Crowdsourced Online Resources for Teaching

17th Century, 18th Century, 19th Century, 20th Century, 21st century, African American Literature, American Indian, American Renaissance, American Studies, Archives, Assignments, blogs, Civil Rights Movement, Course Planning, Cultural Studies, Digital Humanities, early America, Just Teach One, Library, Multi-Ethnic Literature, Native American, online learning, pedagogy, Poetry, print culture, Southern Literature, teaching, Technology, the 1920's, transatlantic 6 Minutes

Towards the end of the summer we put out a Twitter call for a crowdsourced list of online materials useful for teaching. We heard a wealth of responses from our followers. In the past, we would have turned all those tweets into a Twitter Moment. Alas the Twitter Moments feature is basically unusable.

It has taken a while, but here are the results of our crowdsourced list. You’ll find a wide variety of resources. We did our best to sort the suggested resources into categories. However, even though we tried, you’ll find we made much use out of “and More!” Hopefully the organization makes sense!

Each recommendation includes a link to the resource, a short blurb, (sometimes) commentary from the person suggesting the resource, and a link to the Twitter account of the person that made the suggestion. We have a lot of fun on Twitter. We certainly goof around a lot, especially in these whacked out times. However, this crowdsourced list goes to show just how important our online community is. Thank you all for your suggestions and support!

Libraries, Archives, Museums, and More!

From the American Antiquarian Society

From the Massachusetts Historical Society

  • Online Resources: A portal to some of the most popular online offerings from the MHS. Be sure to check out the Adams Digital Collection.

The Library Company of Philadelphia

  • Digital Collections: A portal to the many online offerings from the LCP. Explore it. You’ll find all kinds of outstanding content.

Winterthur

  • WinterCat is Winterthur’s online catalogue. You can use the site to search their massive collections. The page also features links to online resources created by Winterthur.
  • h/t: Clay Zuba says “If you want to see the objects being represented in your literature #materialculture yo.”

National Museum of African American History & Culture

  • The website of the National Museum of African American History & Culture not only provides information about the Museum, it also serves as a gateway to various resources about African American life and culture in the United States. On the site you’ll find information about the collections, a calendar of events, a section on learning resources, and more.
  • h/t: Rebecca S. Bravard

Library of Congress Digital Collections

  • Library of Congress Digital Collections present users with a seemingly endless variety of resources. It is not easy to provide a succinct description of what you’ll find on the site. You’ll certainly find something to use in class by just browsing the site!
  • h/t: Brie Jaquette

National Archives

Documenting the American South

  • Documenting the American South, a resource created by UNC University Library, provides access to primary source resources related to the American South.
  • h/t: Matthew Luter says “loads of great primary source material.”

The Diary Index

  • The Diary Index includes links to a range of digitized diaries. The resource is organized alphabetically and you’ll find familiar names as well as new ones.
  • h/t: Desiree Henderson

Africans in America

The Legacy Museum / The National Memorial for Peace and Justice

Maritime Image Collections

  • The National Maritime Historical Society list of Maritime Image Collections features an extensive list of links to digitized collections of images related to maritime collections. The linked collections include sites one would expect on such a list, but the list also includes many other sites you might not think of as repositories of seaworthy images. The linked sites are worth checking out, even if you’re not interested in the sea!
  • h/t: David Anderson

Teaching Texts, Teaching Resources, and more!
Just Teach One

  • Just Teach One is an outreach initiative under the banner of Common-Place. JTO highlights below-the-radar early American texts perfect for the classroom. All texts are edited and feature background information. The site also features short essays from JTO participants who used the texts in their classes.
  • h/t: Matthew Teutsch
  • h/t: 19th-Century Industrial Gothic says “Highly recommend the Just Teach One project, which puts out great (and FREE!) editions of really interesting early American texts with excellent notes & intros for context.”

EDSITEment!

  • EDSITEment’s tagline is “The Best of the Humanities on the Web.” On the site you’ll find extensive resources ranging from lesson plans to guides for teachers.
  • h/t: NEH Education tells us “@EDSITEment has tons of free, digital resources for teaching American literature and culture for educators.”
  • Users can also search the EDSITEment! site for resources.

Donna M. Campbell’s Website

  • Donna Campbell’s website features a wealth of resources for teaching American literature. On the site you’ll find a literary timeline, notes on authors, notes on literary movements, bibliographies, and more. The sleek design of the site lends itself to easily printing out the resources to use in class or accessing them via mobile device.
  • Follow Donna M. Campbell on Twitter.
  • h/t: Matthew Teutsch

History Is A Weapon

  • History Is A Weapon “is an online Left reader focusing largely on American resistance history.” The site provides a ton of neatly organized resources.
  • h/t: TheCarie

American Social History Project

Modern American Poetry

  • The Modern American Poetry site includes a wealth of resources. You’ll find images, videos, audios, and texts. Additionally, there are teacher and student resources.
  • h/t: David Anderson says “I often use materials (such as excerpts of scholarship) at the Modern American Poetry site, associated with Cary Nelson’s Anthology of Modern Poetry from Oxford UP”.

Native Languages of the Americas

Resources on Individual Authors and More
The Walt Whitman Archive

  • The Whitman Archive is an online repository of all things Whitman. On the site you’ll find texts, images, secondary sources, and more. The site features a robust search engine. PALS sources all of their quotations for #WaltGrittman via the Whitman Archive.
  • h/t: Rebecca S. Bravard

Emily Dickinson Archive

Venture Smith

PennSound

  • PennSound is an extensive project dedicated to showcasing and preserving a wide range of audio archives and materials focused on authors. On the site you’ll find links to videos, audio, and podcasts. Our short description really can’t do justice to the variety of materials you’ll find on the site.
  • h/t: David Anderson notes that “PennSound is a wonderful site devoted to modern and contemporary writing, especially poetry. Lots of recordings by poets reading their work.”

Searchable Sea Literature

  • Searchable Sea Literature is a project of The Maritime Studies Program of Williams College and Mystic Seaport. The site features an extensive collection of biographies of authors connected in some way to the sea and maritime topics. You’ll find the authors you expect to find on such a site, but you’ll also find many other authors included. The site links to texts and other resources.
  • h/t: David Anderson

 Blogs
Ben Railton’s American Studier

Interminable Rambling

  • Matthew Teutsch’s Interminable Rambling addresses various topics related to American literature and culture. The site is updated frequently with content reflecting on and connecting current topics to the study of literature and America.
  • h/t: Ben Railton

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