Classroom strategies:
USE THE ANALYSIS TOOL- There are templates for different kinds of documents, images, or artifacts. They are great to use as guides to your lesson in analysis.
Truly... the Library of Congress, built from the eclectic collection of Thomas Jefferson, offers something on just about any topic. As the library TO Congress, it has a mission to serve the information needs of the members of Congress... but it ALSO has a huge focus on expanding that mission to providing information to citizen researchers across the nation and world. They include teachers and students in this definition and provide not only the resources, but the strategies to help teachers use them effectively.
Here's an update on American Memory:
"As a part of ongoing modernization, we've migrated some of our collections to new presentations. Collections that have been migrated no longer appear in internal American Memory search results and browse lists. To search all Library collections (including American Memory) please visit loc.gov/search, or browse the full array of digitized collections at loc.gov/collections. You can also use the links below to go to the new presentations for single collections."
Here is a list of migrated single topics that might be of interest:
USE THE TEACHER PAGES
This is the landing page. From here you can jump into the sections below - or go straight there.
PRIMARY SOURCE SETS
Covers topics such as World War I, Thanksgving, Alexander Hamilton, Lincoln, growing up in the early 1900's, Harlem Renaissance, native American Education, Immigration, Industrial Revolution... and more; incredibly useful resources for a variety of teaching strategies. As with lesson plans - adapt these to your content area and teaching goal. "layer" them as part of QFT Q-Focus lessons; or view them from the Circle of Viewpoints.
COLLECTION CONNECTIONS
An A-Z list of many collections that have teaching resources and links to other collections within the LOC. Theres a wide variety of topics - it would be handy to take a moment to browse this list.. you'll have some topics you can put in 'your back pocket' for late use.
LESSON PLANS
Want classroom-ready lessons? Use these. So many of these can be adapted to different grade levels, but also to different content classrooms. You are not limited by the lesson that is here - adapt, expand, explore.
Online collections cover topics such as: The Songs of America; Audio and Video samplers of music and video from across the nation by state; Voices of Slavery, Native American music and stories, Stories told in quilts, Local Legacies of music across the nation; Halloween and Día de los Muertos traditions and legends.
Help students understand the rules behind using others work.
Great for classroom use / government classes or other civics and/or information literacy classes is the
Fair Use Index - students can follow court cases that help to describe the "fair" part of Fair Use. Andy Warhol, Dr. Seuss Enterprises, Oracle, Fox and Disney all had cases that help to clarify when it is/is not ok to use material created by others.
CHECK OUT the DIGITAL COLLECTIONS
Remember that only a small percent of their holdings are available online.
BROWSE BY TOPIC
Type a 'big idea' topic into the search bar and explore from there.
EXPLORE THE EXHIBITS
They have excellent primary sources and provide a variety of perspectives.
FREE TO USE AND REUSE SETS
These are golden!
ASK A LIBRARIAN
They will answer!
READ THE BLOGS
The blogs will give you ideas of topics, but even better - they tell great stories that you can share.
ANNALS OF CONGRESS (1789-1824)
REGISTER OF DEBATES ( 1824-1837)
CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE (1933 - 1873)
STATUES AT LARGE (1845 - ) The official source for the laws and resolutions passed by Congress.
Up to 1948, includes all treaties and other international agreements. Use this link to locate full text versions of the Constitution, Articles of Confederation, treaties with Indians, foreign treaties and presidential proclamations.
LINK to the LOC: A Centruy of Lawmaking - all the above and more are linked here.