It can be used to study topics as various as the African American experience of the South, Southwestern culture, folk culture, border issues, and the advent of modern mass culture. In another collection, students can learn about American exploration in the seventeenth century by reading the journal of French explorers like Pierre d'Esprit, Sieur Radisson, who describes how he and his partner survived a snowstorm by eating their dogs and boiled animal skins and bones. Materials like these show instead of tell. Students remember what they learn through them not only because they are unique and provocative materials, but because the information students glean from them come from their own conclusions and not the sterile authority of a text book. When students have learned to work with primary sources, they have not only learned about history, but gained the analytical and interpretive skills that help to make them independent and creative thinkers.
Primary sources provide unique and authentic evidence of the past that engages students.
However, they also come without a context or an explanation of how they relate to history. While each collection provides some background, teachers need to help their students maximize the meaning they can derive from these primary sources, both by providing context and by teaching them to analyze and interpret journal entries, songs, and photographs. The Learning Page features lesson ideas designed by teachers for teachers that make use of American Memory materials in creative classroom projects. Other documents provide a synopsis of the historical topics and themes represented in each collection, as well as suggested activities to help students with language arts and historical thinking skills, including the analysis and interpretation of primary sources. Finally, interactive student activities and thematic, curricular modules also provide guidance in using American Memory.