North Carolina History: A “Digital Textbook”

What’s a digital textbook?

LEARN NC’s “digital textbook” for 8th-grade North Carolina history provides a new model for teaching and learning. It makes primary sources central to the learning experience, using them to tell the stories of the past rather than merely illustrating it. Special web-based tools help students learn to read those sources and ask good questions of them. And because it’s on the web, this textbook relies on multimedia whenever possible to supplement or even replace text.

Download a flyer

You can learn more about the digital textbook project from this flyer (PDF, 95KB).

The textbook

The following editions are published or in development as part of the North Carolina History Digital Textbook project. LEARN NC’s editions are essentially web-based books, which may be divided into several chapters and typically include glossaries, indexes, and other supporting material, as well as images, audio, and video. Some are organized like a traditional textbook, while others are extended primary sources or resources for teachers.

Module I. Two worlds: Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony (10,000 BCE to 1600 CE)
statue of Sir Walter Raleigh, London
First part of a North Carolina history text for secondary students, covering the land, American Indians before contact with Europeans, Spanish exploration, the Roanoke colony, and the Columbian Exchange.
Two worlds: Educator’s Guide
Lesson plans, activities, reading guides, and additional materials for educators to accompany the first module of the digital textbook.
Intrigue of the Past
Pottery vessel from Haywood County, North Carolina, ca. AD 300.
Lesson plans and essays for teachers and students explore North Carolina’s past before European contact. Designed for grades four through eight, the web edition of this book covers fundamental concepts, processes, and issues of archaeology, and describes the peoples and cultures of the Paleoindian, Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian periods.
Provided by the UNC Research Laboratories of Archaeology
Excavating Occaneechi Town: An archaeology primer
This introduction to the methods of archaelogy uses photographs of the excavations at Occaneechi Town to introduce fundamental concepts of archaeology. The primer provides an introduction to the methods of archaeology and to some common types of artifacts, and prepares students to participate in an electronic archaeological dig.
Republished with permission of the UNC Research Laboratories of Archaeology.
We have a story to tell: Native peoples of the Chesapeake region
Chesapeake Indians fishing
Readings and lesson plans exploring the historical and ongoing challenges faced by the American Indians of the Chesapeake Bay region, since the time of their first contact with Europeans in the early 1600s.
Provided by the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution
Module II. Grand visions, rough realities: The development of colonial North Carolina (1600–1763)
making candles
Colonial North Carolina from the establishment of the Carolina in 1663 to the eve of the American Revolution in 1763. Compares the original vision for the colony with the way it actually developed. Covers the people who settled North Carolina; the growth of institutions, trade, and slavery; the impact of colonization on American Indians; and significant events such as Culpeper’s Rebellion, the Tuscarora War, and the French and Indian Wars.
In development: To be published spring 2008
Diary of a journey of Moravians
Conestoga wagon

First-hand account of the journey of twelve Moravian brothers from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to Bethabara, North Carolina in 1753.
A New Voyage to Carolina
a bear fishing

An account of the inhabitants, natural resources, and agriculture of Carolina written by British naturalist and explorer John Lawson during his 1700–1701 journey through the colony and first published in 1709. This web-based critical edition includes extensive commentary, historial context, photographs, illustrations, and maps.
In development: To be published summer 2008
Module III. North Carolina in the American Revolution (1763–1789)
In development: To be published summer 2008
Module IV. Rip Van Winkle, Revival, and Reform: North Carolina in the New Nation (1789–1836)
In development: To be published fall 2008
Module V. Antebellum North Carolina (1836–1860)
In development: To be published fall 2008