Another Snagfilm - on Pearl Harbor
From the movie tag: Explore the real stories, real heroes, real places, and real action underlying the Touchstone Pictures release Pearl Harbor. Did the characters portrayed in the feature film really exist? How did the moviemakers decide when to use real events and when to foray into fiction? National Geographic documents how real life history and fiction came together to make a fascinating story. Spellbinding scenes from the film are juxtaposed with authentic combat footage and insights from historians, combat veterans, top-ranking military personnel, and the film’s all-star cast and crew. This film is 60 minutes and again might be a good post state exam movie if you have the time.

A Blog Divided
This is a site that has everything on the period 1840-1880. It includes such links as a link to online resources for Antietam, links to free online Yale Univ. courses on the Civil War, primary resources, articles and much much more on the period.

Debating History

If you're looking for an end of year activity (aside from showing movies) or an enrichment activity, here's a great article from the Washington Post. It could make for a great class debate over how to recognize even the not-so-nice parts of our history.

Obama and the Confederacy

FDR's Fireside Chats

You can find these on a few sites, but this site has a lot of other resources for other presidents as well. You can compare them with the Youtube.com versions by Obama which are here.

PowerPoints
I have already mentioned PowerPointPalooza, but here is a site which has all of those PowerPoints as well as John Billett's as well. Both are rich in pictures and best used for AP US. Go here to see them both on one page.

Uncle Tom's Cabin
We all talk about it, but do you ever read passages? If you want to, here is the entire text broken up by chapter.

Morphing the First 44 Presidents
A little fun movie for your students with all 44 of the presidents.

AP Ancillaries for "America"
Here are all the ancillaries you will need for "America, A Narrative History." This includes images, quizzes (and different types), chapter summaries and more.

School's Out for Summer - NOT HERE!
Since I have students until June 18th, it is almost crazy to say this (but I know others are getting out this week), but I will continue to blog all summer so if you need some ideas or are teaching summer school (like me), come by for a visit. Thanks, by the way for visiting in general as we had 14,000 hits last month.

Summer Assignments for AP US

It is crazy for me to even be considering this as I have another month of school, but some are almost out so if you need ideas, look below for what others are doing:

• American Freedom: This is a book by a great author, Eric Foner, and some specific questions students need to answer in their essays
  
• Book report: This one lists four books from the Founding period and has some detailed questions that students must answer
• Book report, part II. This has books spread out over US history and question
  
• Chapter Summary: While this is from The American Pageant, the teacher does give links to students who don't have the book so they can do it entirely online. Additionally there is a long list of multiple choice, matching questions and more.
• Chapter Summary, part II: Some very detailed questions and vocab lists for the first several chapters in US history. Of course, students will go straight to google or an online textbook (look on the links on the right of this page to see some) for the answers.
• Combination of AP Literature and AP US. I like this one since it cross the divide between the two normally connected AP classes by having students read a book or even look at a movie and write about it.
  
• Howard Zinn's book and questions and here, by the way here is his entire text online
• The Jungle: response to the book
  
• Locke and Madison: This is nice as it gives parts of Federalist #10 and Second Treatise on Government along with questions.
• Seventeen Seventy Six: Report on the McCulloch book
• Presidential Rankings: This is very interesting as it asks students to rank the top ten presidents. It gives them many links to other rankings as well as information to make the conclusions so your students do not need their textbooks to do the assignment.
  
• Vocab List: this teacher simply wants students to read the first chapter so she can save some time. While it goes with her textbook, students can easily google all the words and be just as well prepared.
• Vocab list, part II. Another list of questions and vocab words

Not enough for you? Go to page 4 here and keep on looking.

A Treasure Trove of Primary Documents
This is not your normal written primary source center. Instead it has lots and lots of recordings - and not just music, but speeches as well. It also has pictures, cartoons and more.

So Many Blogs, So Little Time
There are a bunch of ways to follow your blogs. You can go to them every once in a while, have an e-mail sent to you or have a Google reader page set up for you which allows you to quickly see what has been updated, add as many pages as you want and to share the pages with others. Play the movie above to see it done - and it's very easy.

History of the US in 50 Seconds
A few days ago I put up "History of the US in 7 Minutes," but it was pulled from youtube.com. Above is one in 50 seconds, although it is more of a map showing the growth of the US. Here is another one in three minutes and another one that is eight minutes.

Online Database For Explorers
In their words, "American Journeys contains more than 18,000 pages of eyewitness accounts of North American exploration, from the sagas of Vikings in Canada in AD1000 to the diaries of mountain men in the Rockies 800 years later. Read the words of explorers, Indians, missionaries, traders and settlers as they lived through the founding moments of American history." View