By Phil Nast, retired middle school teacher and freelance writer

Teachers’ Resources is an element of the National Archives. Teachers will find lesson plans and other materials to engage students in doing history with primary sources.

Under Getting Started with Primary Sources in the Classroom, are nine tools. Some of these are the following:

• Finding Primary Sources links to documents and online exhibits. An example is the ARC Guide for Educators and Students, an introduction to the National Archives' Archival Research Catalog (ARC).
• Tool Box provides PDF articles and other materials that focus on the benefits of teaching with documents. The Tool Box includes guidelines for using primary sources, suggests methods for integrating primary sources, and has eight document analysis worksheets for different media.
• Introductory Research Activity: Introduction to Documents asks students to bring to class and present a document from their own lives and to consider its personal and historical importance.
• Finding Primary Sources: Beginning Research Activities for Students has five student research activities for the National Archives and Records Administration Web site resources. Each activity has instruction and worksheet pages that can be printed.
• Teaching With Documents: Lesson Plans categorizes activities and lessons by era.
• State & Regional Education Resources houses materials from 28 states, regional archives, and presidential libraries.

Registering on DocsTeach allows users to share activities, use lessons that other educators have created, and can explore, bookmark, and share primary sources from the National Archives.