Literature Links: Indian Boyhood

Literature Links: Indian Boyhood

The primary source set above and the associated learning activities below were inspired by a discussion on the TPS Teachers Network, a free professional online community designed to host and facilitate conversations, connections, and collaborations among educators of all stripes about using primary sources to improve student learning. In the discussion “S’a: Doctor, Author, Scout…

Literature Links: The Great Gatsby & Primary Sources from the Roaring Twenties

Literature Links: The Great Gatsby & Primary Sources from the Roaring Twenties

This three-part lesson from the Library of Congress* provides students with insight into the historical context of the 1920s and helps them recognize how popular culture reflects the values, mores, and events of the time period as they synthesize fictional events and primary sources. In a culminating project, students create a newspaper containing multiple types…

Teaching Now: Examining Social Justice Through Historical, Classic and Contemporary Sources

Teaching Now: Examining Social Justice Through Historical, Classic and Contemporary Sources

This is a guest post from Kasey Short, an eighth-grade English teacher at Charlotte Country Day school in North Carolina.  When I moved from 6th to 8th grade last year, one thing I thought about a lot was how I would approach teaching To Kill a Mockingbird. I knew that I wanted to provide historical…

Literature Links: The Women of Copper Country

Literature Links: The Women of Copper Country

Anna Klobuchar Clemenc (Clements), also known as “Big Annie” and America’s Joan of Arc, is the central character in The Women of Copper Country, a historical novel by Maria Doria Russell. Set in Upper Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula in 1913, the novel chronicles the work of Anna and the Ladies Auxiliary of the Western Federation of Miners….

Integrating Tech: Post-It App & Primary Source Analysis

Integrating Tech: Post-It App & Primary Source Analysis

In a TPS Network resource album available to the public, elementary teacher librarian and former teacher in residence at the Library of Congress, Tom Bober (@CaptainLibrary), outlines how his students analyzed an historical newspaper article using the See Think Wonder strategy that layered in the Post-it® app for iPad to help organize students’ thinking. The…

Literature Links: Ruth and the Green Book

Literature Links: Ruth and the Green Book

Elementary teacher librarian and former teacher in residence at the Library of Congress, Tom Bober (@CaptainLibrary), details a plan for pairing primary source analysis with the book, Ruth and the Green Book by Calvin Alexander Ramsey, to help students make connections to history and geography. In his post on Knowledge Quest from the American Association of School Librarians, Tom also…

Teaching Now: Using Primary Sources to Create a Lincoln Assassination Newscast

Teaching Now: Using Primary Sources to Create a Lincoln Assassination Newscast

This is a guest post from Tim Anderson, a middle school English teacher and Google Certified Educator at Sulphur Springs Elementary School in Jonesborough, Tennessee. There often seems to be a disconnect between students and historical events. Connecting literature to history helps make it come alive for students. Since my eighth graders are studying the…

Literature Links: National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature

Literature Links: National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature

Library of Congress News The Library of Congress, the Children’s Book Council and Every Child a Reader today announced the appointment of Jacqueline Woodson, four-time Newbery Honor Medalist, Coretta Scott King Book Award winner and former Young People’s Poet Laureate for her memoir-in-verse “Brown Girl Dreaming,” as National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. The program…

Literature Links: Her Right Foot

Literature Links: Her Right Foot

Tom Bober (@CaptainLibrary), teacher librarian extraordinaire and former teacher in residence at the Library of Congress, put together a fantastic primary source set to accompany the picture book, Her Right Foot, by Dave Eggers. In a post on Knowledge Quest from the American Association of School Librarians, Tom details a plan for pairing primary source analysis with the…