LC for Teachers

The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum join in paying tribute to the generations of women whose commitment to nature and the planet have proved invaluable to society. The website includes information about programs at the various institutions, information on exhibits and links to resources for teachers.

In addition on the Library of Congress Teacher’s Page we are highlighting some of our women’s history lesson plans, themed resources and presentations. You can find our Teacher’s Page at http://www.loc.gov/teachers/

If you are attending NCCE in Seattle, Washington from March 2-5, 2010 you can meet Gail Petri and Sherrie Galloway who will be participating in the all day NECC 2010 Teacher Librarian Summit on March 3rd from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM. Gail and Sherrie will also present six one hour concurrent sessions on March 4th and 5th . The sessions are: Teaching With Primary Sources: Audio and Video ; Teaching With Primary Sources: Maps; Teaching With Primary Sources: Photos; Using Books as Hooks to Primary Sources; Differentiation Using Primary Sources; and Library of Congress Teaching With Primary Sources Professional Development System.

The Educational Outreach Division of the Library of Congress is seeking applications from secondary teachers for a Teacher-in-Residence position during the 2010/11 school year.

The Teacher in Residence works with Educational Outreach staff to help teachers incorporate the Library’s collection of over 16 million digitized primary sources into high-quality instruction. Previous Teachers-in-Residence have lead professional development workshops for teachers in Washington, DC and across the United States. They have represented the Library at various conferences and meetings and developed teaching materials and lessons that use the Library’s digitized primary sources for national dissemination. Learn more about the program and access the application form at the url provided above.

Want to learn more about some of the Library’s unique items? You and your students can watch videos featuring curators talking about these unique materials. Learn more about the map that helped lead Washington to victory in Princeton, the items in Abraham Lincoln’s pockets the night of his assassination, the book that changed the world and first appearance of Spiderman. These presentations are sponsored by Library of Congress and HISTORY.

The Library is seeking K-12 teacher leaders to help with its planned national teacher network. They should be available to take part in an online course and a face-to-face workshop at the Library in Washington, DC July 19-22, 2010. There are no costs associated with participation. Applications are due by April 28, 2010.

If you are attending WSRA in Milwaukee, Wisconsin from February 4-6, 2010 Gail Petri will present two sessions: Books as Hooks to Library of Congress Online Primary Sources (Friday, February 5th from 9:45 – 10:45) and Library of Congress Teaching With Primary Sources Professional Development System (Friday, February 5th from 11:00 – 12:00).

Trace the history of America's oldest and largest civil rights organization with the Library's new Primary Source Set, The NAACP: A Century in the Fight for Freedom. This set supports the Library's new online exhibition of the same name (which can be found at http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/naacp/Pages/default.aspx ), and contains a selection of key primary sources, along with background information and ideas for teaching and analysis. Letters, photographs, posters, and more let students explore the major civil rights battles of the 20th century from the perspective of the people who fought them.

Trying to find resources on African American history in American Memory and other parts of the website? This web guide will lead you to resources in Today in History, America’s Library and other sections of the website that focus on the achievements of African Americans.

Interested in learning strategies to teach about European Explorers in the Americas? Want to know more about the indigenous cultures of Mesoamerica (Maya, Inca, and Aztec)? Explore the cartographic knowledge of the world in the sixteenth century. You will be able to do all of this and more by using Library of Congress primary sources. Register to attend the Library of Congress Exploring the Early Americas Teacher Institute. Participants will leave with strategies and materials they can use in their schools. The institute uses the Library's exhibition “Exploring the Early Americas” as its foundation. Learn how to make this era in history come alive for student using images, manuscripts, letters, three-dimensional objects, and maps.

Are you planning to attend the Ohio ETech Conference in Columbus, Ohio from February 1-3, 2010? Sherrie Galloway will present “Teacher Treasures from the Library of Congress” from 3-4:30 on February 1st.

Katherine Paterson, two-time winner of the National Book Award and the Newbery Medal, was named National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington on Jan. 5, 2010. Paterson will serve in the position during 2010 and 2011; she succeeds Jon Scieszka, appointed in 2008, who was the first person to hold the title. You can learn more about Patterson and view webcasts of her presentations at the National Book Festival at http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/2008/toolkit/authors/bio_kpaterson.html.

The Library of Congress is now accepting applications for its 2010 Summer Teacher Institutes in Washington, D.C. The four-day institutes will provide educators with the tools and resources to effectively integrate primary sources into classroom teaching.
Institutes will take place on the following dates:

Session 1 May 11-14, 2010
Session 2 June 8-11, 2010
Session 3 July 12-15, 2010
Session 4 July 19-22, 2010
Session 5 July 27-30, 2010
Session 6 August 17-20, 2010

There is no charge for the institute or materials but participants must cover costs for travel to Washington, DC and cost for lodging and meals while in Washington.

Although the Library cannot provide college or professional development credits for those participating in the Teacher Institutes, we will provide a certificate of completion.
The deadline to apply for the Summer Teacher Institutes is March 19, 2010.

If you are attending the FETC conference in Orlando, Florida from January 12-15 make sure to go to the session titled “Library of Congress –Teaching with Primary Sources” presented by Gail Petri and Elizabeth Ridgway on Friday, January 15th from 12:30 – 1:25.

The Library of Congress has added historic newspaper pages from Chronicling America to its Flickr photostream in the Flickr Commons. This set of cover pages from the New-York Tribune (New York, NY) illustrated supplements beginning with the year 1909. Recent additions to the Flickr photostream include the construction of the Panama Canal, coverage on the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and information on the Chicago Meat Packing industry. In Flickr, you can tag it, add a note, see the set in a slideshow, share it....and even read more about it! Visit the Library’s Flickr photostream to “explore ‘history’s first draft”.

Having trouble trying to find resources on subjects of interest? The Browse by Topic pages provides access to a collection of Library resources by a variety of broad categories. Resources listed include webcasts, exhibitions, and links to digital collections.

Looking for other ways to access Library of Congress resources? You can now find us on ITunes U. This site includes historical videos from the Library’s moving-image collections such as original Edison films, a series of 1904 films from the Westinghouse Works and original videos such as author presentations from the National Book Festival, the "Books and Beyond" series, lectures from the Kluge Center, and the "Journeys and Crossings" series of discussions with curators.

In addition to iTunes U, the Library of Congress is also connecting new audiences to its vast resources via the Library’s blog, a Twitter feed, a page on Facebook and a YouTube channel.

The staff working on Chronicling American has provided a list of topics guides to the newspapers included in Chronicling America (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ ). Each topic guide (e.g., Baseball's Modern World Series, Ellis Island, or the Russo-Japanese War) includes subject-specific terms (including name usage, historical language, unusual spellings, etc.) and dates that can be readily used to search this topic in Chronicling America, as well as a list of sample articles found in Chronicling America.

Are you coming to Charlotte, North Carolina for AASL? We will be in booth 161 in the exhibit hall. There will be in-booth presentations every half hour including sessions on our new Teachers Page, the World Digital Library, TPS-Direct, our new our new online professional development system, and teaching with maps. In addition to being in the exhibit hall, we will have conference sessions on our new professional development modules and using books as hooks to primary sources. Hope to see you in Charlotte!!

Two new primary source sets from the Library of Congress can bring your students face to face with American war veterans. Veterans' Stories: The Veterans History Project and Veterans' Stories: Struggles for Participation let veterans tell their stories firsthand through interviews, diaries, photographs, and drawings. All these items were collected by the Veterans History Project, and they're accompanied by teacher guides and analysis tools that make them easy to use in the classroom.

You can find these primary source sets and a teacher’s guide to analyzing oral histories at the following url’s:

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/primarysourcesets/veterans/
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/primarysourcesets/veterans/struggles.html
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/usingprimarysources/resources/Analyzing_Oral_Histories.pdf

The Young Reader’s Toolkit has been updated for 2009 and provides tips on how to create local reading celebrations. The Young Readers’ Toolkit helps to bring the National Book Festival into libraries, schools and homes across the country. The Toolkit features information about National Book Festival authors who write for children and teens, podcasts of their readings, teaching tools and activities for kids. This interactive resource also shows educators, parents and children how they can host their own book festival.