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Posted by: Stephen Wesson
One of the most powerful effects of primary sources is their ability to complicate common understandings of history. As the raw materials of history, original documents are able to bring to light little-known details or neglected episodes that add complexity to oversimplified accounts.
Posted in: Native American History
Posted by: Danna Bell
One of the most popular resources on the Library of Congress website is Chronicling America. A collaboration with the National Endowment for the Humanities, Chronicling America provides digital access to newspapers published in the United States of America between 1836-1922. Meet one of the people responsible for making this collection available online, Tonijala Penn.
Posted in: Interviews with Experts
Posted by: Danna Bell
This year's NCTE conference: Story as the Landscape of Knowing will take place November 20-23 in our hometown, Washington, DC. You will find us at Booth numbers 236 and 238 in the exhibit hall Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The Teachers Page from the Library of Congress offers ideas and resources for English educators. We have rounded up a few of our favorites.
Posted in: Lesson Ideas, News and Events, Poetry and Literature, Teaching Tools
Posted by: Cheryl Lederle
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe was widely influential when it was published in 1852. The Library's “Sources and Strategies” article in the May 2014 issue of Social Education, the journal of NCSS, discusses the influence of the novel. Perhaps just as important as its effect, however, was Stowe’s original impetus for writing it.
Posted in: National Expansion and Reform (1815-1860), Poetry and Literature
Posted by: Cheryl Lederle
We have explored using primary source items to develop research questions, and to strengthen analysis through sourcing and contextualizing. Next, we explore the value of using primary sources from the Library of Congress to guide students to evaluate sources and use evidence.
Posted in: Teaching Strategies
Posted by: Cheryl Lederle
One way to engage students with what they're reading, without turning an extra-curricular club into a class, is to introduce Library of Congress primary and secondary sources related to a particular book, a particular author, or to reading in general.
Posted in: Teaching Strategies
Posted by: Cheryl Lederle
Primary sources can help students explore just how controversial voting rights were in the century preceding the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Posted in: African American History, Contemporary United States (1945-present), Government and Law
Posted by: Cheryl Lederle
“The context for each imaginary contraption becomes fodder for understanding ideas about space and flight.” We’ve added some ideas at the end for ways to use these primary sources to deepen student understanding of the ways in which people have imagined space and flight.
Posted in: Fine and Performing Arts, Science Technology and Math