History Matters - The U.S. Survey Course on the Web

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• Learn more about African Americans, American history, American Indians, civics, government, Great Depression, primary sources', and slavery.

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Designed for high school and college teachers of U.S. History survey courses, this site serves as a gateway to Web resources and offers unique teaching materials, first-person primary documents and threaded discussions on teaching U.S. history. Materials that focus on the lives of ordinary Americans are emphasized.

This site features annotated Web sites, primary documents, visual documents, and interactive features. There are also scholarly reviews of Web sites in collaboration with the Journal of American History and Learner Guides to analyzing online primary sources, including photos, diaries, oral histories and early films.

Features include:

• WWW.History: an annotated guide to the most useful Web sites for teaching U.S. history and social studies. Browse sites by topic and time period or search by topic, time period,keyword, or type.
• Many Pasts: primary documents in text, image, and audio about the experiences of ordinary Americans throughout U.S. history. Screened by professional historians, documents are accompanied by annotations that address their larger historical significance and context. Browse the list of documents below (sorted by time period, beginning with the earliest) or search by topic, time period, or keyword.
• Making Sense of Evidence: these Learner Guides and interactive exercises explore the historian’s craft. Learn the background and strategies for using various primary sources, including oral history, diaries and letters, and photographs.
• Digital Blackboard: Web-based assignments you may browse or search by topic, time period, or keyword.
• Past Meets Present: the relationship between current events and larger historical themes, between the past and the present places some of the most controversial political and social topics of the day in historical perspective.
• Secrets of Great History Teachers: Strategies and techniques
• Reference Desk: annotated links to resources on standards, citing and evaluating Web sites, and understanding copyright and fair use laws as they apply to the use and creation of educational materials on the Web.