Assessing Historical Thinking Skills Using Library of Congress Primary Sources

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When we ask teachers how they use primary sources, they often have rich and creative answers about how they hook students’ attention, deepen understanding, and even review concepts and content. We hear less about assessment, and most of the responses are questions about how to construct assessments using primary sources.

The Stanford History Education Group has created formative assessments using primary sources from the Library of Congress. With these tools, teachers can gauge students’ historical understanding and ability to apply critical thinking skills by evaluating their analysis of primary source materials.The Spring 2013 issue of the TPS Journal, an online publication focused on pedagogical approaches to teaching with the Library’s digitized primary sources in K-12 classrooms, looks at how a teacher can assess not only content knowledge, but also critical thinking skills.

What’s the Difference Between the National Archives and the Library of Congress?

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Today’s post was co-written by Stephanie Greenhut at the National Archives and Stephen Wesson at the Library of Congress. It is also posted on the Education Updates blog from the National Archives. In 10 words or less, it’s what we’ve got and how we got it. But we’ll go on. Because we get asked this …

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Two Asian Pacific Americans’ Wartime Experiences: Personal Histories from the Veterans History Project

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This is a guest post by Bernice Ramirez. Bernice is working with the education team at the Library of Congress as part of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) Internship Program. Like many immigrants to the United States, the earliest arrivals from Asia were motivated by a desire to fulfill their version of …

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Jackie Robinson: Remembering Number 42 with Primary Sources

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Baseball still holds a special place in the culture of the United States. As this year’s season opened around the nation’s capital we began to see more and more people wearing baseball caps, shirts and jackets with their team’s favorite logo. Though baseball has been a part of the culture of the United States for many years, not all were allowed to play in the major leagues.

“Enduring” Lessons in Leadership from Ernest Shackleton for Modern Explorers

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This guest post is by Lee Ann Potter, Director of Educational Outreach at the Library of Congress. A small collection of 14 black and white photographs from the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress offers a seemingly simple starting point for engaging lessons and activities on a wide range of subjects, and …

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From Flight to Discovery with Alexander Graham Bell’s Papers

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This guest post is from the Library of Congress Teacher in Residence, Earnestine Sweeting. It didn’t occur to me until recently that my math lesson was missing a primary source.  After a simple search for “tetrahedron” or “tetrahedral kites” on the Library of Congress Web site, I was fascinated to find primary sources that could …

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