Teacher Webinar September 10: Constitution Day

The K-12 education team at the Library of Congress invites educators to join us at 4 PM ET on September 10 for a free webinar to explore and celebrate resources related to the creation and adoption of the Constitution of the United States.

The webinar will engage participants in a brief primary source analysis of select text. The focus will be on careful and close reading of text and putting it into historical context to better understand the process of drafting and adopting the Constitution. Participants will be invited to share their own approaches and best practices to teaching with primary documents. The webinar will conclude with an overview of primary sources and teaching resources related to the Constitution from the Library of Congress.

Constitution Day has its origin in a 1940 joint resolution of Congress to recognize American citizenship on the third Sunday in May. Then, according to the Law Library of Congress, ‘In 1952 Congress repealed this joint resolution and passed a new law moving the date to September 17 to commemorate “the formation and signing, on September 17, 1787, of the Constitution of the United States.”‘ The designation of the day changed again in 2004, when ‘Congress changed the designation of this day to “Constitution Day and Citizenship Day” and added two new requirements in the commemoration of this Day [including] … that each educational institution which receives Federal funds should hold a program for students every September 17th.’

Please mark your calendar and register today to join us for this event. This event will be recorded, and a link will be available as soon as possible after the event.

We glean some of our best ideas from comments and hope that our readers find them valuable, too — please share how you engage your students in thinking about the Constitution.

Update, Sep. 11: The link is now available here.