Skip to main content
SHEG

User account menu

  • Register
  • Log in

Main navigation

  • Home
  • Reading Like a Historian History Lessons
  • Beyond the Bubble History Assessments
  • Civic Online Reasoning Curriculum

Secondary navigation

  • About
    • History of SHEG
    • People
    • Updates
    • In the News
    • Professional Development
    • Testimonials
    • Links
  • Events
  • Projects
  • Publications

Register today!

Our lessons and assessments are available for free download once you've created an account.
Create an Account

History Lessons

Reading Like a Historian

The Reading Like a Historian curriculum engages students in historical inquiry. Each lesson revolves around a central historical question and features a set of primary documents designed for groups of students with a range of reading skills.

This curriculum teaches students how to investigate historical questions by employing reading strategies such as sourcing, contextualizing, corroborating, and close reading. Instead of memorizing historical facts, students evaluate the trustworthiness of multiple perspectives on historical issues and learn to make historical claims backed by documentary evidence. To learn more about how to use Reading Like a Historian lessons, watch these videos about how teachers use these materials in their classrooms.

Click here for a complete list of Reading Like a Historian lessons, and click here for a complete list of materials available in Spanish.

Topic

  • U.S. History (38)
  • (-) World History (10)

Time Period

  • Before 500 BCE (3)
  • 500 BCE - 1 CE (7)
  • 1 CE - 500 CE (4)
  • 500 CE - 1300 CE (4)
  • 1300s (4)
  • 1400s (1)
  • 1500s (8)
  • (-) 1600s (3)
  • 1700s (2)
  • 1800s (4)
  • 1900s (18)
Image: Print of Galileo by Samuel Sartain from painting by Wyatt, date unknown. From the Library of Congress. In 1633, scientist Galileo Galilei was convicted of heresy by the Inquisition. He was forced to recant his beliefs and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. Students may be surprised to learn Galileo's crime: teaching the sun, rather than the earth, is at the center of the solar system. In this lesson, students explore three primary sources and one New York Times article to answer the quest

Galileo

View lesson
Image: 1790 Diagram of a ship from the Atlantic slave trade. From the Wikimedia Commons.

The Middle Passage

View lesson
Image: Artistic depiction of William and Mary from c. 1689.

The Glorious Revolution

View lesson
Image: Photo taken after the signing of the armistice in the Compiègne forest on November 11, 1918.

Armistice

View Lesson
1962 Political Cartoon by Edmund Valtman

The Cold War

View Lesson
Image: Photo of a Girl and her brother during the Korean War by Maj. R.V. Spencer, 1951. From the Flickr Commons.

The Korean War

View lesson
Guzman.png

Cold War in Guatemala

View lesson
Image: Photo of Fidel Castro arriving in Washington, D.C., in April 1959. From the Library of Congress.

Castro and the United States

View lesson
Image: Photo of women strikers for peace during the Cuban Missile Crisis taken by Phil Stanziola in 1962. From the Library of Congress.

Cuban Missile Crisis

View lesson

Pagination

  • Page 1 of 2
  • Next page ›
Home

Support us

We’re committed to providing educators accessible, high-quality teaching tools. That’s why all our lessons and assessments are free. Please consider donating to SHEG to support our creation of new materials. All gifts are made through Stanford University and are tax-deductible.

Contact usSupport us

© Stanford University     |     485 Lasuen Mall, Stanford, CA 94305     |    Privacy Policy

facebooktwitteryoutube