Teaching Now: Separating Myths from History

Teaching Now: Separating Myths from History

This unit plan and teaching guide was developed by Dr. John Bickford, Professor of Social Studies/History Education at Eastern Illinois University and Editor-in-Chief of The Councilor: A Journal of the Social Studies, in collaboration with Citizen U. It presents a lesson plan with teaching notes targeted to early and upper elementary students. TEACHER BACKGROUND Children—and…

Primary Source Learning: The Wampanoag, the Plimoth Colonists & the First Thanksgiving

Primary Source Learning: The Wampanoag, the Plimoth Colonists & the First Thanksgiving

This primary source set is targeted to elementary students and includes background information and thinking prompts. It was curated mainly by Dr. John Bickford, Professor of Social Studies/History Education at Eastern Illinois University and Editor-in-Chief of The Councilor: A Journal of the Social Studies, with the goal of helping students separate Thanksgiving myths from history. This…

Analyzing Primary Sources: Elementary Image & Text Analysis Sheets

Analyzing Primary Sources: Elementary Image & Text Analysis Sheets

Primary sources engage all students—elementary, middle and high school. Below are some worksheets to help elementary students, in particular, to analyze primary source images and texts. These worksheets were created in collaboration with master teacher Kimberly Heckart, who teaches third grade at Prairie Ridge Elementary in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and Elementary Social Studies Methods at the University…

Finding Resources: TPS Journal

Finding Resources: TPS Journal

Dig deep into a variety of teaching with primary sources topics. The TPS Journal, formerly titled the TPS Quarterly, is an online, peer-reviewed publication focused on pedagogical approaches to teaching with Library of Congress digitized primary sources in K-12 classrooms. Each issue provides sections related to the issue’s thematic focus: a feature article, an elementary primary source activity, a…

Selecting, Excerpting  & Modifying Primary Sources

Selecting, Excerpting & Modifying Primary Sources

Have you ever wanted to use a primary source document with students but hesitated because you felt the struggle to comprehend the text would be the focus of the task rather than text analysis? In a TweetChat about teaching with primary sources, middle school social studies teacher Chris Heffernan (@cheffernan75) articulated the dilemma, “This has been a…

Guided Primary Source Analysis: Astor Theatre – The Great Ziegfeld

Guided Primary Source Analysis: Astor Theatre – The Great Ziegfeld

Where do you think this photograph was taken? Zoom into the photo and describe this place using details from the image to inform your description. (Save the link in the previous sentence to download the image to your computer which will allow you to zoom in with greater detail.) Next, make a guess at what decade this photo is…

Guided Primary Source Analysis: What Do You Hear?

Guided Primary Source Analysis: What Do You Hear?

Listen carefully to this audio recording. You will hear six different sounds. What do you hear? Where do you think this audio recording was made? Why do you think that? What questions do you have about this audio recording? Now listen to the full audio recording, then find out who made this primary source audio recording (be sure…

Learning from the Source: Geographical Conversation Cards

Learning from the Source: Geographical Conversation Cards

Use these geographical conversation cards to learn about the geographical history of the United States as well as learn state facts. Lesson prep 1. Print out and cut up state cards and the Question and Answer cards. 2. Separate these into 5  groups of state cards and their accompanying Q&A cards. Because there are missing cards…

Learning from the Source: Presidential Portraits

Learning from the Source: Presidential Portraits

George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are two of the most famous U.S. presidents. This project helps students to learn about these presidents through the lens of both primary and secondary sources. Students will also investigate different types of primary sources, learn how portraits are created to convey information, and consider their own presidential potential. To…