The Citizen U curriculum is a collaboration between the Barat Education Foundation (BEF), Constitutional Rights Foundation (CRF), and DePaul University’s Office of Innovative Professional Learning (DePaul OIPL) and was developed thanks to a grant from the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) program. The goal of the Citizen U curriculum is to infuse civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions across the core subjects in elementary, middle, and high school grades. Working with … [Read more...]
Literature Links: National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature
January 5, 2018 by Leave a Comment
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 was established by the three organizations in 2008 to emphasize the importance of young people’s literature as it … [Read more...]
Teaching Now: Integrating Literacy, History & Geography
May 17, 2017 by Leave a Comment
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 as we studied the Civil War. So often, students are overwhelmed by the dates of battles, the number of casualties, and the famous names … [Read more...]
Teaching Now: Predicting & Inferring with Primary Sources & Literature
May 26, 2015 by Leave a Comment
This is a guest post from elementary teacher and adjunct university instructor Kimberly Heckart, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “I developed the Predict and Infer strategy to help students develop historical comprehension skills while comparing, contrasting, and evaluating information from primary sources related to a particular time period. This strategy motivates students to predict the relevance and meanings of sources and then discover information that will help them make sense of the sources while … [Read more...]
Analyzing Primary Sources: Elementary Image & Text Analysis Sheets
May 21, 2015 by 1 Comment
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 by TPS-Barat and master teacher Kimberly Heckart, who teaches third grade at Prairie Ridge Elementary in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and Elementary Social Studies Methods at the University of Iowa. Kim whose accolades include Elementary Social Studies Teacher of the Year for both the Iowa and … [Read more...]
Finding Resources: TPS Journal
May 6, 2015 by Leave a Comment
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 secondary primary source activity, a teacher spotlight highlighting primary source learning in the … [Read more...]
Featured Source: Round the World with Nellie Bly
January 26, 2015 by Leave a Comment
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 and Bisland.” The St. Paul Daily Globe (St. Paul, Minn.), December 16, 1889 (left column) Play the game with some friends. Then use a … [Read more...]
Library of Congress Spring 2015 Educator Webinars
January 19, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The Library of Congress is hosting a series of free one-hour webinars focusing on using the Library’s digitized collections to meet curriculum content and skills standards. The webinars will generally be held every on Thursdays at 4:00 ET but look below for exact dates and registration information. More complete descriptions of the spring 2015 webinars and registration information can be found in the professional development area on the Teachers section of the Library website or by … [Read more...]
Analyzing Primary Sources: Learning from Newspapers
December 10, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) strike a balance between the reading of literature and informational texts and promote the use of a wide range of text types: “Through reading a diverse array of classic and contemporary literature as well as challenging informational texts in a range of subjects, students are expected to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspective.” [English Language Arts Standards: Key Design Considerations] Some items in … [Read more...]
Learning from the Source: Shifting Perspectives of Iran
December 12, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Enduring Understandings* Politics is a process to determine who governs and for what purposes. Time, place, and culture influence our perspectives on people and issues. Different perspectives affect the interpretation of history. Activity Have students collaborate to compare and contrast how visual and text sources have described and depicted the country of Iran over time. Sources Maps/infographics Iran, ethnic distribution, created 2004 by the United States Central … [Read more...]
Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first U.S. president sworn into office in January. Check out our 
