March in History with the Library of Congress

This post comes courtesy of Uhuru Flemming of the Library of Congress. 

Many teachers like to include mini-lessons or bell-ringers about “this day in history.” The Library of Congress offers two resources that recount what happened on a particular day using the Library’s collections of digitized primary sources: Jump Back in Time (introductory) and Today in History (advanced). Choose the one that best matches your students’ reading levels to build both content knowledge and research skills with primary sources in context.

March highlights include the celebration of St. Patrick’s Day (introductory; advanced) and Alexander Graham Bell’s invention of the telephone (introductory; advanced), as well as milestones related to:

Presidents

• March 4, 1861:  Abraham Lincoln became the sixteenth president of the United States (introductory; advanced),
• March 18, 1782:  John C. Calhoun, the seventh vice president of the United States was born (introductory; advanced);

The States

• March 15, 1820:  Maine became the twenty-third state (introductory; advanced),
• March 30, 1867:  Alaska was purchased for $7.2 million (introductory; advanced);

  

Military History

• March 5, 1770: The Boston Massacre reflected the growing tensions between Great Britain and its American colonies (introductory; advanced),
• March 6, 1836:  General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna recaptured the Alamo (introductory; advanced),
• March 16, 1802:  The U.S. military academy at West Point was established (introductory; advanced);

Arts

• March 21, 1869:  Showman Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. was born (introductory; advanced),
• March 26:  Publisher Conde Nast was born (introductory; advanced).

To engage your students immediately, distribute or display one primary source from an entry and invite them to jot down a single detail they notice and then share. To draw your students deeper into analyzing the primary sources, ask them to record observations, reflections and questions on the Library’s primary source analysis tool. Anne Savage offers tips in the Blog Round-Up: Using the Primary Source Analysis Tool.

Students can also:

• Compare a secondary source account, such as a textbook explanation, to a primary source account. What can be learned from each? What cannot be learned from each? What questions do students have?
• Consider how a series of primary sources support or challenge information and understanding on a particular topic. Ask students to refine or revise conclusions based on their study of each subsequent primary source.
• Use the list of additional resources at the end of each Today in History entry to search for additional primary sources.

Some of our favorite ideas for using these resources came in the comments reacting to Primary Sources Every Day from the Library of Congress. Let us know how you use them!