Teaching Strategies | Teaching with the Library

A black and white photograph of a group of teen-aged students sitting at a long desk with typewriters. The students are hovered over the typewriters and consulting with a peer who leans over the group.

Young People as Community Members, Helpers and Leaders

November 25, 2025

Primary sources from the Library of Congress can help students consider how young people belong to, participate in, and can act as helpers and leaders within a community.

Posted in: Teaching Strategies, Young Learners

A panoramic map of a town from 1871 showing a river running through the center of the map with street grids on either side of the river.

Teaching About Community and Place with Library of Congress Maps

November 18, 2025

Posted by: Colleen Smith

Maps from the Library's collection offer teachers a range of tools for helping students see, think about, and construct questions about a sense of place.

Posted in: Teaching Strategies, Young Learners

A Reflection: Why Asking Questions About Primary Sources Matters

September 16, 2025

Posted by: Colleen Smith

A reflection from a Library staff member about how observing, reflecting, and asking questions of a source can lead to valuable discoveries and build new understandings.

Posted in: Constitution, Primary Source Highlights, Teaching Strategies

Cover of sheet music for "You're a Grand Old Rag," from 1906. The cover features patriotic symbols of red and white stripes and a blue background with stars, as well as an image from the play for which the song was composed.

From “Rag” to “Flag” – A Patriotic Melody with Broadway Origins

July 1, 2025

Posted by: Colleen Smith

Analyzing two different versions of "You're a Grand Old Flag" allows students both to hone their listening skills and to consider how music changes over time and how word choice may shift depending on historical and cultural contexts.

Posted in: Fine and Performing Arts, Primary Source Highlights, Teaching Strategies

Illustration shows a fat businessman reclining on a large coin, basking in the bright light of "Special Privilege" while dreaming of castles in the air; on the other side of the coin is factory life in dark and polluted Pittsburgh, and where factory workers struggle to flip the coin blocking the light from their city and their lives.

The Price of Pollution: Helping Students Visualize Relationships Between Economic Concepts and Environmental Issues with a 1909 Political Cartoon

May 6, 2025

Posted by: Colleen Smith

In the March/April 2025 issue of Social Education, the journal of the National Council for the Social Studies, our “Sources and Strategies” article highlighted a political cartoon that appeared in the September 22, 1909, issue of Puck Magazine. The image, “Lights and Shadows”, contains a wealth of opportunities for students to explore connections between the environment, politics, economics, and public health.

Posted in: Development of the Industrial United States (1877-1914), Science Technology and Math, Teaching Strategies

Soviet Union Country Study: Is This a Primary Source?

April 10, 2025

Posted by: Colleen Smith

By engaging in a series of deliberate and evolving questions about a particular source, students may begin to recognize that whether a source is primary or secondary depends on the research question being asked.

Posted in: Contemporary United States (1945-present), Teaching Strategies