Primary Source Archives
Spartacus Educational
This British archive has thousands of primary sources from throughout history and has an excellent selection of primary courses from WWI. There are hundreds of different topics with everything from trench warfare to wartime leaders. All sources are provided with a contextual description that links many sources together.
The Avalon Project
Provided by Yale Law, this resource focuses mostly on political documents. This is one of the best sources for understanding politics and diplomacy throughout many historical periods. It includes documents like the League of Nations Covenant and the Armistice agreement.
The World Digital Library
This digital library has thousands of picture documents from World War One and serves as a great source for political cartoons and for propaganda posters from that time period. It also has interactive maps and timelines that allow the student to contextualize the different primary sources they may come across.
The Culture Institute Project
This web source includes more than just dry documents, it also includes exhibits and presentations from museums around the world. Many sources and galleries can be found that are centered around WWI artifacts and documents and there are many exhibits to explore about the topic.
World War I Document Archive
This archive includes treaties, official papers, and even personal diaries, all focused on WWI. Provided by BYU, it is a very easy site for students to navigate, breaking up sources by topic, type, and even by time period. This allows students to focus on one type of document or a specific year in the war.
This British archive has thousands of primary sources from throughout history and has an excellent selection of primary courses from WWI. There are hundreds of different topics with everything from trench warfare to wartime leaders. All sources are provided with a contextual description that links many sources together.
The Avalon Project
Provided by Yale Law, this resource focuses mostly on political documents. This is one of the best sources for understanding politics and diplomacy throughout many historical periods. It includes documents like the League of Nations Covenant and the Armistice agreement.
The World Digital Library
This digital library has thousands of picture documents from World War One and serves as a great source for political cartoons and for propaganda posters from that time period. It also has interactive maps and timelines that allow the student to contextualize the different primary sources they may come across.
The Culture Institute Project
This web source includes more than just dry documents, it also includes exhibits and presentations from museums around the world. Many sources and galleries can be found that are centered around WWI artifacts and documents and there are many exhibits to explore about the topic.
World War I Document Archive
This archive includes treaties, official papers, and even personal diaries, all focused on WWI. Provided by BYU, it is a very easy site for students to navigate, breaking up sources by topic, type, and even by time period. This allows students to focus on one type of document or a specific year in the war.
Primary Source Analysis Tools
This tool is the best way for students to analyze a sequence of events using primary sources. The National Archive actually has many different kinds of primary source analysis tools that allow anyone to create and have access to many activities that aid students in understanding primary sources. This tool gives students access to the primary sources and gives them important details so that they can create and understand the historical narrative presented by the sources. In this case, students analyze sources from the various events that led up to the US entering WWI. They are then tasked with discussing why these events (as evidenced by the sources) led to this ultimate event.
This tool, provided by the Library of Congress is a simple, open-ended analysis tool useful for any type of conceivable primary source that students may be required to analyze. While this tool may seem very simple, there are some resources for students to give them extra support. Each box that the students are required to fill out comes with guides and sample questions so that students are never stumped or held up by not knowing what to do. This tool is vitally important to any primary source analysis as it gives many options for the teacher and the students.
Primary Source Lesson Plans
Teaching With Documents: Sow the Seeds of Victory! Posters from the Food Administration During World War I
Teaching With Documents: Photographs of the 369th Infantry and African Americans during World War I
Both of these lesson plans hit all of the important aspects of a primary source lesson. The give multiple primary sources, contextualize them, and give students a chance to closely read them and corroborate. While these do pertain to the actual unit, they are plans that are easily interchangeable with any sort of lesson topic or historical time period. All of the sources are easily interchangeable so these are easy lessons to apply to other units in the classroom.
Teaching With Documents: Photographs of the 369th Infantry and African Americans during World War I
Both of these lesson plans hit all of the important aspects of a primary source lesson. The give multiple primary sources, contextualize them, and give students a chance to closely read them and corroborate. While these do pertain to the actual unit, they are plans that are easily interchangeable with any sort of lesson topic or historical time period. All of the sources are easily interchangeable so these are easy lessons to apply to other units in the classroom.