Classroom Resources
The resources collected here may be useful to educators and students exploring Tennessee history, American history, and the use of primary sources in the classroom. We're here to help you bring Tennessee history alive in your classroom! Contact us for more information!
Digital Breakouts 
Digital Breakouts are tools for educators that use primary and secondary sources to help students learn the concepts of specific Tennessee Social Studies curriculum standards. More digital breakouts are found here!
Elementary Breakouts (K-5)
Tennessee Symbols, K-2
Civil War with James Tall, 5th
Suffrage with Ida B. Wells, 3rd-5th
Middle/High Breakouts (6-12 & college)
1834 State Constitution, 8th
Civil War, 8th
Woman Suffrage 6-12
Find more digital breakouts
Lesson Plans
The following lesson plans were created by Tennessee teachers utilizing primary sources available digitally at the Tennessee State Library and Archives website. They link to the current Tennessee curriculum standards. The lesson plans are organized according to grade-level.
4th Grade:
- The Cotton Economy
- James K. Polk
- Civil War Battles in Tennessee (Battle of Shiloh featured)
5th Grade:
- Watauga Settlement
- Secession in Tennessee
- Civil War Battles in Tennessee
- Freedmen's Bureau
- Yellow Fever
- Prohibition
- Putting the R-A-T in Ratification! Tennessee's Role in Women's Suffrage
- Tennessee and the 19th Amendment
- Great Depression
- Volunteer State Steps Up: WWI & WWII
- World War I Home Front
- The New Deal through Primary Sources: A Unit Plan
- Tennessee Valley Authority
- Cuban Missile Crisis
- Peaceful Protests: Tent City Movement
- The Music Industry in Tennessee
8th Grade:
- Changing Times and Changing Boundaries: Maps of Early TN
- Battle of Horseshoe Bend
- Andrew Jackson and the Bank War
- The Cherokee vs. the United States
- Slavery in Tennessee
- Abolition
- Tennesseans in the Abolitionist Movement
- Secession in Tennessee
- Civil War Battles in Tennessee
- United States Colored Troops
- Tennessee Civil War GIS Project
- Reconstruction and the African American Legacy
- Reconstruction: Carpetbaggers & Scalawags
- Freedmen's Bureau
9th Grade:
11th Grade:
- Pap Singleton and the Migration West
- Great Depression
- World War I
- Women's Suffrage in Tennessee
- Women in World War II
- Oak Ridge and The Manhattan Project: An Ethical Debate
- The New Deal through Primary Sources: A Unit Plan
- Child Labor
- Red Scare, Highlander Folk School & Civil Rights
- Peaceful Protests: Tent City Movement
- The Music Industry in Tennessee
High School:
Additionally, lesson plans are available utilizing the Tennessee Blue Book, a great resource for information about state government. These lesson plans link to the current Tennessee curriculum standards dealing with government and civics in elementary and high school. Visit the Blue Book Lesson Plan website for more information.
The following lesson plans provide activities linking a specific children's or young adult book to the primary sources in our collection at the Tennessee State Library and Archives.
The Tennessee Electronic Library (TEL) is a collection of 40+ databases that provide access to over 400,000 magazine, journal, and newspaper articles, essays, podcasts, videos, e-books, primary source materials, and more! TEL is available free of charge to any Tennessee resident and is accessible 24/7 from any computer with access to the internet.
TSLA Photograph Database
The Tennessee State Library and Archives is home to hundreds of thousands of photographs and images that depict the rich and diverse history of Tennessee, including historic events, houses, buildings, and prominent individuals. Although the present database provides access to a growing number of digitized images, only a fraction of the entire TSLA collection is available online.
The Tennessean (1812-2002)
Digitized pages of The Tennessean (1812-2002) provide unique historical insight into the regional issues and concerns, such as local government, industrialization, prohibition, and racial struggles.
This cooperative project with the Library of Congress provides Tennessee newspapers from the TSLA holdings in searchable digital format.