TPS Spotlight: Read.Inquire.Write.

TPS Spotlight: Read.Inquire.Write.

Developed  in partnership with middle school social studies teachers, Read.Inquire.Write. (RIW) supports students in inquiry and argument writing in social studies. All resources are free, thanks to a grant from the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources program, but access to specific materials requires a free teacher account. As students progress through investigations in…

Finding Resources: Story Maps

Finding Resources: Story Maps

Story Maps are immersive web applications that tell the incredible stories of the Library’s collections through narrative, multimedia, and interactive maps. The story maps are created within a Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based software platform created by Esri. Story Maps are chock full of primary sources, including photographs, illustrations, texts, newspaper articles, and even maps. “I find story…

TPS Spotlight: State Historical Society of Iowa

TPS Spotlight: State Historical Society of Iowa

Through the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) grant, the State Historical Society of Iowa developed free and downloadable Primary Source Sets to help K-12 educators meet the Iowa Core Content Standards for Social Studies. These sets address national and international history as well as Iowa-specific history. Educators outside of Iowa are encouraged…

Literature Links: 2020 National Book Festival

Literature Links: 2020 National Book Festival

Overview The 2020 National Book Festival ran from September 25-27 and featured a combination of prerecorded and interactive live Q&A programs with more than 120 authors, poets and illustrators. For a complete line-up of authors and their video presentations, please see the full video on demand list. Highlights from Children’s and Teen Stages at Virtual…

Integrating Technology: Primary Source Crowdsourcing Campaigns

Integrating Technology: Primary Source Crowdsourcing Campaigns

By the People is a Library of Congress project that invites anyone to transcribe, review, and tag digitized images of manuscripts and typed materials from the Library’s collections. This is a great literacy activity for students. Come check it out by clicking the links below! By the People Campaigns People Susan B. Anthony Clara Barton: Angel…

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…

Teaching Now: Integrating Literacy, History & Geography

Teaching Now: Integrating Literacy, History & Geography

Informed citizens have knowledge and understanding of geography and history (see the College, Career & Civic C3 Framework). This is a guest post from Nicole Woulfe, a middle school social studies teacher from New Hampshire and a Citizen U pilot lesson implementer. I created the Geography & the Civil War lesson to allow my students to grow as geographers…

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…

Guided Primary Source Analysis: Round the World with Nellie Bly

Guided Primary Source Analysis: Round the World with Nellie Bly

Zoom into a more detailed image of this source. Explain what you can determine about Nellie Bly just by looking at this source (be sure to point out the details that support your findings). Read the following articles to learn more about Nellie Bly, Jules Verne and Elizabeth Bisland. Describe what you learned. Nellie Bly from America’s Library “Bly…