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Sharing Summer Teacher Institute Discoveries

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This guest post comes to us from Mary J. Johnson, an educational consultant to the Library of Congress.

In his June 1st post celebrating the beginning of the Teaching with the Library of Congress blog’s second year of publication, Stephen Wesson pointed out that for teachers and students the Library of Congress “represents a source of discovery and learning unlike any other.” Last week when I joined twenty-seven K-12 educators at the second of five 2012 Summer Teacher Institutes in Washington, D.C., I did indeed witness nonstop discovery and learning in a unique and awe-inspiring setting.

Early in the workshop, presenters introduced the Library of Congress website. Once participants began exploring on their own, some actually squealed in delight at their discoveries. Several teachers shared their “finds” with me. I predict that next school year’s curriculum projects will feature some of the primary source discoveries below:

  • Lincoln and Douglas in a presidential footrace. Political cartoon lithograph, 1860.

    The Evolving Nature of the Constitution
  • The evolving nature of the Constitution.” Address by Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993) on the occasion of the Bicentennial of the American Constitution from the Library of Congress “Creating the United States” exhibition.
  • Stand Back, Ladies!Votes for Women Broadside, Miller NAWSA Suffrage Scrapbooks, 1897-1911.
  • World Digital Library.  A global partnership of cultural treasures.
  • New York City – Cheap lodging-houses as nests of disease – A night scene in a “five-cent” den on Pearl Street