Primary Source Lesson Plans

The Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) has created a wonderful and FREE site for history teachers. As a young new teacher building my curriculum I struggled to find primary documents to use with my students. Not only is finding appropriate documents difficult but then coming up with questions that fit the curriculum and help the students analyze and make sense of the document takes a lot of time. SHEG has taken all of the hard work out of this effort. They have lessons for U.S. History classes and even World History classes.

The U.S. History Lessons include the following general topics:
1. Colonial
2. Revolution & Early America
3. Expansion & Slavery
4. Civil War & Reconstruction
5. The Gilded Age
6. American Imperialism
7. Progressivism
8. World War I & the 1920s
9. New Deal & World War II
10. Cold War
11. Cold War Culture & Civil Rights
There are 73 total lessons under these topics for U.S. History.

The World History Lessons include the following general topics:
1. Ancient
2. Medieval
3. Modern
There are currently 33 different lessons under these topics for World History.

Each general topic in both areas have several lesson plans with an outline for the teacher, primary documents, modified documents (so they are easier to understand), and questions for the students to answer about the documents. Some of the lessons even come with supplementary information such as PowerPoint presentations.
The SHEG website is located at,SHEG Homepage. You will have to create a login in order to access the lesson plans. You can print them off and make as many copies as you need for your class. Students need read and "do" history not just listen to you tell it to them.