This past year might not have been as easy as we would have wished, but at least there was some sense of normalcy as well as some bright spots. More educators and students discovered and visited the Primary Source Nexus than the year before so we're glad that highlighting great content from the Library of Congress and Teaching with Primary Sources Consortium member as well as strategies and ideas for teaching with primary sources continues to be helpful. In 2022 we continued our partnership … [Read more...]
TPS Spotlight: Teaching with Primary Sources in the Elementary Classroom
January 17, 2022 by 1 Comment
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville collaborated with several Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) Consortium partners including Emerging America, Mars Hill University, and the TPS Midwest Region to offer a “just in time” online professional development course titled Teaching with Primary Sources in the Elementary Classroom. This online asynchronous course integrates classroom footage of teachers and librarians to highlight practical strategies used to engage elementary learners in … [Read more...]
Looking Back: Top Content of 2021
December 29, 2021 by Leave a Comment
We were all hoping that 2021 would be easier than 2020 but the way it's going out certainly wasn’t what we had been wishing for. That said, let's look at the bright spots. More educators and students discovered and visited the Primary Source Nexus than the year before so we're glad that highlighting great content from the Library of Congress and strategies and ideas for teaching with primary sources seems to have been helpful. In 2021 we entered into a partnership with the National Education … [Read more...]
Primary Source Learning: Film & Video
May 2, 2021 by Leave a Comment
Analyzing Primary Sources: Learning from Video Recordings Teaching with the Library of Congress blog posts All-American News: Newsreels for African American Audiences February 7, 2019 Explore Library of Congress Professional Development Videos April 11, 2017 Exploring America's Cinematic Heritage through the National Film Registry December 17, 2015 Football Through Film and Other Primary Sources January 31, 2019 Inspiring Citizen Action with the National Screening Room … [Read more...]
Teaching Now: QFT with a Primary Source
April 14, 2021 by 2 Comments
First draft vs final drafts This is a guest post from Alyssa Park, a fourth-grade teacher at Scarselli Elementary School in Nevada. My main goals as a teacher are to make sure students leave my classroom bursting with curiosity and with greater self-confidence as learners. I also want them to know how to ask the right questions, how to decide on an action plan to get the information they need, and how to reflect on the work they’ve done. In my second year as a teacher, I learned about the … [Read more...]
Teaching Now: Innovative Ideas to Teach Social Studies Skills
April 6, 2021 by Leave a Comment
The April 5, 2021 #sschat—a moderated Twitter chat using the #sschat hashtag—was chock full of innovative ideas to teach social studies skills from educators across the country. Here is how the group defines itself on the #sschat website. #sschat is more than a hashtag, it’s an open group of dedicated network of educators and enthusiasts who aim to improve their personal, and our collective, teaching of social studies subject matter. We aim to help social studies teachers by helping to … [Read more...]
TPS Spotlight: SHEG & Beyond the Bubble
February 9, 2021 by Leave a Comment
Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) is an award-winning research and development group that seeks to improve education by conducting research, working with school districts, and reaching directly into classrooms with free materials for teachers and students. Beyond the Bubble is the cornerstone of SHEG’s membership in the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) Consortium. Beyond the Bubble uses Library of Congress primary sources in easy-to-use History Assessments of … [Read more...]
Primary Source Learning: Inaugural Poems & Poets
January 24, 2021 by Leave a Comment
Poetry has a long history of addressing and illuminating public issues and events but a disjointed and relatively short history of inclusion in presidential inauguration ceremonies. These moments, however, provide additional nuance to the state of the country during these important transitional moments in our nation. Use the links below to read and listen to the inaugural poems; to analyze, compare and contrast the insightful and verses; and to learn more about the poets who penned and performed … [Read more...]
TPS Spotlight: Voices for Suffrage
January 21, 2021 by Leave a Comment
Voices for Suffrage, part of the Congress, Civic Participation, and Primary Sources Project supported by a grant from the Library of Congress, is an interactive web application for students in grades 7-12 that promotes primary source analysis, reading comprehension, and supporting inferences with evidence. This web-based learning application contains over 700 primary sources from the Library and other digital archives and includes a research section, interactive timeline detailing the story of … [Read more...]
Looking Back: Top Content of 2020
December 27, 2020 by Leave a Comment
2020 certainly wasn't easy but we hope that another year of highlighting great content from the Library of Congress and strategies and ideas for teaching with primary sources was helpful. In 2020 we began spotlighting TPS Consortium members and the resources and professional development opportunities that they provide. We also significantly expanded the Citizen U Lesson Library. There are now links to over 150 multidisciplinary civics lessons for grades K-12. Every lesson includes … [Read more...]
Julia Ward Howe elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Check out our 