TPS Spotlight: Maryland Humanities
Maryland Humanities, a Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Program Consortium member, partnered with Maryland Public Television and the Maryland State Department of Education to create the Thinkport Inquiry Kits— primary source sets designed to prepare students to analyze primary sources and conduct primary source research. The kits may also be used by teachers to facilitate warm-ups or other in-class activities.
There are currently 190 Inquiry Kits based on Maryland social studies curriculum and organized into chronological units. Each kit explores a specific and narrow event in history and contains 3 thinking questions, five primary sources, and one secondary source; all sources link out to their original page so students can gather more information. Additionally, for every United States Inquiry Kit Unit (11 total) there is ESOL leveled text at four different reading levels, each with appropriate questions, for one primary document.
- Inquiry Kits for middle and high school students
- Inquiry Kits for elementary students
- Inquiry Kit overview video for teachers
- Thinkport Inquiry Kits for History Day Students
Students will also benefit from 12 self-paced research learning modules that allow them to practice key skills needed in creating a research project.
- Module 1: Using Primary and Secondary Sources
- Module 2: Analyzing Primary Documents
- Module 3: Writing a Thesis Statement
- Module 4: Creating a Research Project
- Module 5: Digging for Historical Sources
- Module 6: Evaluating Sources
- Module 7: Using Primary Sources as Evidence
- Module 8: How to Cite the Right Way
- Module 9: Analyzing Political Cartoons
- Module 10: Analyzing Charts, Graphs, and Tables
- Module 11: Annotated Bibliography (Chicago style)
- Module 12: Media Literacy and Bias