Below you will find teaching ideas related to Civil War prisons and prisoners. Civil War: First-Person Narratives of the American South, 1860-1920 This collection chronicles the experiences of southerners from all stations in life — white and black, rich and poor, including many accounts that relate the common soldier’s perspective on the war. Some of these accounts…
In celebration of Native American Heritage month, the Teaching with the Library of Congress blog provides some great suggestions for teaching students to view the experiences and contributions of Native Americans from various perspectives. Comparing sources from multiple perspectives provides students with practice in critical thinking and evaluating evidence and arguments. Links to more Native American…
“The Veterans History Project of the American Folklife Center collects, preserves, and makes accessible the personal accounts of American war veterans so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand the realities of war.” The Teaching with the Library of Congress blog provides some great starting points for using the Veterans History…
This morning I saw a tweet mentioning primary sources related to immigration in the Gilded Age and I began to wonder . . . What learning activities related to the Gilded Age could we imagine using Library of Congress primary sources? What other teaching resources and strategies are available on LOC.gov and elsewhere? See the results…
The Teaching with Library of Congress blog provides activity suggestions for using the transcript of World War I veteran oral history to provide students with personal insight into a historical event and help them to value the individuals behind the history of World War I and Armistice Day. Teachers might also choose to have students compare accounts, looking for…
The Teaching with Library of Congress blog highlights a collection of videos featuring Library curators briefly describing treasured items and their historical importance and provides some ideas for using the treasure videos with students. You can access the collection of Hidden Treasure videos at the Library of Congress or from the Hidden Treasures playlist on…
The Teaching with Library of Congress blog points out ways to explore the Library virtually and suggests engaging learning activities using this set of putti images, from the Carol M. Highsmith photograph archive. You might also try similar activities using this set of images depicting iconic figures found on the doors of the Library annex from…
The Teaching with the Library of Congress blog provides several ideas for inspiring close observation and engaging students with primary sources, including having students make personal connections to an item, look for clues to time period and authorship, look for details that provide evidence of their thinking, and ask purposeful questions. Close observation of images is great practice…
On September 12, 2001, the Library of Congress began recording public and private responses to the events, much as it did after the Pearl Harbor attacks in 1941. The Teaching with the Library of Congress blog provides some ideas for teaching with the resources in the September 11 collections. For more resources and teaching and…
The Fall Issue of the TPS Quarterly is out and the featured article–“Beyond Typescript and Photographs: Using Primary Sources in Different Formats”–provides teaching ideas for using different primary source types in learning activities. Read the article to get tips on using handwritten manuscripts; posters, prints, and drawings; motion pictures; oral histories; historic sheet music and sound recordings; and…
Access the four drafts and the final version of Langston Hughes’s poem “Ballad of Booker T.” from the Library of Congress. For ideas on helping students to follow the poet’s creative process, check out the Teaching with the Library of Congress blog’s teaching ideas for using the marked-up drafts and final copy of Hughes’ poem “Ballad of Booker T.”…
Voices from the Dust Bowl: The Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection is an online presentation of a multi-format ethnographic field collection documenting the everyday life of residents of Farm Security Administration (FSA) migrant work camps in central California in 1940 and 1941. Todd and Sonkin, both of the City College of New York, traveled to Arvin, Bakersfield, El Rio, Firebaugh, Porterville,…