The first post of this two-part series offered ten tips for filling classroom spaces with engaging primary source displays to promote systematic critical thinking. This second post lists ten ways to introduce primary sources into pedagogy. No matter your grade level or subject, the ten ideas start from this basic premise: For every lesson a primary source!
As your students look around their classroom environment, does a visually stimulating array of primary sources surround them? As a teacher, you can saturate your classroom with primary sources to promote critical thinking and inquiry.
Using primary sources is an excellent way to celebrate Hispanic Heritage month. Here are some resources from the Library of Congress that will help you and your students celebrate the achievements of the Hispanic Community.
Many teachers who read the Teaching with the Library of Congress blog can probably tell a story of finding the perfect primary source at just the right time to ensure a brilliant teaching moment. Unfortunately, teachers more often spend hours painstakingly searching for promising primary sources to fit the curriculum and engage students. Hours, that is, until a Teachers Page Primary Source Set comes to their rescue!
The Teaching with the Library of Congress blog regularly offers suggestions for helping students practice primary source analysis techniques. Since the launch of the interactive Primary Source Analysis Tool a year ago, thousands of students have analyzed maps, texts, photographs, political cartoons, and more the high tech way.
Like many readers of the Teaching with the Library of Congress blog, we have identified strategies related to the Common Core’s instructional “shift” toward integrating more informational texts into literacy programs. Today’s summer blog round-up pulls together five posts packed with ideas for using informational texts from the Library’s collections.
“The Library of Congress means many different things to many people,” wrote Stephen Wesson at the start of the second year of the Teaching with the Library of Congress blog. “But for teachers and students it represents a source of discovery and learning unlike any other.” He noted that the first year of the blog had looked at a variety of topics and provided teaching suggestions that help unlock the potential of our unique primary sources.