What does the resource cover?
ANCHOR -- A North Carolina History Online Resource -- covers the length of North Carolina's history. ANCHOR begins with the arrival of the first people some 12,000 years ago and goes to the present. It also includes tutorials for reading and using primary source material. It addresses all objectives of the North Carolina Standard Course of Study for grade 8 social studies.

What is its audience?
This resource is designed for grades 8 and up. It is constructed around the eighth-grade curriculum, and all resources are intended to be used by eighth-grade students. The pages can also be useful and appropriate for high school and college students, as well as for teachers' own background reading.

What makes ANCHOR different from other tools?
ANCHOR is unique. It's designed to be used in a nonlinear fashion, not just page by page. It centers primary sources as a tool for learning and understanding and includes special web-based tools and resources to guide and promote student inquiry. ANCHOR incorporates multimedia directly into the pages in a way that isn't possible in a print resource.

What about lesson plans?
Many pages of ANCHOR have specific lesson plans associated with them. These plans can be found under the "for teachers" panel on the right side of the page. Additionally, many of ANCHOR's primary source pages include subject and reading questions. New entries also include guided reading questions--we are working to make these a standard on ANCHOR. In some cases, they may also include a glossary and critical thinking questions. We encourage teachers to find models of classroom discussion that work for them using these tools.

What if my students don't all have laptops?
We recognize that one-laptop-per-child classrooms are rare. We've thus designed the resource to be used in a variety of ways. Each primary source or article can be used independent of the others; teachers can pick and choose what will work best in their classroom and schedule lab time, if necessary. In addition, many pages are available in PDF format for offline use. ANCHOR is also compatible with other devices like tablets or smartphones.