Websites for Teachers and Learners

• Teaching the Middle East

  

  Scholars from the University of Chicago developed, and master teachers tested, this resource to provide an overview of Middle Eastern cultures and their contributions to the world.

• More Teaching and Learning Resources

  

  An index of NEH supported online projects.

• Ancient Greeks/Modern Lives

  

  Ancient Greeks/Modern Lives aims to inspire people to come together to read, see, and think about classical literature and how it continues to influence and invigorate American cultural life.

  Featured Websites

  • Exploring Ancient World Cultures
  • Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • Odyssey Online
  • Perseus Project
  • Troy

  Featured Lesson Plans

  • 300 Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae: Herodotus' Real History
  • A Story of Epic Proportions: What makes a Poem an Epic?
  • It Came From Greek Mythology
  • Lesson 2: The Greek Alphabet: more familiar than you think!
  • Live from Ancient Olympia!
  • Socrates and the Law: Argument in an Athenian Jail
  • Sophocles' Antigone: Ancient Greek Theatre, Live From Antiquity!
  • The Olympic Medal: It's All Greek to Us!
  • The Victor's Virtue: A Cultural History of Sport

• Crafting Freedom Materials

  

  Crafting Freedom Materials is a comprehensive NEH-funded resource on the African-American experience during the antebellum period. For teachers of social studies, language arts, and other humanities subjects.

  Featured Websites

  • Africans in America

  Featured Lesson Plans

  • African-American Communities in the North Before the Civil War
  • Families in Bondage
  • Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series: Removing the Mask
  • Slave Narratives: Constructing U.S. History Through Analyzing Primary Sources

• Manifold Greatness: The Creation and Afterlife of the King James Bible

  

  The words of the King James Bible ring out today in books, poems, popular songs, speeches, and sermons. Visit Manifold Greatness for the story of one of the most widely read books in the English language.

  Featured Lesson Plans

  • Dr. King's Dream
  • Introducing Metaphors Through Poetry
  • Lesson 1: Fragment on the Constitution and Union (1861)—The Purpose of the American Union
  • Lesson 1: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nonviolent Resistance
  • Lesson 1: The First Great Awakening
  • Lesson 2: Religion and the Argument for American Independence
  • Lesson 3: Faulkner's As I Lay Dying: Crossing the River
  • Lesson 3: Religion and the Fight for American Independence
  • Lesson 3: The Gettysburg Address (1863)—Defining the American Union
  • Lesson 4: The Second Inaugural Address (1865)—Restoring the American Union
  • Let Freedom Ring: The Life & Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Power of Nonviolence
  • Poems of Tennyson and Noyes: Pictures in Words
  • Recognizing Similes: Fast as a Whip

• Virtual_Oaxaca

  

  Virtual_Oaxaca is a virtual representation of Oaxaca, the city, surrounding archeological sites, and arts communities. Created by teachers in an NEH-funded Summer Institute. Plan a lesson, watch a video, and peek at Oaxaca on Second Life. More to come!

  Featured Websites

  • Contested Visions in the Spanish Colonial World
  • La diversidad cultural de México
  • La Red de Radioifusoras y Televisoras Educativas y Culturales de México A.C.
  • Mexico For Kids

• Great Chicago Stories

  

  Read historical fiction stories that illuminate Chicago's past. Use the Interactive History Map to look closer at artifacts from the collection of the Chicago History Museum and to explore locations throughout the city from each story. Build further on your experience with classroom activities.

  Featured Websites

  • Great Chicago Fire and the Web of Memory

  Featured Lesson Plans

  • Carl Sandburg's "Chicago": Bringing a Great City Alive

• Picturing U.S. History

  

  Picturing United States History, an NEH-funded project is based on the belief that visual materials are vital to understanding the American past. The website provides online "Lessons in Looking," a guide to Web resources, forums, essays, reviews, and classroom activities to help teachers incorporate visual evidence into the classroom. The site also serves as a clearing house for incorporating visual documents into their U.S. history, American studies, literature, and other humanities courses.

  Featured Websites

  • Picturing America

• Natural Law, Natural Rights, and The Constitution

  

  NEH funded online archive of educational resources on the history of natural law, natural rights and American Constitutionalism designed and written by scholars associated with the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.

• Remembering 9/11: NEH Archive

  

  The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) marked the 10th anniversary of the tragedy of September 11th with a series of events and opportunities for remembrance and reflection across the country.

• Making the Wright Connection

  

  Making The Wright Connection is an online community of, and clearinghouse for, scholars and teachers of the works of Richard Wright (1908-1960), the author of such major works as Uncle Tom’s Children, Native Son, and Black Boy. Website includes podcasts of lectures by some of the world’s foremost scholars of Wright.

• Indians of the Midwest

  

  This site highlights recent research of scholars who have provided new insights about the cultures and histories of Indian peoples in the Midwest.

  Featured Websites

  • Discovering Lewis and Clark
  • EarthWorks (University of Cincinnati)
  • History: Native American
  • Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
  • Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery
  • NativeWeb

  Featured Lesson Plans

  • Anishinabe/Ojibwe/Chippewa: Culture of an Indian Nation
  • Native American Cultures Across the U.S.
  • Not "Indians," Many Tribes: Native American Diversity
  • The Native Americans' Role in the American Revolution: Choosing Sides
  • Traditions and Languages of Three Native Cultures: Tlingit, Lakota, & Cherokee
  • What Should a House Do?
  • What Was Columbus Thinking?

• Literatures, Religions, and Arts of the Himalayan Regions

  

  The products of this NEH-funded Summer Institute for School Teachers offers a wealth of curricular plans and interactive ideas for the classroom. Topics cover a variety of disciplines: history, geography, literature, religion, art, and environmental studies for every grade level.

• Stalin Project

  

  The Stalin Project is a multi-media, interactive resource about Stalin and the Soviet people. This site includes text written by the top scholars in the field, a database of over 500 images, primary source documents, videos, lesson plans, and other interactive material.

  Featured Websites

  • Cold War Files: Interpreting History through Documents

  Featured Lesson Plans

  • Lesson 1: How "Grand" and "Allied" was the Grand Alliance?
  • Lesson 1: Sources of Discord, 1945–1946
  • Lesson 2: The Strategy of Containment, 1947–1948
  • Lesson 3: The Formation of the Western Alliance, 1948–1949

• Battle of Shiloh: Civil War at 150

  

  Visit the Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture. Learn about the Battle of Shiloh, which raged 150 years ago on April 6–7. With more than 24,000 casualties and 16,000 wounded, it was the bloodiest battle, and most important, in the war up to that time.

• Picturing Hawai'i

  

  Picturing Hawai'i is a new curriculum from the Honolulu Museum of Art. The comprehensive Teacher Resource Book and the accompanying six images show you how to use works from the Museum's collection to supplement your lessons in history, fine arts, language arts, math, and science.

  Featured Websites

  • Asia For Educators
  • Asia Society: Education and Learning
  • Black Ships & Samurai: Commodore Perry and the Opening of Japan
  • SARAI: South Asia Resource Access on the Internet
  • Teaching (and Learning) about Japan

  Featured Lesson Plans

  • Can You Haiku?
  • Hamlet Meets Chushingura: Traditions of the Revenge Tragedy
  • Japanese Poetry: Tanka? You're Welcome!
  • Life in the Floating World: Ukiyo-e Prints and the Rise of the Merchant Class in Edo Period Japan
  • Say Hi to Haibun Fun
  • The World of Haiku

• Center for the Study of the American Constitution

  Housed within the History Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, CSAC does research and publishes materials relating to the creation and ratification of the American Constitution.

  Featured Websites

  • Bill of Rights Institute
  • Constitution Day
  • Exploring Constitutional Law
  • Founders' Constitution
  • National Constitution Center

  Featured Lesson Plans

  • Balancing Three Branches at Once: Our System of Checks and Balances
  • Lesson 1: Anti-federalist Arguments Against "A Complete Consolidation"
  • Lesson 1: Starting a Government from Scratch
  • Lesson 1: The Road to the Constitutional Convention
  • Lesson 2: Chief Executives Compared: The Federalist Papers
  • Lesson 2: The Question of Representation at the 1787 Convention
  • Lesson 4: James Madison: Internal Improvements Balancing Act: Federal/State, Executive/Legislative
  • Ratifying the Constitution
  • The Constitutional Convention: Four Founding Fathers You May Never Have Met
  • The Constitutional Convention: What the Founding Fathers Said
  • The Federalist Debates: Balancing Power Between State and Federal Governments

• The Shenandoah Valley Campaign

  

  During the American Civil War, this battle catapulted Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson from relative obscurity to the first rank of Southern generals. Explore this interactive map of the second half of the campaign. Hosted by the Encyclopedia of Virginia. Image: General "Stonewall" Jackson. Virginia Historical Society, William Garl Brown, ca. 1865–1900

  Featured Lesson Plans

  • Lesson 2: The Battles of the Civil War

• Seven Days' Battles

  

  The Seven Days’ Battles, June 25–July 1, 1862, the decisive engagements of McClellan's Peninsula Campaign included Confederate Balloon Reconnaissance. "Jeb" Stuart became legend by executing his famous “Ride around McClellan.” Hosted by the Encyclopedia of Virginia.

  Featured Lesson Plans

  • Lesson 2: The Battles of the Civil War

• Picturing Early America: People, Places, and Events 1770–1870

  

  A resource developed from NEH Summer Institutes held at Salem State University exploring early American art and culture. The website assists teachers of American history, literature, art, geography, social studies, American studies, and other fields who wish to incorporate American art into their classrooms. It includes podcasts, unit plans, and print and electronic bibliographies.

  Featured Websites

  • Picturing America

  Featured Lesson Plans

  • Benjamin Franklin's Many "Hats"
  • Homer's Civil War Veteran: Battlefield to Wheat Field
  • Midnight Ride of Paul Revere — Fact, Fiction, and Artistic License
  • Picture Lincoln
  • The Massachusetts 54th Regiment: Honoring the Heroes

• John Steinbeck: A Voice for a Region, A Voice for America

  

  This National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute for Teachers held at the Steinbeck Institute, San Jose State University, contains a rich collection of scholarly essays, lesson plans, maps, and images covering Steinbeck's work and his world.

  Featured Lesson Plans

  • Depression-Era Photographs: Worth a Thousand Words
  • Dust Bowl Days
  • Evaluating Eyewitness Reports
  • Steinbeck’s Use of Nonfiction Sources in "The Grapes of Wrath"

• Elizabeth Murray Project

  

  This resource site for early American history features a constantly growing digital collection of primary sources — print and manuscript documents, as well as images — and transcribed versions of these materials from various libraries and archives. It also includes a host of K–12 teaching resources including timeline, interactive primary sources and lesson plans.

  Featured Lesson Plans

  • American Colonial Life in the Late 1700s: Distant Cousins
  • Boycotting Baubles of Britain
  • Colonial Broadsides and the American Revolution
  • Empire and Identity in the American Colonies
  • Inventing a New Republican Culture for America
  • Mapping Colonial New England: Looking at the Landscape of New England
  • Voices of the American Revolution

• Race—Are We So Different?

  

  Race—Are We So Different? is a project of the American Anthropological Association. A traveling exhibit and website, it looks through the eyes of history, science, and lived experience to explain differences among people and reveal the reality—and unreality—of race. The site contains a virtual tour of the exhibit, resources for middle and high school teachers, STEM resources, and a robust American history section with an interactive timeline.

  Featured Lesson Plans

  • African-American Communities in the North Before the Civil War
  • African-American Soldiers After World War I: Had Race Relations Changed?
  • Birth of a Nation, the NAACP, and the Balancing of Rights
  • Lesson 2: Black Separatism or the Beloved Community? Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • Lesson 3: African-Americans and the New Deal's Civilian Conservation Corps

• Seventeen Moments in Soviet History

  

  Seventeen Moments in Soviet History contains a rich archive of texts, images, maps, and audio and video materials from the Soviet era (1917–1991). The materials are arranged by year and by subject, are fully searchable, and are translated into English. Students, educators, and scholars will find materials about Soviet propaganda, politics, economics, society, crime, literature, art, dissidents, and hundreds of other topics.

  Featured Lesson Plans

  • Lesson 1: How "Grand" and "Allied" was the Grand Alliance?
  • Lesson 1: Sources of Discord, 1945–1946
  • Lesson 1: Soviet Espionage in America
  • Lesson 2: How to Win a World War
  • Lesson 2: The House Un-American Activities Committee
  • Lesson 2: The Strategy of Containment, 1947–1948
  • Lesson 3: The Formation of the Western Alliance, 1948–1949
  • Lesson 3: The Rise and Fall of Joseph McCarthy
  • Lesson 3: Victory and the New Order in Europe
  • Lesson 4: The New Order for "Greater East Asia"

• Bridging Cultures's Muslim Journeys: The Islamic Art Spots

  

  Seven visual essays presented in video casts designed to make art from Muslim societies an integral part of the Muslim Journeys experience. The Art Spots were written and presented by D. Fairchild Ruggles, Professor of Art, Architecture, and Landscape History, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and produced by Twin Cities Public Television.

  Featured Lesson Plans

  • Arabic Poetry: Guzzle a Ghazal!