Gotham Center for New York City History
ER#231 Contact: Julie Maurer
Teachers as Curriculum Makers: Crowdsourcing 9/11 Primary Source Sets is the digital platform for the creation, publication, and dissemination of 9/11 primary source sets on Gotham’s website to provide teachers and curriculum designers with materials to ensure that events of 9/11 receive far greater attention. Incorporating Library of Congress primary sources, 9/11 Memorial & Museum resources, and a series of professional development sessions, the project’s 15 teachers collaboratively created educational materials—primary source sets—to create stimulating 9/11 curriculum for students, teachers, and administrators. The project’s mission is to disseminate the Library of Congress primary source collection to better inform Americans about September 11 on a local and national scale.
Retro Report
ER#234 Contact: David Olson
Sovereignty & Self-Determination: Contemporary Indigenous Histories is developing inquiry-based classroom materials rooted in primary sources related to Federal Boarding Schools and Indigenous Activism. This resource collection features three original Retro Report films related specifically to webinar topics, along with additional lessons/student activities and at least one interactive tool such as an interactive map of Federal Boarding Schools and an interactive map examining Indigenous Activism from 1900 to the present.
Retro Report
ER#215 Contact: David Olson
From Courtroom to Classroom: Connecting to Supreme Court Stories Through Primary Sources incorporates narratives of individuals affected by Supreme Court cases and provides students an opportunity to explore the greater context of Supreme Court decisions and processes. The Library of Congress has a strong protocol for engaging students with multiple types of primary sources, and these materials extend the use of this Library of Congress tool to an area of study where the only primary source used is often the Court decisions themselves. The resources developed for this project take students into the stories behind the cases and examine the experiences of individuals, not just decisions.
Korean War Legacy Foundation
ER# 214 Contact: Eliel Hinojosa, Jr., Ph.D.
Out of the Shadows: A Spotlight on Underrepresented Korean War Veteran Groups from the Library of Congress Veterans History Project is designed to connect teachers and students to the stories of underrepresented veteran groups from the Korean War, including African Americans, Asian Americans, women, Hispanics, and Native Americans. Using the Library of Congress Veterans History Project Korean War collection, the KWLF will analyze interviews and produce curricular resources that help learners engage with primary sources that reflect the challenges and contributions of underrepresented Korean War veterans.
Bronx Community College
ER #212 Contact: Elise Langan
Participants in Teachers as Curriculum Makers: Creating Asian American & Pacific Islander Curriculum, are working with the project team to incorporate Library of Congress materials into their AAPI history or ELA lesson plans. The ten teacher leaders will return to their districts and train other subject-area teachers. This project uses an inquiry-based approach and is guided by methodological traditions that seek to democratize the generation of knowledge and make research a participatory endeavor.
Brooklyn Public Library Center for Brooklyn History
ER #201 Contact: David Pasteelnick
New York City History Day is an annual program that provides hundreds of NYC school students each year the opportunity to excel at historical research, interpretation and creative expression. Brooklyn Public Library’s Center for Brooklyn History hosts NYC History Day and promotes the event and available resources while also providing essential support to students and educators as they research projects. During the grant period there will be a focus on engaging Title I schools in the competition.
Bronx Community College (CUNY)
ER #193 Contact: Elise Langan
Lift More Voices: Integrating the Arts & Literacy to Engage Culturally & Linguistically Diverse Students is a project for pre-service teachers (PSTs) who are enrolled at Bronx Community College (CUNY), a public institution in New York City. The main objective is to explore the curriculum planning of PSTs to understand how they use primary sources to align the arts to their K-12 literacy lessons. The PSTs are in two online methods courses taught by Dr. Elise Langan. In collaboration with Dr. Salika Lawrence, and regional arts organizations, four pre-recorded OnDemand workshops help the PSTs with curriculum planning. One workshop is on curriculum development and the three others are on the arts. All workshops focus on integrating primary sources from the Library of Congress.
Retro Report
ER #191 Contact: David Olson
Understanding the Cold War in Latin America is a three-part webinar series designed for middle and high school educators as a means to diversify their teaching and resources when it comes to the global Cold War. Each session includes free lessons and materials with a focus on analyzing political cartoons as primary sources, an original Retro Report film for use in the classroom, and discussion about how to diversify classroom approaches to the Cold War. Part one focuses on the background and history of the region and existing tensions exacerbated by the Cold War. Parts two and three use the countries of Chile and El Salvador as case studies to examine U.S. involvement and the lasting impacts of the conflicts. Funding for this project comes from the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) Consortium. Over 75 educators from across the country participated in this project, and post-webinar presentations were made at the National Council for the Social Studies conference and other regional social studies conferences.
Understanding the Cold War in Latin America
Queens College of CUNY
ER #186 Contact: Jay Shuttleworth
Social Justice on Campus and in the Community: Teaching with Primary Sources through Art and Social Studies is a permanent art and social studies collaborative curriculum course. The rationale for developing this course draws on the idea that an interdisciplinary approach to art and social studies education provides an exceptional opportunity to teach about social justice-oriented topics. In some cases, such topics can be considered “Hard History,” a term Teaching Tolerance describes as subjects that teachers may struggle to teach (or be reluctant to teach). By focusing on the resources of the Library of Congress and the Teaching with Primary Sources program, this project provides K-12 teachers with support in developing curriculum and critical-thinking learning objectives.
Bard College
ER #180 Contact: Celia Bland
“If Woman Upset the World”: Reading and Writing Women Activists of the Hudson Valley
In Bard Institute for Writing & Thinking workshops, teachers will work with LOC archival materials to better understand the complexities of the lives and works of Hudson Valley activists Sojourner Truth, Edith Wharton, and Eleanor Roosevelt. These experiential workshops model the teaching of primary sources through exploratory writing and fulfill state requirements for “develop[ing] skilled practice in the use of current media.” LOC materials will also inform the Bard MAT core class “Pedagogy and Practice,” which trains student-teachers to lead micro-history workshops for high school students at the Bard High School Early College in Newark, NJ.
Bard College
ER #154 Contact: Erica Kaufman
The World of the Poem: Teaching Poetry through Primary Sources
Bard offers a series of interdisciplinary professional development workshops for secondary and post-secondary educators in Dutchess, Ulster, Columbia, and Greene counties, focused on the teaching of poetry through primary source materials. These experiential workshops use the Library of Congress collections to revitalize oft-taught poems and poets by looking at them through unique lenses.
Using IWT’s signature writing-based strategies, teachers gain new pedagogical tools to engage students in the reading of poetry, tools that render the poem and poet tangible for students—by examining images of the writers and their environments, by hearing the sound of their voices through audio recordings, and by looking at handwritten drafts to imagine a poet’s writing process. By working with teachers to identify and use primary sources in the classroom, using resources provided by TPS, a new angle into the study of poetry is opened—a lens that focuses on the firsthand experiences of the writer, enabling students to make direct (and personal) connections to the text, resulting in heightened engagement and understanding.
Central to these workshops is working with teachers to develop lesson plans matched to recommended Common Core exemplar texts, making transfer of the pedagogical approaches and materials into the daily life of the classroom seamless.
Southern Westchester BOCES
ER #168 Contact: Eleanor Friedman
Cultivating Cultural Responsiveness, Inquiry and Civil Education Using Primary Sources is designed to increase teacher and librarian’s use of inquiry methods, awareness in culturally responsive teaching, and civic education. An organic way to tie these three initiatives together is to train school librarians and classroom teacher partners on how to incorporate primary sources into their lessons and curriculum. This project focuses on inquiry, culturally responsive teaching, and civic education because these three ideas are closely tied together. Furthermore, within New York State, there is an emphasis on civic engagement especially in high school curriculums and there is a need for more teacher training in that area.
Long Island University–Brooklyn
ER #167 Contact: Jay Shuttleworth
Teaching “Hard History” with Library of Congress’ Teaching with Primary Sources draws on the idea that Americans are reluctant to talk about subjects like enslavement, the Japanese-American Internment, and the genocide and marginalization of Native Americans. According to Teaching Tolerance, such subjects represent “Hard History,” a term they give to describe subjects that teachers struggle to teach in the classroom. By focusing on the resources of the Library of Congress and the TPS program, this program provides middle and secondary-level teachers with support in developing curriculum and critical-thinking learning objectives. The project’s goals involve participants’ development of a comprehensive curriculum unit that includes issues-oriented questions and focuses on instruction in at least one subject area considered “Hard History.”
Bronx Community College
ER #165 Contact: Elise Langan
The purpose of Teachers Teaching Teachers: Primary Source Responses to 9/11 is to determine how participation in 2019 summer 9/11 professional learning experiences—a pre-grant activity—impacted in-service teachers’ classroom practice. This is achieved by reviewing lesson plans which use primary sources and 9/11 museum artifacts from the ten selected teachers from over 100 teachers who participated in the summer PD. Selected teacher leaders showcase their lesson plans to approximately 75 pre- and in-service teachers in New York City and lessons are then published on the Teaching with Primary Sources Teacher Network and the Gotham Center for New York History sites. This enables wide dissemination of the lesson plans so the 9/11 attacks receive greater emphasis in the classroom curriculum.
Article: View of The Role of Museum-Based Education in Creating 9/11 Curriculum (iajiss.org)
ER #150 Contact: Elise Langan
The New York as a Living Museum project is a pilot program that seeks to expand awareness and use of local primary sources into pre- and in-service teachers’ lesson plans. The primary target audience is under-served, pre-service teachers at Bronx Community College, Lehman College, and Medgar Evers College (CUNY), which serve immigrant and minority populations. The professional development program provides participants with three days of hands-on learning to help increase their knowledge and use of local artifacts and primary sources. Participants make connections between local and global historical events.
This project seeks to measure the impact on two issues in teacher education and practice: a lack of teachers’ content knowledge in social studies instruction, particularly the connection between local and global events; and inadequate application of historical inquiry and disciplinary literacy methods in social studies.
New-York Historical Society
ER #164 Contact: Leslie Hayes
Women and the American Story, On the World Stage 1920-1948 explores the dramatic shifts in women’s rights and responsibilities. The unit explores women's participation in the Roaring 20s, Great Depression, and World War II and draws extensively from the Library of Congress’ primary source materials in addition to resources from our own collections and from institutions across the nation.
Women and the American Story Website
Academy of American Poets
ER #162 Contact: Jeffery Gleaves
A free weekly email produced for K-12 educators, Teach This Poem features one poem a week, accompanied by interdisciplinary resources and activities designed to help teachers quickly and easily bring poetry into the classroom. The series, which received the 2018 Innovations in Reading Prize from the National Book Foundation, emphasizes the importance of observation and inquiry when teaching poetry and is produced with the guidance of Educator in Residence Madeleine Fuchs Holzer.
Rotterdam-Mohonasen School District
ER #161 Contact: Tasha Anderson
Connecting Students with Local History through the Library of Congress provides comprehensive professional development on using primary sources in the classroom. Participants do a deep dive into the extensive holdings in the Library’s collections and design an inquiry unit that includes multiple primary sources from the Library of Congress. Further, participants engage in three half-day follow up sessions led by historians from the Schenectady Historical Society (SHS) held at the SHS museum and library, the Brouwer House, and the Mabee Farm Historic Site. Teachers meet monthly throughout the school year, to reflect on their inquiry based units, to ask questions, provide support, and receive feedback. Leading this work are librarians Jennifer Two-Axe, Britt Buckenroth, and Donna Eager. All three librarians received comprehensive training on the use of primary sources from the Library of Congress through Questar III BOCES Engaging Students through Primary Sources, a previous Eastern Region Project
Villa Maria College
ER #158 Contact: Ann Rivera
Protest and Citizenship: Using Primary Sources to Comprehend and Create Arguments targets educators in ELA, social studies, and U.S. history, as well as school librarians and educators engaged in interdisciplinary programming in the Western New York region. The workshops focus on instructing educators on how to introduce elementary, middle, and high school students to find, use, and analyze primary source documents to create oral and written arguments.
New Visions for Public Schools
ER #137 Contact: Rhonda Bondie and Aruna Patel
Building Durable Learning Routines provides professional development for secondary US History teachers in the New York City region. Through the workshop, teachers are introduced to TPS teaching and learning resources, Library of Congress resources, and four durable learning routines used to develop student historical thinking skills. Primary sources are selected on the following topics are which are frequently assessed on the statewide 11th grade US History and Government Regents Exam: Constitutional Principles, Progressive Era, and the Cold War. Throughout the year, as teachers implement the durable learning routines, student work is collected and assessed to measure the impact on student learning outcomes. Teachers also share their routines with other teachers at their schools. All teaching activities created at this workshop are shared through the New Visions Social Studies Curriculum website.
South Central Regional Library Council
ER #136 Contact: Mary-Carol Lindbloom
Primary Partners (P2): Supporting Inquiry-Based Instruction through Collaboration enhances inquiry-based learning and content knowledge acquisition for history students under the aegis of the NYS Common Core Social Studies Framework, thereby improving their preparation for the NYS Regents Examinations, college, and life-long learning. The project builds new partnerships among local social studies teachers, librarians, and cultural organization educators through workshops dedicated to the creation of mini-inquiries using Library of Congress Primary Sets, New York Heritage collections, and secondary/tertiary sources. During the post-creation phase, workshop participants share their acquired knowledge and the project's LibGuide resources with their district or BOCES and at least one other colleague. They are also encouraged to share what they learned at local, regional, statewide, and national conferences and meetings. To facilitate discovery and access to primary sources, resulting materials are added to the project's LibGuide and sent to the Library of Congress as appropriate. Primary Partners targets grades 4, 7, 8, and 11, with a focus on Women's suffrage, the Erie Canal, and the Civil War.
Questar III
ER #135 Contact: Tasha Anderson
Designed for educators within Columbia, Greene and Rensselaer counties in New York State, Enhancing Student Engagement brings together cooperative teams of social studies educators and K-12 school librarians, each bringing unique experiences and knowledge. These school-based cooperative teams develop teacher resources that support the effective application of primary sources with inquiry practices outlined in the newly adopted NYS Framework, aligned with the C3 Framework. Once the resources are developed, teams apply them within their own classrooms to gain insight into the process and the student learning as they simultaneously develop pedagogical skills. Further, participants are empowered to lead the transition to primary source based inquiry learning throughout their schools as they turnkey their training to peers and serve as on site resource persons. The work of the Enhancing Student Engagement project creates a common understanding around the importance of inquiry-based learning and its role in enhancing student engagement and achievement.
D'Youville College
ER # 131 Contact: Dr. Julie Carter
The D'Youville College History Hunters Program is a Buffalo, NY college-school district collaboration that engages 6th-8th grade teachers and their students in academically rigorous inquiry into history, emphasizing the use of primary sources from loc.gov. The goal of the History Hunters Program is to make history fun while improving academic literacy in social studies for urban students as they prepare for National History Day. Project elements include a TPS-focused teacher institute, regular in-school coaching events for teachers, weekly classroom-based mentorship for 6th-8th graders by pre-service teacher candidates, professional development sessions for teachers and students at the Buffalo History Museum, graduate course integration of TPS strategies, and support for materials related to National History Day projects.
Enhancing Historical thinking Strategies Using Primary Sources by Julie Carter
Wellsville Central School District
ER #127 Contact: Mariah Kramer
Instructional Change Through Inquiry and Primary Source Content Wellsville Central School, in conjunction with Cattaraugus-Allegany Board of Cooperative Educational Services, is conducting a Primary Sources Curriculum Alignment project during the 2016-2017 school year. This project strives to integrate primary sources into social studies lesson plans while aligning instruction with the new C3 Framework for Social Studies adopted by New York State. The work continues in subsequent years as a partnership between Wellsville CSD and CABOCES.
Instructional Change Through Inquiry and Primary Source Content by Mariah Kramer
Center for Instruction, Technology & Innovation (CiTi)
ER #125 Contact: Stephanie Maturo
The overriding goal of the "Primary Sources and the C3 Social Studies Inquiries" project is to establish across the CiTi region a foundation for the integration of materials from the Library of Congress into curricula that support implementation of the K-12 New York State Social Studies Framework and Common Core learning standards. Three of the objectives are to:
- Increase participants' awareness of the Library of Congress primary sources as well as the other teacher resources at the Library and their use in implementing curricula to meet the New York State Social Studies Framework and the Common Core Learning Standards.
- Provide collaborative opportunities for school librarians and classroom teachers to create lessons and activities that incorporate research materials from the Library of Congress.
- Establish a core group of educators within the CiTi region equipped to turnkey their training and use their experience to assist their teaching colleagues in curricular development supporting the growth of student research skills.
Inquiries designed by TPS participants of this project
Western Southern Tier Council for the Social Studies (WSTCSS)
ER #121 Contact: Paul Benson
The WSTCSS encompasses educators, citizens, and institutions that promote and sustain effective teaching, collaboration and civic responsibility in the social studies, and collegiality and networking among council members. The TPS Eastern Region is providing material support to Paul Benson to conduct a presentation at the WSTCSS annual conference, April 27, 2012. "Library of Congress Online: 21st Century Access to America's Past" introduces participants to the vast array of digitized primary sources available at the Library of Congress website and provides a variety of educational resources and activities ready for classroom implementation.
Warwick Valley Central School District
ER #114 Contact: Mary Ann Knight
The Warwick TPS Partnership is a collaborative effort among the Warwick Valley Central School District, the Warwick Historical Society and the Albert Wisner Public Library. The three organizations have long-time connections sharing community primary sources, particularly in the local 12-property Historical District. The teacher workshops and follow-up consulting sessions provide sustained training for teachers on integrating TPS into the classroom and familiarizing them with Library of Congress primary sources. One unique goal of the partnership is to link local historical figures, sites, artifacts and other local primary sources to each topic so students can understand the connections of state, national or global issues to their own community.
The American Revolution Comes to Life in the Classroom
Capital Region BOCES
ER #111 Contact: Tia Felock
History Then and Now with Social Studies Compelling Questionsallows teachers, librarians, and other education professionals to connect TPS Primary Source Sets with the Social Studies Common Core Compelling Questions. The Capital Region BOCES team has compiled a list of the questions coinciding with the sets that enhance and enrich the content of the lessons being taught in today's classroom. These educators work with students to make sure they are comprehending content, gaining knowledge, and developing the inquiry skills they need to be lifelong learners.
Medgar Evers College
ER #107 Contact: Salika Lawrence
TPS Writing Project at Medgar Evers College delivers professional development for teachers and parents of high needs, urban students in New York City Public Schools with a primary focus on central Brooklyn. Teaching with Primary Sources materials are used to improve participants' understanding of writing instruction. Given the increased focus on writing instruction, disciplinary literacy, and informational texts in the Common Core State Standards, the project provides a model for writing instruction in K-12 teachers that targets these requirements. A cohort of 15-20 teachers and on-site coaches participate. A workshop model is used to facilitate learning and application of strategies and inquiry models introduced through presentations and small group investigation. Through this experience participants engage in authentic writing opportunities to further develop themselves as writers and simultaneously explore effective ways to teach writing.
OCM BOCES
ER #100 Contact: Doreen Bergman
Inquiry Approach to Project-Based Learning, through OCM BOCES School Library System in cooperation with the TPS grant program, brings together librarians, teachers, and pre-service librarians to create project-based learning (PBL) teams that collaborate to implement PBL throughout the OCM BOCES component school districts. We celebrate, recognize, and desire to build on the collaborative efforts of teachers and librarians as they create engaging projects and then facilitate the learning process as students dive into PBL through an inquiry approach to create new knowledge and take informed action.
Gotham Center For New York City History
ER #92 Contact: Julie Maurer
Gotham Scholars and Teacher Leaders: Teaching NYC History with Primary Sources, Scholarship and Historical Thinking Skills
The New York City Department of Education, in collaboration with Gotham designed this pilot program to research, plan, implement, disseminate, and evaluate Gotham Scholars and Teacher Leaders: Teaching NYC History with Primary Sources, Scholarship, and Historical Thinking Skills. The program enables Gotham to develop a Teacher Leadership Program and produce Teacher Resources focused on teaching NYC history using primary sources, new scholarship, and historical thinking skills, while meeting the current needs of history teachers and their students. The theme for the pilot year is women's studies, immigration, and industrialization using NYC as a lens for teaching American history and features the research and scholarship of historians of NYC history. The pilot year features the scholarship of Dr. Suzanne Wasserman, her extensive research on Lower East Side, and her film Sweatshop Cinderella.Participants include middle and high school teachers who teach Social Studies and American History in New York City public schools. Teachers design, field-test, and evaluate lessons using Library of Congress primary sources and share their own experiences with the wider educational community. Each cohort of teachers, working at schools throughout the city, disseminates TPS strategies and history content to additional teachers in all five boroughs.
Jefferson Lewis BOCES
ER #91 Contact: Marcy Grenier
The Jefferson-Lewis School Library System TPS program Of Primary Importance: Inquiry-Based Learning brings together librarians and content-area teacher teams beginning during the 2014-15 school year to create a regional inquiry-based research process. The teams create authentic inquiry units using Library of Congress primary source documents and then pilot the lessons in their districts. The teams also become Research Ambassadors and turn-key train other librarians and teachers in their districts to ensure that the inquiry process is utilized throughout the region. Jefferson Community College is a participating partner in the grant and works with the Research Ambassadors to bridge the gap between high school and post-secondary education by ensuring that the students have the inquiry skills they will need to be college and career ready.
Education Collaborative of WNY
ER # 84 Contact: Eric Yarwood
(Formerly BISSNET) Creating Inquiry Projects with Primary Resources and iPads engages teachers, librarians, and students from BISSNET schools, as well as pre-service teachers from SUNY at Buffalo, in utilizing primary sources from the Library of Congress website and actual artifacts located in the University at Buffalo Anderson Gallery to create inquiry-based learning activities with various technologies including Apple iPads. Teachers and librarians take part in a three-day workshop series that introduces them to various primary sources and inquiry learning practices in order to help them create their own inquiry activities to use in their classrooms. The projects are implemented throughout the year with students who present their projects at an end of year event.
In addition, teachers and librarians utilize the TPS Teachers Network to track progress, communicate, and collaborate with others in order to help accomplish the overall goal of the project, which is to increase student achievement through inquiry-based learning.
South Central Regional Library Council
ER # 79 Contact: Mary-Carol Lindbloom
History Unbound at South Central Regional Library Council is a pilot project that facilitates teachers' ability to locate, review, and provide primary materials for building quality-teaching plans by identifying and using metadata to create document sets that conform to the New York State Common Core standards and enhance student and teacher preparation for the NYS Regents Examinations.History Unbound provides teachers and students with a clean, easy-to-use basic interface that facilitates discovery and access to primary materials. As the number of SCRLC collections increase in NYH, History Unbound is growing into a regional catalog of collections: a one stop shop for primary materials and relevant teaching resources, such as links to US or NYS Census, with a long term goal to include selected primary materials found in the other participating NY 3Rs councils.
Eastern Suffolk BOCES
ER #78 Contact: Kate Davern
Primary Source Documents: Enhancing the Common Core Curriculum Across the Disciplines - provides social studies teachers, librarians, special area teachers, and other educational professionals the opportunity to feature primary source documents as an integral part of their curriculum and a vital tool in addressing the Common Core State Standards. Four mini-teams collaboratively design, develop, and teach interdisciplinary units of instruction through the use of primary source documents. Students utilize higher level thinking skills to develop an appreciation for the past and the interconnectedness of society by examining documents and applying strategies to understand cause and effect in history.
Connetquot High School Example
City Lore
ER #70 Contact: Steve Zeitlin
City Lore's Understanding Muslim Cultures project is part of a larger initiative to shift the perception of Muslim cultures as monolithic and to foster an appreciation and understanding of the oral and literary poetries and visual arts of the book from diverse traditions in the Islamic world. The project goals and strategies are: 1) to enhance teachers' understanding of and capacity to teach about the primacy of poetry, the written word, and the arts of the book in Muslim cultures throughout the world, 2) to provide professional development for teachers on exploring Muslim cultures and book arts through analysis and interpretation of primary source materials from the collections of the Library of Congress, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and other local collections, 3) to work intensively with teachers, their students, and visual arts specialists to design and co-teach with teaching artist Haifa Bint-Kadi a multi-session unit of study that integrates primary sources in Muslim book arts into the 6th grade world history curriculum, and 4) to work with teachers to design lessons that integrate the analysis of primary source materials.
Ithaca College
ER # 68 Contact: Chris Sperry
Project Look Sharp, a media literacy program of Ithaca College integrates Library of Congress and Teaching with Primary Sources materials and links to our free online collection of over 175 lesson plans that integrate media literacy and critical thinking throughout the curriculum. This includes a web-element on our site that will link many of Project Look Sharp's 1600+ media documents to specific Library/TPS documents and resources.
In addition, Project Look Sharp works with nine New York State BOCES to host full-day workshops across Central New York training educators in inquiry-based media decoding and lesson development. This work links Library/TPS resources to the development of teacher-created, document-based lessons that integrate 21st century literacy into American History as called for in the new Common Core Standards.
Jamestown Community College
ER # 64 Contact: Grant Umberger
Science Literacy and Society is a Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) based program linking both local and natural history to topics in the sciences. The sessions incorporate Library of Congress resources connecting local themes and events to national trends and scientific discoveries and literature delivered through a dinner series held at the Robert H. Jackson Center, JCC's Science Center and the Challenger Learning Center at St. Bonaventure University. New York State is currently implementing Common Core Standards that unite the disciplines through common themes; these events and resources assist educators in addressing this shift in instruction and provide educators with material to use in the classroom. The sessions are open to science, ELA, and social studies teachers.
The thematic sessions address general misconceptions in the sciences and encourage and develop cooperation and discussion between social studies, English Language Arts, and math/science educators. Each session begins with an introduction to the Library of Congress' digital primary sources and professional development resources such as TPS Direct. A topic-specific talk by an expert in the field provides the context and important scientific content. Finally, specific resources are presented linking the event's subject matter to the Library's online resources.
Catholic Schools: Diocese of Buffalo
ER #62 Contact: Carol Kostyniak
Literacy and the Common Core Learning Standards Using Primary Sources engages teams of administrators and teachers of English Language Arts and Social Studies from the Diocese of Buffalo Catholic Schools, grades four through eight. In collaboration with Canisius College and WNED/PBS programming, the project provides professional development and hands-on experiences to enhance the participants' knowledge of the Library of Congress website and incorporate into the classroom the use of primary sources, inquiry-based learning, and the Common Core learning standards. Program design includes professional development, classroom strategies, literacy coaching (modeling, supporting, observing), peer coaching, and assessment.
Teacher participants design and demonstrate lesson plans that incorporate the use of primary sources connected to content area learning. Administrators develop a classroom observation checklist and include in the teacher assessment process the use of primary sources as a recommended teaching strategy.
Teachers College, Columbia University
ER #60 Contact: Alexander Pope and Timothy Patterson
Visual Sources: Using Library of Congress Archives in the Classroom, is a week-long, forty-hour professional development program designed to help in-service teachers consider and practice using digital primary source documents as teaching resources. Through guided readings, class discussions, and group work, participants consider how the Library of Congress digital sources can help make history come alive. By the end of the program, participants have critically investigated how historians construct works of narrative history, how source document investigation preserves or challenges dominant social themes, and how these and other digital resources can be leveraged to make the social studies a more relevant school subject for their students. Teachers in this course integrate sources from the digital collections of the Library of Congress into curriculum currently in-use in their own schools. Ready-to-teach lesson ideas and unit plans are designed by participants using newly-developed skills and newly-discovered resources.
Southeastern New York Library Resources Council and Teaching the Hudson Valley
ER # 58 Contact: Debi Duke
Using Primary Sources to Teach the Hudson Valley introduces K-12 educators to primary sources available in Library of Congress collections, such as American Memory, and regional collections such as SENYLRC's Hudson River Valley Heritage. In a series of workshops, participants deepen their knowledge of proper use and citation and learn about tools and strategies for integrating primary sources into student-centered, experiential learning aligned with New York State standards.
Educators use what they have learned to create activities and/or lessons featuring primary sources that illuminate Hudson Valley culture, history, and nature. After testing their lessons and activities with students, participants share and critique the work with their peers in the program. Successful activities and lessons are made available free on-line for others to use, and participants prepare to share what they have learned about primary sources and how to use them.
Libguide with information and links on teaching information about the Hudson River Valley
Participant Lessons and Activities
Madison-Oneida BOCES
ER #56 Contact: Susan LeBlanc
The Ignite the Common Core with Library of Congress Primary Resource Documentsproject engages teams of pre-service and practicing school librarians, social studies, and art and music teachers in professional development related to primary sources from the Library of Congress and local resources, the Common Core Learning Standards, and inquiry based instruction. Other goals include increasing sustainable collaboration among school librarians and classroom teachers and fostering pre-service educator awareness of the value of collaboration with school librarian.
Teams produce and share integrated lesson plans and provide turnkey training in their schools, at the Madison-Oneida BOCES for all of our component districts (and by the pre-service team members at local universities). Primary resource information is also shared through printed materials, webpages, a Moodle learning management system, and at presentations at professional conferences.
New York State School Librarian Journal Summer 2012 Feature Article:
Inquiry Model graphic from ABC CLIO 2
Western New York Library Resources Council
ER #49 Contact: Heidi Bamford
From Civil War to Civil Rights: Documenting an American Dialogue on Humanity, Equality and Justice the Western New York Library Resources Council (WNYLRC) is collaborating with local and national partners to bring about an online exhibit and teaching guide focused on the Albion Winegar Tourgee Papers, located at the Research Library of the McClurg Museum in Westfield, New York. Through the efforts and resources of WNYLRC, the Library of Congress, Canisius College, and Medialle College, this two-year project provides teachers with rich and powerful teaching tools to facilitate inquiry-based learning in middle and secondary classrooms.
Inspired by the powerful materials presented in the online exhibit and guidance from Library of Congress Teacher Resources and local methodology professors, student teachers create learning activities designed to engage and motivate students to construct their own understanding of American History, specifically history of African American struggles for equality in post-Civil War society and politics.
September 8, 2015 Article Newsies Carrying the Banner in Buffalo... Again! Author: Heidi Bamford
Rome Teacher Resource Center
ER #45 Contact: Jean Mosher
Participants in the Using the Library of Congress' Digital Primary Sources to Engage & Motivate Student Learning project participate in a graduate level course. They become familiar with the breadth and organization of the Library of Congress' digital primary sources, understand their value in instruction, explore the relevance of and strategies for developing inquiry-based learning, and create basic inquiry-based learning experiences. Integrating digitized primary sources into lessons is stimulating for teachers, educationally sound for students, and supports local and state education goals. By clustering interpretive and analytical activities around these records and documents, teachers do not add more to an already full curriculum, but instead, enhance what already exists.
Following successful completion of the course and implementation of the learning experiences with students, participants serve as teacher-leaders as they introduce their colleagues to the Library of Congress' digital primary sources and the use of primary sources in the classroom through a series of 2-3 hour workshops.
Museum of the Moving Image
ER #41 Contact: Sean McNally
In Teaching with Still and Moving Images: Using Images as Primary Sources in the History Classroom, up to 30 high school teachers attend a summer seminar in which they develop curricula utilizing the Library of Congress and the Museum of the Moving Image primary sources to teach about the 2012 Congressional and Presidential elections. The seminar focuses on two main areas: (1) how to integrate still and moving images as primary sources into the teaching and learning of American history, and (2) how media can function as tools of political communication.
The seminar teaches educators how to use primary sources from websites of Museum of the Moving Image and the Library of Congress to create new social studies curricular units for the classroom. The Museum's primary resource contribution is its online archive of historic presidential campaign commercials, The Living Room Candidate: Presidential Campaign Commercials, 1952-2008, which has over 400 of the most significant television and internet commercials from the presidential campaigns beginning with the 1952 election, the first campaign in which televised commercials aired, through the most recent election. Library of Congress collections include the Web Archives (for campaign and news websites), Broadsides and Printed Ephemera (for political broadsides), Women of Protest (photographs), and American Memory (Chicago Daily News holdings). Post-seminar workshops were presented at Queens College in fall 2011 to review and refine work created in the summer seminar and to develop a plan for broad dissemination of the new curricula created.
TAFT: Institute for Government
ER #31 Contact: Jack Zevin
Posters as History Project encompasses strong social, political, and moral messages and perspectives. Posters are an ideal instructional medium that incorporate bold artwork. However, posters are relatively rare as objects of study in social studies or art classrooms. This project focuses on developing multiple perspectives in teaching and learning with historical posters drawn from both the Library of Congress collections on WWI, WWII, and the WPA and a cache of Vietnam War era posters discovered in the college museum.
The Posters as History Project is implemented in four phases, beginning with a train-the-trainer workshop focused on the interpretation of historical posters from different complementary perspectives. Trainer-teachers incorporates this knowledge and skill set into the courses they teach for pre-service secondary teachers, who then learn how to interpret and teach with poster art. Townsend Harris High School students, led by these student-teachers in their social studies classes, have the rare opportunity to curate an undeveloped set of posters from the Vietnam War era in the collection of the Godwin-Ternbach Art Museum at Queens College.
From these shared experiences, a teaching-with-posters program has emerged, ready for on-line and CD dissemination, accompanied by a guide for teachers and students. Demonstration workshops using both Library of Congress and Godwin-Ternbach Museum (QC) collections are conducted in other secondary schools throughout Queens.
Jamestown Public Schools
ER #21 Contact: Pam Brown
Using the Library of Congress to Support the Study of History through Critical Thinking K-12is a program dedicated to the collaboration among Library Media Specialists, Social Studies, and English Language Arts instructors. This inquiry-based initiative is focused upon research of local history and the incorporation of Library of Congress sources in the classroom. The project began within a well-networked consortium of school districts and teachers. We are conducting a monthly "History Dinner Club" consisting of six historians presenting lectures on the local aspects of immigration, manufacturing, Native American issues, women's suffrage, western expansion, and the Underground Railroad. Local TPS staff joins these historians to link their content to Library of Congress resources.
In addition, twenty curriculum development mini-grants are provided for teacher projects utilizing inquiry based methodologies supported by our Library Media Specialists. The projects develops new skills connecting regional historical events and materials to national topics and issues represented in the Library of Congress collection. Projects are posted upon completion on the Jamestown Wiki Space and are distributed through our affiliates who permanently house and promote these models through their websites, educational events and newsletters.
Broome Tioga BOCES
ER #18 Contact: Thomas Dublin
Teaching with Primary Sources: A U.S. History Professional Development Collaborationdesigns, implements, and evaluates a variety of robust, standards-based professional development activities for teachers, librarians, and M.A.T. students in Social Studies under the umbrella of the Teaching with Primary Sources program of the Library of Congress.
Canisius College
ER #16 Contact:
The project increases pre-service and in-service teachers' capacity to utilize and implement primary source instruction in the elementary classroom. The project involves a collaborative instructional effort between a team of Education and History faculty members at Canisius College and two Library of Congress Fellows that teach at Nichols School who work with pre-service teacher candidates enrolled in the Childhood Program and in-service teachers enrolled in the Advanced Master's Differentiated Instruction Program. Both pre-service teacher candidates and in-service teachers incorporate primary source instruction for either their required field experience or in their own elementary classrooms.
Differentiated Inquiry Based Instruction Utilizing Primary Sources (EEDI 590) Syllabus
Medaille College
ER # 14 Contact: Illana Lane
The Teaching with Primary Sources at Medaille College School of Education serving Western New York developed a CD that demonstrates how to use the Library of Congress digital primary sources within K-12 classrooms consistent with New York Standards to assist the teachers in providing hands-on, constructivist, inquiry-based lessons across the curriculum in K-6 and in Social Studies 7-12. The College is working with local school districts and their partnership schools to demonstrate the methodology and to give teachers access to the materials. Medaille College is also embedding this unit in each of its graduate and undergraduate programs. Each participant in the training sessions and classrooms leaves with a copy of the CD and additional coaching is available through the College. These same training and materials are being made available to other area teacher training preparatory colleges and universities. Rochester BSED Undergraduate Evening Program,
Sample Assignments using Teaching with Primary Sources
Mary Beth Scumaci's September 2009 Teaching Social Studies with Library of Congress Primary Sources:
Suffrage Model Learning Activity
Fenimore Art Museum (NYSHA)
ER #13 Contact: Danielle Henrici
Connecting Classrooms to Primary Sources through National History Day is a professional development project disseminated through the School Library Systems, Teacher's Centers, targeted listservs, and New York State History Day's (NYSHD) extensive statewide network of teachers. NYSHD has resources available on this network through the use of our mailing list of 500+ teachers and our Facebook page.
Our Blogs: History Day Gal, History Day Guy, and our Website
Long term dissemination of project results could include: NYS School Library Media Specialist's Annual conference, N.E. Regional Social Studies Conference and The New York State Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference, and The October Conference for Teachers, held in Cooperstown, New York.
City Lore
ER #8 Contact: Steve Zeitlin
Heartland Passage: Utilizing Primary Documents to Teach the Erie Canal is an initiative designed to encourage teachers to draw on the primary resources of the Library of Congress, as well as local resources at the New-York Historical Society, the Erie Canal Museum, and other museums and archives. Funding will enable City Lore to develop lesson plans on using primary documents based on this summer's "Teaching the Erie Canal in American History Institute" on July 8-11, prior to the start of the grant period. The curriculum materials developed with this grant are utilized, and workshops on using primary documents workshops are held at a number of subsequent professional development programs: two "Landmarks in American History" Erie Canal institutes (with 40 teachers each) proposed for the summer of 2009 (we are confident that we will receive the funding), the New York City Department of Education's "Leadership in American History" Teaching American History programs taking place in the fall of '08 and throughout '09 for 40 teachers, and the NYC District 28 professional development program, "American Citizen," in both in the winter of '08 and the spring of '09 for 30 teachers.All told, the materials and the primary document workshops are developed with and for the 150 teachers who attend the workshops, and many more will use the materials on City Lore's Website.
Gotham Center For New York City History
ER #7 Contact: Julie Maurer
Remember Me to Herald Square: Gotham Center project uses in person, on-line training of TPS materials. We use the Library of Congress American Memory and Photograph Collection. Specifically, we use maps from the Map Collection: Cities and Towns, U.S., NY State, and Manhattan collection, as well as the photograph collection which includes images ranging from a 1914 photograph of the northwest corner and Fifth Avenue and 34th Street to a 1959 photograph of 34th Street by the esteemed photographer Andre Kertesz.
Delaware Chenango Madison Otsego (DCMO) BOCES
ER #3 Contact: Susan LeBlanc
Bringing Primary Sources to Life in a K-12 Library is a project through the Delaware Chenango Madison Otsego (DCMO) Board of Cooperative Education Services (BOCES) which serves over 15,000 public and 500 private school students from 16 public and 2 private school districts. The targeted audience for the primary sources grant is comprised of the 42+ school library media specialists, or teacher/librarians currently working in their component districts.
Additionally, adjoining BOCES' (BT and ONC) librarians are invited to participate in training. Coordinated offerings were also offered through the Teacher's Center affiliated with the State University of New York, College of Oneonta . The Teacher's Center offers professional development to component district's teachers and to students in teacher training programs.