The Library of Congress, Places in the News, and Common Core standards alignment

Social studies teachers, like all other teachers, have a limited amount of time. So you need to pick and choose where you spend your time. Some places and tools are non-negotiable: Google Earth, Teaching History, Beyond the Bubble, ThinkFinity, EDSITEment.

And, of course, the Library of Congress. The LOC is an incredible resource with so much to offer – lesson plans, primary sources, and professional development.

But no matter how well I think I know them, I keep finding new things that they offer. My latest discoveries?

• Places in the News
• Common Core standards alignment

That’s right. Today here at History Tech, it’s a two for one.

Tip of the Week: The Teacher’s Guide to the Library of Congress

The list of non-negiotable resources that every social studies teacher should be using is really not that long. But every time I edit my list, the Library of Congress always finds its way on.

It’s got great lessons, documents. social media, primary source teaching tools . . . basically the sort of stuff every teacher can use. And I’ve written tons about all of their goodies.

But sometimes it’s nice to have all of the goodies in one place. So if you’re looking for that sort of thing, head over to The Teacher’s Guide to the Library of Congress. You’ll find an handy infographic and tons of LOC links broken into tips, tricks, guides, useful tools, and resources.

It’s a nice collection that I probably should have put together years ago. But now I’m off the hook and you’ll find great stuff. Win, win!

TPS and Inquiry Learning

I’m sure you know that TPS is the powerful and very useful Library of Congress program called Teaching with Primary Sources. But sometimes it’s easy to forget about all the resources that the TPS people have put together for social studies teachers.

One of the most useful things you can find is their Teaching with Primary Sources Quarterly. Each Quarterly focuses on a specific topic with helpful articles, links to sources, and grade level lesson plans. This quarter’s topic is using primary source activities that align to the Common Core.

But dig a bit deeper into their archive and you can find some very cool ideas and resources. I went back and pulled up the Summer 2009 Quarterly and reviewed some very nice stuff on Inquiry Learning.

Remember that this was way before the Common Core . . . back when we were still deep in the hard core state assessment, multiple choice is good for kids era. And in the midst of all of that, the LOC was working hard to support teachers looking for high quality instructional strategies and ideas. The Summer 2009 Quarterly is perhaps even more useful today, as we are all looking for ways to help kids ask good questions and develop great answers.

Barbara Stripling, former president of the American Association of School Librarians, wrote the lead article for the issue and defined Inquiry Learning as:

. . . a process of active learning that is driven by questioning and critical thinking. The understandings that students develop through inquiry are deeper and longer lasting than any pre-packaged knowledge delivered by teachers to students.

Sounds pretty Common Corish to me. She also included a visual of how the process can be structured in your classroom:

Barabara provides specific examples of how to use primary sources as part of each of the six steps in the process. Other articles in the issue include research on Inquiry Learning, other materials / resources as well as elementary and secondary lesson plans.

Head on over. The content is three years old but still very relevant to what we’re trying to do in Social Studies.

25 great sites for teaching and learning

Okay. I couldn’t make it this year. But the American Association of School Librarians went ahead and held their annual conference without me.

I know.

They didn’t even seem very upset that I wasn’t there. I’m sure it was great. It had to be great because while I was absent, one of the things they did was to unveil their fourth annual Best Websites for Teaching and Learning.

The selection committee reviewed more than 100 sites to identify those that foster innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration, whittling them down to 25 that they consider the “best of the best.” The sites offer tools and resources in media sharing, digital storytelling, managing and organizing, social networking and communication, curriculum collaboration, and content resources with lesson plans.

“These are strong sites, and the committee hopes users find them useful for library, classroom, and personal use,” says Heather Moorefield-Lang, the committee’s chair. “This year, the committee will be recognizing the 100th site. This is quite a milestone.”

All of the sites are aligned to one or more of the four strands of AASL’s Standards for the 21st-Century Learner: skills, dispositions in action, responsibilities, and self-assessment strategies.

I found a few familiar sites such as DocsTeach and HistoryPin. But I also ran across some new ones that look interesting like Vialogues and Projeqt. I’ll spend some time this week sharing more about my favorites. But for now, head over and start playing with some pretty cool tools.

Thanks AASL library peoples!

Tip of the Week – LOC Document Analysis Tool

There are lots of document analysis tools out there. The National Archives have some awesome analysis worksheets that can be downloaded in PDF format and completed traditional paper / pencil style. The NARA versions can also be completed online and printed out.

There are also other sites using a variety of worksheets out there that you can use while integrating primary / secondary sources into your instruction.

But I just found out that the Library of Congress has upgraded its own version of the document analysis worksheet. They’ve always had very nice worksheets for a variety of primary sources. And I’ve always liked their guiding questions for students and their suggestions for extended activities.

The upgrade?

A web-based data entry worksheet that allows you and your students to create your analysis online for a wide variety of sources. You can then print the worksheet out or download your work as a PDF? The worksheet provides the same guiding questions and suggested activities, just in a slicker, web-based way.

The other cool thing is that it also works on mobile devices including the iPad and iPod. If you have iBooks (or some other document reader like Notability), your students can save their work on a iBooks shelf as a PDF – referring back to it as needed.

Pretty cool stuff. The best of both worlds. Traditional paper and pencil and 21st century paperless.

And don’t forget to go back and review the Library’s very awesome Using Primary Sources site. Tons of handy resources, ideas, and activities there.

Have fun!

The Clansman and books that shaped America

We’re in day two of a four day history geek fest. And it’s awesome.

Dr. Steven Hahn, Pulitzer Prize winning historian, and Bruce Lesh, teacher and author of Why Won’t You Just Tell Us the Answer, are working with 40 middle school teachers as part of our Century of Progress TAH grant project.

Did I say that it’s awesome?

Some very interesting conversations about Reconstruction, liberty, slavery, freedom, and American citizenship. We started with the question:

What is the opposite of slavery?

Very cool stuff. But, of course, with a roomful of history teachers, the conversation has meandered quite a bit. Part of the meandering has focused on the books and writings of the period and topic.

One of the books discussed has been The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan. This is the book on which the incredibly racist movie Birth of a Nation is based.

And while the content of both book and movie has since been discredited, both had a huge impact on the country. Which raised a question in my head:

What books have had the most influence on American history?

A quick search found a very cool resource from the Library of Congress. The LOC has put together a list of books that they suggest shaped American history:

This list of “Books That Shaped America” is a starting point. It is not a register of the ‘best’ American books–although many of them fit that description. Rather, the list is intended to spark a national conversation on books written by Americans that have influenced our lives, whether they appear on this initial list or not.

The Clansman is not on the list but maybe it should be and the LOC is doing a cool thing by encouraging conversation about the list itself. You can view the list and comment yourself. My question?

What books would you add to the list? What books would you take off?

I think you could use this question throughout your instruction as you incorporate more fiction and non-fiction. Asking kids to rank and rate what they read seems like a great way to engage kids directly in the content.

What ya got?