New Teacher Resources for a New School Year from the Library of Congress

As the school year gets underway, we’d like to welcome old friends and new to another year of the Teaching with the Library of Congress blog!

We’re dedicated to helping teachers and students discover powerful primary sources from the Library of Congress as well as effective strategies for using them in the classroom. The best place to start is at the Library’s online portal for teachers, loc.gov/teachers, where you’ll find a peerless collection of free teaching tools and professional development.

This year we’re pleased to announce the launch of two new primary source sets that allow teachers and students to use unique artifacts from the Library to explore key topics in U.S. history and culture.

The Library’s new Alexander Hamilton primary source set introduces students to this important–and newly popular–figure from the nation’s early years. From personal letters to the essays in which he championed the ratification of the Constitution to newspaper coverage of his fatal duel with Aaron Burr, this set lets students explore the pages where it happened: the documents one remarkable person used to help shape a nation.

Students can use one sport as a lens to study periods of transformation for the U.S. in the Library’s newly updated primary source set Baseball Across a Changing Nation. From its first arrival on American shores, baseball has both reflected and advanced changes in society, including westward expansion, urbanization, racial integration, and struggles for participation by women. This set is packed with photos, sheet music, newspaper articles, and baseball cards that allow students to examine these changes and the people behind them.

We look forward to hearing what you do with these Library of Congress teacher resources and more this coming year! Subscribe to this blog to stay up on the latest for teachers from the Library and follow us on Twitter at @TeachingLC. Keep us posted!