On Tuesday, November 6, voters in the United States will go to the polls to elect a president, members of Congress and other state and local political leaders. As we move closer and closer to Election Day, this blog will be providing suggestions for ways to use primary sources from the Library of Congress to help students learn about the election process and past elections.
Whether you call it “open house” or “back to school night,” an evening for teachers to meet and greet parents is a fall ritual. This year, consider “flipping” the event: distribute rules and policies in writing, allow time for parents to see examples of student learning, and include an activity or two to help parents better understand the learning processes their children will experience.
During recent Library of Congress summer teacher institutes, teachers of all grade and ability levels discussed ways to engage students in close observation of primary sources. They agreed that close observation is crucial to deep analysis and a key component of identifying and citing evidence from a primary source. One easy technique to help students improve their observation skill is to use sticky notes.
The most recent issue of the Library of Congress TPS Journal focuses on the Common Core State Standards and the importance of incorporating primary sources to insure student success.
The Library has more than 20 million digitized primary sources available for free at www.loc.gov. This blog is dedicated to helping teachers explore and share ideas for teaching with these historical artifacts.
When I attended the Library’s June Summer Teacher Institute, I was struck by how much the week of immersion in primary sources altered participants’ preliminary teaching plans. Between Library of Congress website discoveries and tours of real primary source collections, attendees extensively changed and enriched their plans.
If you were a K-12 student which websites would you want to save for future generations? What would you want people to look at 50 or even 500 years from now? These questions are at the heart of the K12 Web Archiving program, sponsored jointly by the Library of Congress and Internet Archive, beginning with a pilot program in 2008.
Recently, the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources program hosted a summer institute with a focus on world history. The participants found a variety of different ways to incorporate the Library’s resources into classroom activities. Are you looking for world history resources or ways to incorporate them into lesson plans?
