Using Primary Sources in the Classroom

Teaching with Primary Sources.

Do you want to make your classroom more exciting? More relevant? Would you like to improve your students’ higher order thinking skills?  If you answered yes to any or all of the questions then you may wish to turn to primary sources of documents and artifacts in your classroom. It is not as difficult as you may think. The Library of Congress has many primary sources on its website that are readily available for classroom use. For example, if you will go to hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mtj.mtbib000156 you will find a rough draft of the Declaration of Independence authored by Thomas Jefferson (June 1776). You can also access important US Supreme Court Cases, The Bill of Rights, and the US Constitution. (Check out www.loc.gov)

Another excellent resource for obtaining primary documents for class use is the National History Education Clearinghouse. You can access this site at http://www.teachinghistory.org/.

Here are several questions to ask your students when working with original documents.

·         Who created the document?

·         Why was the document created?

·         What was going on at the time the document’s creation?

·         What makes this document worthy of your investigation?

This summer and extending into the fall, the Library of Congress is sponsoring a traveling exhibit entitled “Gateway to Knowledge”. This huge mobile museum has an outstanding array of copies of artifacts and important photos taken from the Library’s vast archives. Below is a list of current and upcoming stops on the traveling exhibit tour. The tour will end on September 24- 25 in our nation’s capital at the National Book Festival.

Current Schedule

Sept. 2-3	Monument Square, Portland, Maine
Sept. 6-7	Newport Public Library, Newport, R.I.
Sept. 9-10	East Hartford Public Library, East Hartford, Conn.
Sept. 13-14	Montgomery Township Lower Middle School., Montgomery, N.J.
Sept. 16-17	Urbana Regional Library, Urbana, Md.
Sept. 20-21	Culpeper County Library, Culpeper, Va.
Sept. 24-25	National Book Festival, Washington, D.C As always  your comments and suggestions are welcome