It is difficult to miss talk of the upcoming presidential election. Speeches, debates, and soundbites fill television screens, newspapers, and websites. But unless you attend a live event for a presidential nominee, you may not hear his or her campaign song, typically a familiar, popular song selected to shape how voters perceive the candidate. Campaign songs from long ago, original scores or popular songs with rewritten lyrics, did the same.
Now there's one especially for working with newspapers. Pair this guide with the printable or online primary source analysis tool to guide students into deeper analysis and reflection of primary sources from the online collections of rich historical primary sources from the Library of Congress.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the conditions that led to it and its legacy are the subjects of a four-part webinar series. Co-facilitated by education experts from Teaching Tolerance and the Library of Congress, the series will invite participants to examine unique primary sources from the Library's collections that illuminate the laws and practices that preceded the act as well as discuss teaching strategies to use in the classroom.
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.
The Teaching with the Library of Congress blog regularly offers suggestions for helping students practice primary source analysis techniques. Since the launch of the interactive Primary Source Analysis Tool a year ago, thousands of students have analyzed maps, texts, photographs, political cartoons, and more the high tech way.
Using the Library of Congress Found Poetry Primary Source Set, students hone their reading comprehension skills while creating poetry based upon text and images on topics as diverse as Helen Keller, Walt Whitman, women’s suffrage, and the Harlem Renaissance.
