Social Studies

Social Studies Full-Text Resources

Middle Search Plus
This collection includes 150 full-text magazines, thousands of photographs, maps and flags, more than 130,000 biographies, and more than 81,000 primary source documents. Each full-text article is assigned a Lexile (reading level indicator).
Social Studies magazines available in Middle Search Plus include: American Heritage, American History, Calliope, Cobblestone, Dig, and more.
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CultureGrams
This comprehensive collection features information about the history, culture and daily life of countries and territories around the world, including detailed statistics, maps and much more.
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World History in Context
This remarkable collection includes information about 5,000 years of civilization, from ancient history to the present, and features great reference, primary source, and magazine & journal content, as well as images, video and audio content from the History Channel, NPR, BBC News and more.

Global Issues in Context
This collection includes news, reference, primary source and video content, and statistical information, is updated daily with information from more than 650 full-text newspapers, magazines and journals, and features country topic pages and issue pages.

U.S. History in Context
This comprehensive collection features information from reference encyclopedias, academic journals, newspapers, magazines and primary source documents, as well as images, and video and audio content about notable individuals, events and topics in American history.

Reading Like a Historian, from the Stanford University Education Group
This remarkable resource "engages students in historical inquiry. Each lesson revolves around a central historical question and features sets of primary documents designed for groups of students with diverse reading skills and abilities." There are presently 73 lessons in the U.S. curriculum, 37 in the world curriculum and five in the "Introduction to Historical Thinking" unit, designed as stand-alone lessons that can supplement the ongoing classroom work in which teachers and their students are engaged.

COMMONLIT
Guided by belief in "the transformative power of a great text, and a great question", this superb free resource features:
- a terrific collection of hundreds of fiction and nonfiction reading passages, including news articles, poems, short stories and historical documents, searchable by Lexile, grade, theme, genre, literary device and common core standard, for students in grades 5 through 12;
- challenging text-dependent questions; and
- performance tracking in important reading and writing skills.

NEWSELA
This remarkable and growing library features texts in the following content areas and categories: Arts & Culture, Science & Math, Religion & Philosophy, Government & Economics, Geography, World & U.S. History, Primary Sources, Biographies and Famous Speeches. New features include Issue Spotlight, Dream Jobs and Myths & Legends. Engaging news articles in a variety of kid-friendly categories like War & Peace, Money, Kids, Science, Sports and more are also available. Each text is available in five reading levels (each is assigned a Lexile), and features a four-question multiple choice quiz and a writing prompt.

Biography in Context
This superb resource features a wealth of information about notable individuals from throughout history and all fields of endeavor. Information sources include Gale's vast collection of subject encyclopedias, magazines, journals, primary sources, videos, podcasts and images.

Middle School Social Studies: Resources for Students, Teachers and Parents
At Finding Dulcinea, subject experts carefully vet every resource recommended to users, and provide valuable insights and other helpful information to researchers. (Be sure to check out 101 Great Sites for Social Studies Class, too!)

Primary Source Sets, from the Digital Public Library of America
Each set contains 10-15 primary sources, including letters, posters, oral histories, video clips and more, culled from libraries, archives and museums in the United States, a teaching guide, and links to related sites/resources.