Thanksgiving

Origin of the Thanksgiving Day Holiday

Normally I wait until it is too late to put up my Thanksgiving post, so here it is earlier enough to consider adding to your class next week.  Did you know that the author of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" was behind the US making Thanksgiving a national holiday, that Lincoln was the president who initiated this, that there is no proof that turkey was actually eaten on the first Thanksgiving. So many nice tidbits in this video and more of the story here. 

This is an amazing website that looks at every aspect of the Constitution including individually breaking down each part of the document and then doing court cases and much more.

Pictures of Slavery

This is an incredible source from the University of Virginia that has over 1200 photos of American slavery.  It is sobering to see the pictures, but obviously something we have to teach our students about.

How to Use Google Docs

I am presenting at the online Global Education Conference on Tuesday November 16th at 8 AM EST.  The conference has over 300 free sessions.  If you are interested, I will be doing a session on using Google Docs with your students and peers.  In a one hour session, you will be trained to create a create Google documents, Presentations (PowerPoints), drawings, folders and how to share them with your peers and how to easily grade your students work online.  To get to the session, click here and then put "Halla" in the search engine and when you get to my link, click on the Elluminate session.

NY Times & Civil War: Disunion

The New York Times has teamed up with History to write DISUNION, a blog about the lead up to the Civil War. Imagine modern web coverage of the U.S. in the early 1860s, day-by-day! I often find that our history textbooks, even the really good ones like Brinkley and Foner, fail to provide students with a sense of the immediacy and uncertainty of the historical present, often because that is exactly what makes for quality history...the distance and perspective to see things more clearly (or at least more fully). Nevertheless, imagining the historical present is a valuable skill for teachers to develop in students. In the NY Times's own words:

One-hundred-and-fifty years ago, Americans went to war with themselves. Disunion revisits and reconsiders America's most perilous period -- using contemporary accounts, diaries, images and historical assessments to follow the Civil War as it unfolded.

It's a really great resource for students to see into the fog of war and the unpredictability of the future.

Treasure Chest for AP US Class

If you teach AP US, you will love this page as it has every single assignment for an entire year for you to pick and choose from. It also has a PowerPoint for each unit.

American Revolution Interactive

This is a nice interactive that is broken into 1775-78, 1778-1981 and the Treaty of Paris.  Each part is broken up into many parts, all of which start w. the kids having to identify a place on a map and then giving details on the battle.  I found about it from a tweet from "mooresclassroom."

Prelude to the Civil War

The WashPost has an amazing series of pages today on what was going on 150 years ago.  Features include what DC was like, lessons, from the Civil War, state by state electoral results of the 1860 election, a piece on Lincoln's speech to start his campaign, Matthew Brady and more.

Rag Linen - Rare & Historic Newspapers

"Rag Linen is an educational archive of rare and historic newspapers, which serve as the first drafts of history and the critical primary source material for historians, authors and educators."

The Gettysburg Address Animated

Gettysburg Address from Adam Gault on Vimeo.

San Francisco Earthquake

San Francisco Earthquake and Fire from Red Channels on Vimeo.

San Francisco Earthquake and Fire from Red Channels on Vimeo.
This is actual footage of San Francisco before and after the earthquake of 1906.  I found it at Open Culture.

Thanks

Every once in a while I look to see where people are coming from who visit our site.  While I am happy that many come because they simply type in our name, it is also nice that so many people come because someone else has put our site on a link from their webpage.  Here is one called "Top 50 American History Sites." Besides being a great resource for ideas, it also, kindly lists ours as one of the sites.  So thanks to all of you who have made our three teacher sites so visited pages.

Global Education Conference

I am presenting at the online Global Education Conference on Tuesday November 16th at 8 AM EST.  The conference has over 300 free sessions.  If you are interested, I will be doing a session on using Google Docs with your students and peers.  In a one hour session, you will be trained to create a create Google documents, Presentations (PowerPoints), drawings, folders and how to share them with your peers and how to easily grade your students work online.  In a few days I will give you the Elluminate link and you can attend the session for free.

Ken Burns' New Documentary on T. Jefferson

Ken Burns has a new film out on Thomas Jefferson and you can find all that PBS has to offer on it (including ordering the film) by going here. You can also find all of his writings online here.  Below is the entire text of Notes on the State of Virginia.

Rubric Maker

When I first became a teacher one of the hardest things I found was how to grade essays and presentations.  Well if you go here, all you need to do is fill in a few parameters and gives you a rubric for literally anything you need (essays, debate, play, brochure, letter and lots more).