Activity Tool Instructions
Create Your Own Interactive Learning Activity
Turn your students into historians with primary-source based activities.
About the Tools
Each activity-creation tool helps students develop historical thinking skills. Pick documents, set up the activity, and write instructions for your students. You can include questions or an assignment in your conclusion. Students can submit and save their responses so that you can access them in My Students’ Responses, or have them emailed to you if desired.
Analyzing Documents
Teach students the process of document analysis, the foundation for working with primary sources.
Discussion Topic
Showcase one document while posing a question, comment, or directions for students.
Compare and Contrast
Display two to four documents to prompt students to observe and point out similarities and differences.
Zoom/Crop
Intrigue students about a particular document and give them practice forming hypotheses.
White Out/Black Out
Teach students to use visual cues and context to understand a document.
Finding a Sequence
Present primary sources and challenge students to sequence them based on careful document analysis.
Making Connections
Present primary sources as a string of documents and help students make connections among those documents and the historical events they illustrate.
Mapping History
Link primary sources to locations on a map to practice spatial thinking and understand the impact of geographic factors in history.
Seeing the Big Picture
Pair documents concerning a historical event, concept, or figure with descriptions, questions, or other documents to impress upon students that the whole is derived of smaller parts.
Weighing the Evidence
Turn primary sources into historical evidence that students sort through and evaluate to draw historical conclusions.
Interpreting Data
Introduce students to primary source documents containing historical data and encourage them to consider the source, the presentation style, and the intended impact of the material.