Focus Area Description:  Investigate and celebrate the stories of both famous people and regular folks through videos with the person, historians, historical re-enactors, and storytellers.

Our current library of 42 videos in this Focus Area are available in the subareas listed to the right; to view them click a thumbnail and become a member of Educate.Today.

To see sample videos in this area of the collection, click any of the titles below:

New February 2023! Tennessee Williams’ Young Life

Other Samples:
The Life of Elizabeth Keckley–African American Dress Designer for Mary Todd Lincoln
Meet Thaddeus Adolphus Watson, 100 Year Old World War II Veteran

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Quick Ideas for Using our Biography Videos:

• Use the videos with lesson plans you create that have students research a particular person in history and use information from the videos in a first person “wax museum presentation” they create to demonstrate their learning.
• Use the videos as a conversation starter for a class discussion on a topic, event, or person you are studying in class.
• As part of your study using primary sources, have students create “biographical videos” from individuals they interview in in your community or historic individuals they research. Use the videos to gain background knowledge on how to conduct, film, and edit an interview into a finished video.
• Provide the videos for students to view independently to satisfy their own curiosity/interest in a particular person.
• As part of student research for a History Day project, paper, etc., have students view relevant videos to find primary source information they can use.
• Have students include insights gained through the videos as part of their projects, papers, and presentations on a history-related subject by:
  • interpreting and/or summarizing what they saw and learned in the video.
  • citing quotations from the expert in the video.