activity ideas for connecting primary sources with books
When paired together, primary sources and historical picture books provide learners opportunities to explore and create meaning around small moments in time and bigger events. Compelling primary sources further help students contextualize elements of a story to better understand and relate to it. On the flip side, historical fiction and nonfiction picture books can increase…
The primary source set above and the associated learning activities below were inspired by a discussion on the TPS Teachers Network, a free professional online community designed to host and facilitate conversations, connections, and collaborations among educators of all stripes about using primary sources to improve student learning. In the discussion “S’a: Doctor, Author, Scout…
Book Kits pair books with primary sources using engaging activities to help students in grades K-8 connect to literature. They are free to use for educational, non-profit use. Access the Book Kits today!
Book Backdrops are teacher-curated primary source sets linked to books and accompanied by teaching ideas and/or teaching notes. They are continually added to the TPS Teachers Network using the album tool. A sampling of some great ones are listed below. All of the ones included here are accessible by anyone. But if you want to…
This three-part lesson from the Library of Congress* provides students with insight into the historical context of the 1920s and helps them recognize how popular culture reflects the values, mores, and events of the time period as they synthesize fictional events and primary sources. In a culminating project, students create a newspaper containing multiple types…
This is a guest post from Kasey Short, an eighth-grade English teacher at Charlotte Country Day school in North Carolina. When I moved from 6th to 8th grade last year, one thing I thought about a lot was how I would approach teaching To Kill a Mockingbird. I knew that I wanted to provide historical…
Anna Klobuchar Clemenc (Clements), also known as “Big Annie” and America’s Joan of Arc, is the central character in The Women of Copper Country, a historical novel by Maria Doria Russell. Set in Upper Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula in 1913, the novel chronicles the work of Anna and the Ladies Auxiliary of the Western Federation of Miners….
This lesson is available through Emerging America, a TPS Consortium partner from Massachusetts and was created by Elena T. Danek. Access the full lesson plan by clicking the link below. Historical Fiction: Setting Study through Primary Sources of the Novel Esperanza Rising This two-day lesson is based on students acquiring a better understanding of the…
In a TPS Network resource album available to the public, elementary teacher librarian and former teacher in residence at the Library of Congress, Tom Bober (@CaptainLibrary), outlines how his students analyzed an historical newspaper article using the See Think Wonder strategy that layered in the Post-it® app for iPad to help organize students’ thinking. The…
Elementary teacher librarian and former teacher in residence at the Library of Congress, Tom Bober (@CaptainLibrary), details a plan for pairing primary source analysis with the book, Ruth and the Green Book by Calvin Alexander Ramsey, to help students make connections to history and geography. In his post on Knowledge Quest from the American Association of School Librarians, Tom also…
This is a guest post from Tim Anderson, a middle school English teacher and Google Certified Educator at Sulphur Springs Elementary School in Jonesborough, Tennessee. There often seems to be a disconnect between students and historical events. Connecting literature to history helps make it come alive for students. Since my eighth graders are studying the…
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…