Today’s featured document featured by the National Archives is a copy of General Robert E. Lee’s map of the Battle of Gettysburg. If you download a copy of the map (which you can do as it is in the public domain) and then zoom-in on it, you will be able to see the notations about troop positions.

As someone who is generally fascinated by maps and history, I immediately started thinking about how this map could be used in a U.S. history lesson. My first thought was to have students enhance the map by making a copy and then uploading it to Thinglink. Once in Thinglink students can add interactive pins to it to explain the significance of places on the map. Those interactive pins could include text, images, and videos. Watch this video to learn how to use Thinglink with a map.

Another way to make this map interactive is to download a copy then upload it to Formative. In Formative you can then add pins to the map. Each of those pins can include questions for your students to answer. A demonstration of how to use Formative for that type of activity is available in this video.

Finally, as a Mainer, I can’t think about the Battle of Gettysburg without thinking about this scene from the movie Gettysburg.