Primary Sources: Teaching Students to Think

Stanford University has created over 75 lessons for high schools based entirely on primary documents. No textbooks, no lectures. The lessons are all about diaries, journals, pictures, documents, speeches, songs and photographs. The lessons are all in American history, although the World Wars and the Cold War lesson could work for world history.  I looked at the documents for the Cold War and they are terrific--short, in a easy read 14 point font and come with clear directions on how to use them in class.


The curriculum was introduced in 2008 in California but is now available to any teacher who wants to use it. You can check out the lessons here.