MORE THAN FIVE CENTURIES OF THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE
American History is a comprehensive resource that spans our nation’s history, with a user-friendly interface and award-winning content. The home page offers many ways to begin exploring the material, from the videos, slideshow overviews, and Topic Centers to the lists of key content handpicked by our editors to help users find a starting point for their research. By providing the most comprehensive range of information in one complete resource—subject entries, biographies, primary sources, videos and slideshows, images, timelines, and maps and graphs, plus full cross-searchability across all the Infobase history databases—American History offers a virtual library of American history for educators, students, and researchers.
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Debating is an essential part of the democratic system. To debate is to directly participate in a process that is fundamental to the operation of a free and open society. This process includes the honest and forthright exchange and discussion of ideas, the willingness to listen to opposing viewpoints and perspectives, and the impartial weighing of arguments and evidence. Recognizing the importance of these principles is vital to understanding—and improving—the world we live in. The deeper learning skills required to master an issue thoroughly enough to debate it is built into learning standards at middle school, high school, and college, precisely because such skills are critical to success in higher education and to career advancement. Debating enables students to both collaborate and compete. It also enables them to build skills in independent research, data analysis, and interpersonal communication. The goal of debating is to persuade listeners that your position is the correct one, or better than the position of your opponents. Here are a few areas in which learning occurs as a student takes part in a team debate: formulating questions—what do I need to understand about the issue? performing background research—how do I pose the necessary questions and gather […]
Read MoreWilliam Shakespeare’s impact on literature is almost impossible to measure. He was responsible for introducing somewhere between 1,500 to 3,000 words to the English language, and people are still making adaptations of his works 400 years after they were written. Yet, while the Bard is a staple in most English literature classrooms, it can be tricky to avoid having some students say, like King Lear, “Never, never, never, never, never!” when one of his works is assigned. Luckily, students don’t have to tackle Shakespeare alone. Bloom’s Literature, Infobase’s award-winning literature database, features a comprehensive section devoted to his works. Bloom’s Literature’s Shakespeare Center houses in one convenient location a treasure trove of content on all things Shakespeare. Every play is covered in depth, along with the sonnets and longer poems. Students and educators can find critical articles by noted scholars, the full text of all his plays, character studies, overviews and synopses, analysis of key passages, thought-provoking essay topics and discussion questions, images and illustrations, discussions of each play’s difficulties, “How to Write About” articles, full-length video performances, background on Shakespeare, and so much more. Here are some ideas for how you can use the resources you’ll find in Bloom’s […]
Read MoreSchool libraries and librarians play a crucial role in the education of children and teens, from instructing how to research, to providing a location for book clubs and makerspaces, to offering access to a wide variety of media resources (not just books!), including materials for both student research and for educators to use in classes and as part of their curricula. It’s no secret that school libraries improve students’ academic performance, and School Library Month is a great time to remind students, parents, and faculty of the myriad wonderful things they can find there. We’ve put together a list of ten things school librarians and media specialists can do this School Library Month to encourage patrons to “check out” the library. Table of Contents “The Masked Reader” Select four or five teachers, librarians, or students to make videos of themselves reading a poem while obscuring their identity in a fun way; they can wear masks or funny costumes, speak in weird voices, use a funny camera filter, or anything else they’d like. (For ideas on poems they can recite, check out Circle Time for Spring [Item #211648].) Upload the videos to Learn360, which features a custom content upload option that […]
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