Searching by Standards: Finding the Library of Congress Teacher Tools that You Need

This guest post is from our Teacher in Residence Earnestine Sweeting.

Cut down the hours of lesson planning by looking at standards-based learning opportunities for your students. Now is a great time to look at how to connect the use of primary sources with standards.

Teachers Page

The Library of Congress has a tool to help teachers find classroom materials that meet state standards.

You can search by state, grade and subject to find pre-selected primary source sets, lesson plans, and learning activities that are aligned with curricular standards.

In my practice, I can recall sitting in several planning meetings with colleagues, specialists, and administrators, or even conferencing with parents, who may not be aware of what students are expected to learn. The “Search by Standards” tool not only saves valuable planning time, but may also help support the rationale for your instructional decisions.

Click the arrows on the left to expand or collapse the results that are specific to your state’s requirements.

The “Classroom Materials” link on the right gives you a summary, or overview, of the related resources where teachers can deliberately address an idea, concept or theme.

Search by Standards page

  • The “Primary Source Sets” link provides a collection of primary sources that can be used for small group instruction, which can be used to address varied learning styles and backgrounds in the classroom.
  • The “Lesson Plans” link is a connection to teacher-created lesson plans
  • The “Activities” link offers media-rich historical context or interactive opportunities for exploration to both teachers and students.

The Share/Save toolbar on each page makes it easy to save customized results for future reference or to share the results with colleagues. For more ideas on ways in which you can communicate with your colleagues, refer to the  Share, Save or Connect blog post.

Tell us how the “Search by Standards” tool can support your lesson planning.

2 Comments

  1. Janet Bass
    February 21, 2012 at 12:44 pm

    Will the standards be adjusted to fulfill the Common Core Objectives as they are adopted?

  2. J. Jackson
    February 23, 2012 at 9:44 am

    I, too, am interested in knowing if/when Common Core standards will be reflected as the standards for my state. My state has already adopted Common Core Standards, but when I did a search, it was the older standards.

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