Teachable Texts from the National Archives at Boston
Teaching with primary source documents helps you bring your students up close and personal with the real people and events that are our history. The records of the National Archives at Boston reveal many aspects of our nation's history, and the educational applications of these primary sources are as limitless as the ideas and uses sprung from each educator's imagination.
Why Teachable Texts:
These specific Teachable Texts from the holdings of the National Archives at Boston provide educators with resources that can be applied across the curriculum. When used to supplement classroom content, these primary sources and activities will help develop students' interpretive and analytical skills and help students better appreciate our past.
Use them!
You may freely use the downloadable documents, activities, broadening/extension activities, and connections to standards.
Share your work!
To share your effective or unique uses of these documents with other educators, please contact the education specialist! 1-866-406-2379 : boston.archives@nara.gov
Goal:
Use Teachable Texts to help develop skills in historical thinking. Teachable Texts are correlated to the National History Standards from National Center for History in the Schools, University of California, Los Angeles.
- Historical Thinking Standards in History Grades K-4 & Grades 5-12
- Chronological Thinking
- Historical Comprehension
- Historical Analysis and Interpretation
- Historical Research Capabilities
- Historical Issues-Analysis and Decision-Making
Index of Activities for Teaching & Learning, for Grades K-4 & Grades 5-12
Thematic Classroom Activities
- Immigration/Migration/Family History
From Immigrant to Citizen: Maria von Trapp
Our Documented Rights: Thinking about Chinese Exclusion
Laura Goodale: Early American Historian? - Armed Conflicts
7 Dec 1941, Air Raid on Pearl Harbor Radiogram
Prequel to Independence: Who Fired the Shot Heard 'Round the World?
Laura Goodale: Early American Historian?
- Our Constitution
America Votes: Our Power and Responsibility
Our Documented Rights: Thinking about Chinese Exclusion
Topics in History for Grades K-4
- Topic 1: Living and Working Together in Families and Communities, Now and Long Ago
- Topic 2: The History of Students' Own State or Region
- Topic 3: The History of the United States: Democratic Principles and Values and the People from Many Cultures Who Contributed to Its Cultural, Economic, and Political Heritage
- Topic 4: The History of Peoples of Many Cultures Around the World
Eras in History for Grades 5-12
- Era 1: Three Worlds Meet (Beginnings to 1620)
- Era 2: Colonization and Settlement (1585-1763)
- Era 3: Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s)
- Era 4: Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)
- Era 5: Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877)
- Era 6: The Development of the Industrial United States (1870-1900)
- Era 7: The Emergence of Modern America (1890-1930)
- Era 8: The Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945)
- Era 9: Postwar United States (1945 to early 1970s)
- Era 10: Contemporary United States (1968 to the present)