Teaching The Hudson Valley

Primary Sources Galore

Posted by THV
on October 23, 2012

Thanks to Diane Moller, Lewisboro ES library media specialist, and Graham Humphrey, Student Conservation Associate, for the ideas in this post.

Have you ever wanted just the right image to use in a lesson and didn’t know where to find it? Well, Diane Moller suggests you look to the biggest library in the country--the Library of Congress --established by legislation 1800.

It now has “more than 144 million items including...33 million cataloged books and other print materials in 460 languages; more than 63 million manuscripts; the largest rare book collection in North America; and the world's largest collection of legal materials, films, maps, sheet music and sound recordings.”

To find online resources Diane suggests starting with the Teachers page where you'll find links to "Classroom Materials," "Using Primary Sources," and other topics plus graphic organizers to help you and your students analyze the materials.

For additional options, try American Memory with links to documents, images, and maps organized by topic.

Beyond the Bubble uses digital sources from the LOC to assess skills such as use of evidence, corroboration, background knowledge, and sourcing. The assessments were developed by the Stanford History Education Group, a member of the Library of Congress’s Teaching with Primary Sources Educational Consortium.

In browsing through the assessments, Graham Humphrey found Civil Rights Movement in Context for grades 6-12. Students are asked to contextualize two historical documents from the American Memory collection. One of these is the 1936 letter shown above; writing to Walter White, executive secretary of the NAACP, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt discusses efforts to get the federal government to take action against lynching.

Make sure you leave plenty of time to immerse yourself in these wonderful FREE resources. Diane says you may never want to leave!

Want more? Apply for "Using Primary Sources to Teach the Hudson Valley," a free five-part series offered on Saturdays this winter and again in July by THV and the South Eastern New York Library Resources Council. The winter application deadline is November 26. Underwritten by the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Program, Eastern Region, Waynesburg University. Details and application form.

And, check out the resources from Using ELA Common Core to Teach Controversy: Industrialization in the Valley as a Case Study. Diane and her colleague Gwen Kopeinig presented this resource-based workshop at THV's summer institute.

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