Teaching with Primary Sources - Library of Congress Grant: Resources

Rowan University in NJ provides a regional teacher preparation program for undergraduate students, as well as thriving graduate programs in education.  Our workshop series, "Lesson Designs for Teaching with Primary Sources" allowed teachers from our region to interact on a challenging “big question” in lesson design -- that of essential lesson structures needed to teach with and about primary sources in the social studies and humanities.  Participants discussed and created lesson frameworks which suit many different types of teaching styles, and these are available to all via this project website. Many thanks to our partner in the second round of this effort, Delaware County Community College in PA. 

Local educators learned how to design and critique new lesson structures which were reusable lessons for teaching with primary sources in the classroom at many grade levels and for many purposes.  Specifically, the teachers were asked to identify conversations in the classroom and lesson frameworks which could surround those conversations, so that their parts could interchangeable and work with multiple types of resources.  Primary source resources in the Library of Congress collection include photos, letters, music, and many more items from all time periods. These lessons were constructed to be multi- and interdisciplinary, and easy to teach with limited subject knowledge on either the students' or the teachers' parts.  Inquiry designs and information literacy skills were emphasized.  

This project was sponsored in part by the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Eastern Region Program, coordinated by Waynesburg University.