updated on what is going on in Washington and across the country. C-Span classroom also provides "on this day in history" clips - great for teaching connections between the past and the present.

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Possibly the most extensive collection of civic education material available today, iCivics provides games, lesson plans, simulations, and much more for students and educators.

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The Center for Civic Education provides a network of educators and students dedicated to "promoting the principles of democracy."

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What is more vital to a civics curriculum than the Bill of Rights? This website contains an amazing amount of documents and other primary sources for both students and teachers.

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Through the Bill of Rights Institute I have been able to learn new skills, obtain vast knowledge, travel to the site of historical events, discuss history with scholars, and acquire quality teaching materials to use in my classroom.

- Bev Lucas, Government & U.S. History Teacher, Wichita, Kansas

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Through the Bill of Rights Institute I have been able to learn new skills, obtain vast knowledge, travel to the site of historical events, discuss history with scholars, and acquire quality teaching materials to use in my classroom. - Bev Lucas, Government & U.S. History Teacher, Wichita, Kansas

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Use the Gilder Lehrman primary source collections to help students discover a vast selection of documents in an easy to read format. Also a great source for lesson plans!

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In 1991, Richard Gilder and Lewis Lehrman embarked on a mission to create one of the most important repositories of historical American documents in the country. Today, the Gilder Lehrman Collection contains more than seventy-five thousand items documenting the political, social, and economic history of the United States. These materials range from iconic historical treasures, such as the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and the Emancipation Proclamation, to personal letters that tell the stories of citizen-soldiers and their families. Chronologically, the Collection ranges from 1493 to the end of the twentieth century. The main strengths lie in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly in the study of slavery and abolition. We have significant holdings across the twentieth century, especially in World War II and civil rights history, and we are actively acquiring additional materials from this period.

With a wide range of primary sources, the Gilder Lehrman Collection is a valuable resource for educators, students, and scholars. It has been the basis for joint exhibitions and educational projects with Mount Vernon, Monticello, the Huntington Library, the National Constitution Center, the Gettysburg Battlefield National Park and Museum, the New-York Historical Society, the Morgan Library & Museum, the American Library Association, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Of his first encounter with the Gilder Lehrman Collection several years ago, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Brion Davis wrote: "In the forty-odd years I had devoted to historical research . . . I had never encountered such a breathtaking single collection."

Start your research here:

American History, 1493-1945

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richard gilder and lewis lehrman embarked on a mission to create one of the most important repositories of historical american documents in the country. today

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
the gilder lehrman collection contains more than seventy-five thousand items documenting the political

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and economic history of the united states. these materials range from iconic historical treasures

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to personal letters that tell the stories of citizen-soldiers and their families. | in 1991

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
richard gilder and lewis lehrman embarked on a mission to create one of the most important repositories of historical american documents in the country. today

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
the gilder lehrman collection contains more than seventy-five thousand items documenting the political

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
and economic history of the united states. these materials range from iconic historical treasures

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
to personal letters that tell the stories of citizen-soldiers and their families. chronologically

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
the collection ranges from 1493 to the end of the twentieth century. the main strengths lie in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
particularly in the study of slavery and abolition. we have significant holdings across the twentieth century

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
especially in world war ii and civil rights history

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and we are actively acquiring additional materials from this period.  
with a wide range of primary sources

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the gilder lehrman collection is a valuable resource for educators

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and scholars. it has been the basis for joint exhibitions and educational projects with mount vernon

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the gettysburg battlefield national park and museum

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and the national endowment for the humanities.
of his first encounter with the gilder lehrman collection several years ago

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pulitzer prize–winning historian david brion davis wrote: “in the forty-odd years i had devoted to historical research . . . i had never encountered such a breathtaking single collection.”
 
start your research here:

search the catalog
to search the 75

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000 items in our online catalog

begin your research
curated searches​

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grouped by period ​​for students/people who might not know where to begin

american history

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1493-1945
a subscription-based database that provides immediate access to images of more than 50

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000 documents from the gilder lehrman collection and is available at schools

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The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

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The Gilder Lehrman Collection | In 1991, Richard Gilder and Lewis Lehrman embarked on a mission to create one of the most important repositories of historical American documents in the country. Today, the Gilder Lehrman Collection contains more than seventy-five thousand items documenting the political, social, and economic history of the United States.

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Use this top-notch, updated
e-book to prepare students for We The People competitions or to enhance your civics instruction.

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Use Britannica LaunchPacks to help students discover more about Social Studies topics. Customize packs for certain projects or students and adjust reading levels to assist with differentiation.

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Britannica LaunchPacks allow teachers to personalize learning for K-12 classrooms through curriculum-aligned, multimedia content sets.

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Students can create short movies about any civics topic under the sun! Easy to use software comes installed on Macs and iPads. Link below is to a website with many great examples!

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Here are a few trailers made by teachers and students. Next to each one is the iMovie trailer template it uses.

Because trailers are so short, the information you convey has to be concise. iMovie's templates do not leave much room for text. And, the more you write, the smaller the text becomes and harder it is to read.

iMovie provides an outline and storyboard for each template. They are useful and necessary to make your trailer. However, I have found they can be limiting. iMovie's outlines have some suggested text and also show what kinds of shots to include (landscape, closeups, wide, action, etc). I find that those suggestions muddle my planning process. I don't have to use their suggestions, yet when I see them, I'm tempted to follow their example, which stifles my own creativity.

To help plan trailers with more original text and shots, I've created a fillable PDF for each template. I've omitted iMovie's example text and shot descriptions so that you don't have any preconceived ideas of what to write or show in your own trailer.

Each PDF is fillable, so you can open in an app like Adobe Reader or Preview and easily add your own text. It's up to you if you'd rather draw in the shots or simply type in what you plan for each shot. In classrooms, students will probably make trailers in pairs, so if each has an iPad or laptop, one student's device could have the planning PDF and the other could use iMovie. Of course, you can always print the PDF before or after it is filled out.

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Plan a Better iMovie Trailer with These PDFs - Learning in Hand with Tony Vincent

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Download fillable PDFs to help in planning an iMovie trailer project. Also watch example trailers made by students and teachers, and read tips for making movie trailers.

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Use this free chat room site for discussions that keep your students on track during documentaries and other whole group activities that are not conducive to verbal discussion.

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Want an easy way to help students review the Founding Fathers? Students can create a set of trading cards for review or inquiry!

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The Trading Card tool gives students an alternative way to demonstrate their literacy knowledge and skill when writing about popular culture texts or real world examples. This interactive allows students to create their own trading card about a real or fictional person, place, object, event, or abstract concept.

These cards are can be used with any type of book students are reading or subjects that they are studying, and make for an excellent prewriting exercise for students who are writing narrative stories and need to consider characters, setting, and plot. Specific prompts guide student through the various types of cards, expanding students' thinking from the basic information and description of the topic to making personal connections to the subject.

The save capability gives students a way to work on a draft of their card and come back to it to rework and revise as necessary, and to save their finished product to share with friends and family. Images can be uploaded into the card to give the finished product a complete and polished look.

Cards can be bundled into a single, small collection (8 card maximum) so that students have a way of sort and grouping similar topics in one file. As an example, we have provided a collection of cards about Shakespeare. Feel free to download the .rwt file (right click the link and pick Save As) and upload it into the Trading Card interactive to see how collections can be used in your classroom!

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The Trading Card tool gives students an alternative way to demonstrate their literacy knowledge and skill when writing about popular culture texts or real world examples. This interactive allows students to create their own trading card about a real or fictional person, place, object, event, or abstract concept.

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Students can create story boards for event in the history of our nation pertaining to civics - the Constitutional Convention, the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Seneca Falls Convention...

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Students can create epitaphs for important figures in history, include facts and quotes, and even make a classroom graveyard for "dead" ideas!

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Customize your tombstone below and press the "Make the tombstone!" button. Your custom tombstone will be shown containing the text that you entered.

What should you put in your custom tombstone? It's up to you! The only limit is your imagination.
Make your own custom tombstone

The custom tombstone maker uses capital letters on the tombstone, even if you enter lower case letters. If you enter capital letters in the form, they will also be shown as capitals, but they will be bigger.
Enter tombstone text below!

If you liked the custom tombstone generator, try making a
custom road sign!
Make acustom receipt!
Does someone you know deserve a medal?
Give them their own custom medal

Build your own web site - Learn how to build your own web page so you can share your tombstone with the whole world
Find a web host - If you'd like to make your own website so you can share your pictures, then this site will help you find a great web host

This page by Tom Blackwell

Privacy Policy

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Customize your tombstone below and press the "Make the tombstone!" button. Your custom tombstone will be shown containing the text that you entered. What should you put in your custom tombstone? It's up to you! The only limit is your imagination.

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Students can use this website to create infographics for any topic - branches of government, Supreme Court rulings, the amendment process...

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Infographic Maker Trusted By 11 Million Users - Piktochart

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With Piktochart AI, you can create stunning infographics, reports, presentations, and more in seconds. No design experience needed. Start for free.