The Barat Education Foundation (BEF), a long time member of the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Program (TPS), began working with the Constitutional Rights Foundation (CRF) in 2016 to create multidisciplinary lessons that feature primary sources from the Library of Congress and infuse civic learning across the curriculum (stay tuned, coming soon). Primary source learning…
Students deepen their understanding of the preamble to the U.S. Constitution with this primary source image sequencing activity. Lesson implementation Direct students to work individually, in pairs or in small groups to write a definition of the word “democracy”. When students have finished, tell them that the word “democracy” comes from two Greek words: “demos”…
This is a guest post from veteran teacher Heather Klos, an 8th grade U.S. history teacher and the Social Studies department chair at Crownover Middle School in Corinth, Texas. Primary sources are one of the most valuable tools we have as social studies teachers. What better way to incorporate primary sources for the 21st century learner than through…
The image above is small part of an illustration. Look carefully and make a hypothesis about the topic or theme of the larger illustration. Point to specific details that led you to this hypothesis. Next, zoom into a larger section of the same illustration. What additional details do you see? Refine or rewrite your hypothesis about the topic or…
Looking for primary sources related to a particular time period in U.S. history? The Teaching with Library of Congress blog suggests using the American Memory Timeline, an online presentation that provides a comprehensive look through U.S. history using primary sources from the Library’s collections. For teaching ideas, read the whole blog post. More resources are listed below. U.S. History by…
Zoom into this political cartoon (.pdf). Fill out a primary source analysis tool to help you look deeply at this source and discover what information it was attempting to convey. In your analysis, did you recognize any of the people? Read the curator note to find out the names of the people the creator depicted in…
Sioux Sioux images Dakota images Sioux ghost dance (film) Mary Louise Defender Wilson and Keith Bear: Sioux and Mandan Hidatsa storytelling and music from North Dakota streaming webcast Oral history interviews mentioning Sioux indians Indian fanfares: The Camanche revel, The Sioux gaillarde, The Manitou air dance Poems from Sioux and Chippewa songs Books related to the Sioux Texts related…
The page shown above comes from a transcript of a 1930s oral history interview with George Strester who remembers a memorable Thanksgiving time when his father, a preacher, tried farming in Nebraska in 1873. Click the links below to browse through some related images, then read Strester’s whole story. Describe how the images enhanced your understanding…
Zoom into this 1888 presidential election document online or in a .pdf document. Look closely at the graphical elements of the complete document and compare and contrast the presentation of information in the Harrison and Cleveland maps. Which is more pleasing visually and why? How does the visual presentation affect the tone of each map? Describe…
In a Teaching with the Library of Congress blog post, Deborah Thomas, program manager for the National Digital Newspaper Program at the Library of Congress, discusses Helping Students Read Between the Lines: Identifying Bias and Attitude in Newspapers for the Presidential Election of 1912. With three major candidates, rather than the traditional two, the 1912…
The National Press Club, with more than a century of history behind it, is known for its luncheon gatherings that have featured U.S. presidents, visiting world leaders, and other prominent persons to address the media members and answer questions about current affairs. Now, with the collection Food for Thought: Presidents, Prime Ministers, and Other National Press Club Luncheon Speakers,…
Summer is the perfect time to take some time to explore the Library of Congress digital collections. You can simply use the URL: https://www.loc.gov/collections/. Alternatively, you can navigate from the LOC.gov homepage by clicking the menu icon to the right of the search bar at the top of the page, clicking the Discover link, then…