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,…
Using Sheet Music to Bring History to Life Teaching with the Library: Primary Sources & Ideas for Educators Analyzing Primary Sources: Learning from Music guiding questions for analyzing sheet music and song recordings Tech Tool: Sheet Music Scanner America Singing: Nineteenth Century Song Sheets | Resources for Teachers Baseball Sheet Music | Teaching Resources Civil…
The Teaching with Library of Congress blog provides some great primary source teaching ideas related to supporting the troops, focusing in on wartime clothing drives. Be sure to check out these World War I clothing-related posters. There are also lots more teaching resources to draw from. World War I related Teaching with the Library of Congress blog…
Read an oral history excerpt or the full oral history account by an audience member who attended amateur night at the Apollo Theater in November, 1938. In this account from American Life Histories, 1936-1940, Federal Writer Dorothy West describes an event that happened [there]. What does this event suggest about race relations in the late 1930s?…
When teaching a topic with primary sources, it is important to provide multiple sources that represent a variety of points of views and perspectives. Doing so provides students with practice in critical thinking and evaluating evidence and arguments, skills emphasized by the Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS), particularly CCSS anchor reading standards 4, 6,…
The Teaching with the Library of Congress blog gives some great tips on using the WPA Poster collection with students. One idea is to have students identify persuasion techniques. For a great resource on typical advertising persuasion techniques, check out Print Advertising Across the Centuries project. One teacher used this project as a template and created a…