Archive for the Teaching Strategies Category (37 posts)

Discover the Power of Library of Congress Primary Sources…and Books

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This guest post is from the Library of Congress Teacher in Residence, Earnestine Sweeting.

Did you miss the 2012 Library of Congress National Book Festival?  The weekend was filled with bestselling authors, book-signings, and presentations.  The Library of Congress had its own pavilion featuring Library staff introducing attendees to the wonders of the Library.  The Library’s K-12 education staff were there talking about the Library’s free educational resources and giving away appreciation gifts for teachers and school librarians.

Many units within the Library had the opportunity to do a presentation for attendees. Educational Outreach staff helped attendees “Discover the Power of Library of Congress Primary Sources…and Books”.  I’ve been a teacher for many years but I’ve never taught in such an environment.  Imagine an outdoor classroom with hundreds of kids and families strolling, life-sized story book characters roaming, and bursts of cheers booming from tents near and far – during instruction?  I knew that it would be a challenge to engage the audience in deep thinking amidst the excitement.

Analyzing Primary Sources at the National Book Festival

To start, I prepared book festival-goers to draw conclusions and make inferences for a set of three primary sources.  Then I asked that they keep mental notes about each item individually, but also plan to formulate a hypothesis about the relationship between the three primary sources.  First, visitors were invited to analyze their own printout of a drawing by civil war sketch artist Alfred Waud, discuss their observations with a neighbor and say what they thought when they viewed the picture.  “It looks like people helping the injured,” a response called out from the distance.  Another response called out from an even further distance wondered, “Is this from the Civil War?”

Citizen Volunteers Assisting the Wounded in the Field of Battle

We then looked at two additional primary sources, President Lincoln with Gen. George B. McClellan and group of officers  along with a Map of the Battle of Antietam, to confirm ideas about this event.  These primary sources were selected to support a picture book, Just in Time, Abraham Lincoln by award-winning author Patricia Polacco.

Picture books are often used to engage elementary students.  Here are some ways teachers can incorporate primary sources associated with other books:

Students can:

  • Distinguish differences between fiction and nonfiction books about the same event.
  • Evaluate diverse interpretations by examining images of the same event by different artists.
  • Select an image depicting one or more people.  Study the image and write dialogue or “thought bubbles” to accompany the image.
  • Participate in a discussion about a primary source as work of art. Use visual evidence as a prompt to write hypotheses about a time period, theme, or event

Find step-by-step instructions on how primary sources can be used to enhance books in Book Backdrops, one of the Library’s ready-to-use and downloadable professional development activities.

Tell us how you might use primary sources with books to help your students read closely and better understand literary and informational text.

Analyzing Photographs: Child Labor from a Child’s Perspective

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How do 21st century children respond to photographs of child labor? Barbara Natanson, who works in the Prints and Photographs Division at the Library of Congress, recently wrote a blog post about what her children saw in selected photographs that Lewis Hine took for the National Child Labor Committee. Replicating what Barbara did would be an easy way to introduce students to learning with primary sources.

Back to School Night: Parents and Primary Sources

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Whether you call it “open house” or “back to school night,” an evening for teachers to meet and greet parents is a fall ritual. This year, consider “flipping” the event: distribute rules and policies in writing, allow time for parents to see examples of student learning, and include an activity or two to help parents better understand the learning processes their children will experience.

Observation in Primary Source Analysis: The Sticky Notes Solution

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During recent Library of Congress summer teacher institutes, teachers of all grade and ability levels discussed ways to engage students in close observation of primary sources. They agreed that close observation is crucial to deep analysis and a key component of identifying and citing evidence from a primary source. One easy technique to help students improve their observation skill is to use sticky notes.

Supporting Writing with Images

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Teachers agree that ease and fluency in writing come with frequent practice for a variety of purposes, whether making personal connections, analyzing information or constructing an answer to a document-based question. One way to incorporate more writing in the classroom is to create assignments using high-impact primary source images from the Library of Congress. Their real-world authenticity can rivet students’ attention, spark inquiry and draw them into a writing topic or task.