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Category: Lesson Ideas

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Starting Conversations with Students about Personal Spending, Investing, and Stewardship with Historical Receipts

Posted by: Danna Bell

In the Sources and Strategies article, we explained that receipts for personal expenses such as these - for initiation fees, annual and lifetime membership dues, taxes, and donations - can provide starting points for conversations with students about a wide variety of economic topics from personal spending to investing to stewardship, and more.

One woman watches as another examines with a magnifying glass an ornate, decorative image on a printed page

A Recipe for Project-Based Learning

Posted by: Cheryl Lederle

Recipes, like music scores, are especially interesting to me because they can still be used in the way the author originally intended. Though one cannot read historic newspapers to stay apprised of current events, or read historic letters to stay in touch with friends, "American orphan"; Amelia Simmons can speak through the centuries to help the reader get dinner to the table.

One woman watches as another examines with a magnifying glass an ornate, decorative image on a printed page

Football Through Film and Other Primary Sources

Posted by: Danna Bell

Football tends to be on students’ minds this time of year. What can they discover about football and American history through Library of Congress primary sources? An entertaining fictional film available on the Library's National Screening Room can lead students to discover a football legend from the early twentieth century.

One woman watches as another examines with a magnifying glass an ornate, decorative image on a printed page

Encouraging Student Examination of Persuasive Strategies Used in an Anti-Lynching Report

Posted by: Stephen Wesson

In the November-December 2018 issue of Social Education, the journal of the National Council for the Social Studies, our “Sources and Strategies” article focuses on one document used in the battle against mob violence against African Americans: a 1921 report from the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary in support of a bill to make lynching a federal crime.