Comparing the narratives in secondary sources to primary sources from the Rosa Parks Papers can foster student inquiry to develop a more complex understanding of her role in the Civil Rights Movement as a life-long activist.
The Rosa Parks Papers at the Library of Congress can promote student inquiry into the complexities of Parks’ life and activism and engage students in analysis about her life and civil rights activism to support or refute popular depictions of Parks in civil rights narratives.
Helen Keller had been eagerly writing since she had first gained the ability to do so several years before. Although an illness in her infancy had left her unable to see or hear, an inventive teacher, Annie Sullivan, introduced her to language, and soon she was reading and writing using braille and the assistance of interpreters.
Did you know that “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” originally had extra stanzas beyond the ones we all know? When it was composed in 1908 by Albert Von Tilzer and lyricist Jack Norworth, it documented the story of Katie Casey, a baseball fan who wanted to go with her beau to the baseball game. Though there were certainly women who were knowledgeable about their favorite teams, it was expected that women would not want to go to the games and would prefer to be safe at home.
In the January/February 2017 issue of Social Education, the journal of the National Council for the Social Studies, our “Sources and Strategies” article features items from the Rosa Parks Collection.
You and your students may know the names of Margaret Bourke-White, Dorothea Lange, or Clare Boothe Luce. Fewer, however, will know the names of the photographers Helen Johns Kirtland or Toni Frissell, who documented wars, often from the front lines.