Teaching with the Library of Congress

This guest post is from our Teacher in Residence Earnestine Sweeting.

Cut down the hours of lesson planning by looking at standards-based learning opportunities for your students. Now is a great time to look at how to connect the use of primary sources with standards.

Teachers Page

The Library of Congress has a tool to help teachers find classroom materials that meet state standards.

You can search by state, grade and subject to find pre-selected primary source sets, lesson plans, and learning activities that are aligned with curricular standards.

In my practice, I can recall sitting in several planning meetings with colleagues, specialists, and administrators, or even conferencing with parents, who may not be aware of what students are expected to learn. The “Search by Standards” tool not only saves valuable planning time, but may also help support the rationale for your instructional decisions.

Click the arrows on the left to expand or collapse the results that are specific to your state’s requirements.

The “Classroom Materials” link on the right gives you a summary, or overview, of the related resources where teachers can deliberately address an idea, concept or theme.

Search by Standards page

• The “Primary Source Sets” link provides a collection of primary sources that can be used for small group instruction, which can be used to address varied learning styles and backgrounds in the classroom.
• The “Lesson Plans” link is a connection to teacher-created lesson plans
• The “Activities” link offers media-rich historical context or interactive opportunities for exploration to both teachers and students.

The Share/Save toolbar on each page makes it easy to save customized results for future reference or to share the results with colleagues. For more ideas on ways in which you can communicate with your colleagues, refer to the  Share, Save or Connect blog post.

Tell us how the “Search by Standards” tool can support your lesson planning.

Teachers frequently ask us about the experts who work with the Library’s collections. March has been set aside as Women’s History month, so we arranged this guest post from Kristi Conkle, women’s studies specialist at the Library of Congress.

As a colleague of mine wrote, “Authors, female and male, have always relished telling women what to do.” After reading an article comparing the advice given to women during various decades of the twentieth century, I was curious as to the guidance given to women in the nineteenth century, which saw changes in women’s roles, including an increasing demand for the right to vote. Advice books offer unique insights into customs and mores, and I searched the Library’s catalog and found that the titles alone were intriguing: How to Get Married Although a Woman, How to Select a Good Husband and Lessons in Love… and How to Become Beautiful to name a few. My favorite, however, is the brief work titled How to Get a Husband!, which is available online. Yes, the exclamation mark is part of the title.

How to Get a Husband!: Leap Year Manual

For ten cents (twelve if by mail), this 1880 work presented women with a “veritable list of some of the best looking, wealthiest, and most reliable single and marriageable men of the Country, with their Post Office address.” The author suggests that women, after thoughtfully examining their motivations and temperaments, write a letter to one of the gentlemen listed in hopes of starting a correspondence. Aside from the descriptions of the men, “James G. Bennett…eyes as blue as his blood,” and the encouragement of women to mention their weight in their letter, what struck me as interesting was the book’s multiple references to the leap year.

Not only is the subtitle, “A Leap Year Manual” but in the sample letter the author suggests that women write “I desire to correspond with you honestly, honorably, and squarely, and as this is Leap Year, I am not overstepping its limitations.” According to the Dictionary of Superstitions, “the best-known tradition connected with leap years is that this is the one time when girls can decently make marriage proposals.” It is unclear how many women, if any, took advantage of the advice offered in How to Get a Husband!

Teaching Ideas

• Ask students to research the status of women in 1880 and then speculate on possible responses to How to Get a Husband!. How many women might have taken the advice offered?
• Read “How Leap Year Girl should Propose! – As told by Famous Suffraget Who Did!” and compare it with the advice offered in How to Get a Husband!. The book was published in 1880, the newspaper article in 1906 – what events might explain the difference in tone between the two pieces?  What can students learn about Inez Milholland Boissevain that might help explain the differences between the two publications?

Let us know in the comments how your students reacted to the advice offered in How to Get a Husband!

Interested in attending one of the Library of Congress Summer Teacher Institutes? We have extended the application deadline to February 24th.

Information on the institutes and a link to the application form can be found here!

If you were to ask your students, “What is a map?” what do you think they would say?

Oshkosh, Wis.

Years ago, if someone had asked me that question I would have replied that a map is something that shows you how to get from here to there. Prior to coming to the Library, little did I know that maps do so much more:  they tell fascinating stories about the people who made them, how they lived, what was important to them, what they knew and what they didn’t know. Maps also make claims, persuade, advertise and influence.

Helping your students discover some of these possibilities for themselves is a great way to begin using historic maps in the classroom.  Set the scene by having students brainstorm a list entitled “What do maps tell us?” and post it on the wall. Follow up with one or more of the following map analysis activities. After each activity, ask the question again and add to the list.

Zoom Into Maps

• Display Zoom Into Maps and let your students pick one type of map to explore together. Use the guiding questions provided as you explore the details of one of the maps.
• Have students discover what a map can tell us about its creator with the online interactive Maps and Mapmakers: Seeing What’s on the Map.
• Select a map of interest to your students from Maps From The World Digital Library or Primary Sources by State (click on a state). Facilitate a whole-class analysis of the map with questions from the Teachers Guide to Analyzing Maps.  Record responses on the Primary Source Analysis Tool.

Additional Resources:

• Analyzing Primary Sources: Maps – Self-paced professional development module for teachers; includes  interactive map analysis practice.
• Map Collections - Online access to the Library’s digitized map collections.

Ask your students what maps can tell us.  It will be fascinating to hear what today’s youth – with digital mapping tools at their fingertips every day – have to say.  Please include your grade level.

This post comes to us from the Library of Congress Teacher In Residence, Earnestine Sweeting.

Have you been looking for easy access to primary sources to help students think critically and write analytically?

On the Library of Congress’ Teachers page, you’ll find sets of primary sources preselected specifically for classroom use.  Learning activities can be designed from these sets of freely accessible primary sources to help your students analyze and synthesize primary sources. These resources can be a valuable time saver in planning lessons to prepare students from elementary through high school to effectively respond to Document Based Questions, otherwise known as DBQ’s.

The DBQ requires students to analyze common themes, assess varied perspectives on major historical events, and provide historically based evidence and reasoning to support their ideas. These skills, of course, are valuable in completing tasks other than answering a DBQ. Whether your students are presented with DBQ’s or not, you can use the Library’s sets of primary sources on specific topics, together with the Primary Source Analysis Tool, as an instructional resource that provides a range of visual and textual information to increase critical thinking.

Teachers can use:

• The American Memory Timeline to find primary sources arranged chronologically from a specific time period.  The links to the right will lead you to sets of selected primary sources on a variety of topics in United States History.
• Primary Source Sets to find primary sources on specific topics. These sets provide an array of items in various formats including maps, cartoons, photographs, and newspapers.

Students can organize and record their thoughts and ideas on the Primary Source Analysis Tool.  Questions selected from the Teacher’s Guide to  Analyzing Primary Sources can prompt further student observation and analysis of the primary sources.

How might you use these sets to structure tasks or assignments that require your students to reconcile conflicting information, evaluate evidence, and analyze common themes?

This is a guest post from David Christopher, Chief, Information and Records Division, U.S. Copyright Office.

When I was young — and I’m not that old — the term “copyright” and its curious symbol, ©, seemed a quaint holdover from a bygone era. It was for me a fuzzy legal term that book publishers thought highly enough of to place on the verso of the title page of every book I ever picked up, but it certainly had no real impact on me or my life.

Boy, have things changed. The Internet, coupled with smart phones, tablets and all of the other wonderful gadgets we use to create, share and enjoy creative works, gives each of us the power to engage in infringing activities, whether knowingly or not, literally on a global scale. Copyright is indeed a hot topic these days (note the reaction to the proposed SOPA/PIPA anti-piracy legislation in online media) and, if anything, copyright matters will only increase in the public consciousness in the years to come.

Given the increased relevance of copyright in the digital age, the U.S. Copyright Office, located here at the Library of Congress, recognizes the need to engage more proactively in public education and outreach.  Last October, Maria A. Pallante, Register of Copyrights and Director of the Copyright Office, released a list of Priorities and Special Projects that the Copyright Office will engage in over the 2011-2013 period. Notable among the special projects, we are currently in the early stages of developing a business plan for a robust copyright education and outreach program.

The goal of this effort is to implement a series of new education projects tailored to a variety of audiences including librarians, teachers, artists, copyright practitioners, and the general public. While we already offer online educational resources designed for teachers and students like Taking the Mystery Out of Copyright and the professional development modules Copyright and Primary Sources and Understanding Copyright, we want to offer more.

Look for additional news from the Copyright Office, including guest posts on this blog, announcing program developments and initiatives in the coming months. In the meantime, please contact us with questions or suggested copyright-related topics of particular interest to teachers through our Contact Us page.

George Washington and his Family

This post is co-authored by Cheryl Lederle and Danna Bell-Russel.

President’s Day? Presidents Day? Or Presidents’ Day?

Officially, it’s none of the above. By law, February 22 is called George Washington’s Birthday, but many now use the day to honor or commemorate all U.S. presidents. One easy way to help your students explore the legacy of three great presidents is by using a primary source set from the Library of Congress, Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln: Three Great Presidents.

Thomas Jefferson

As most readers of this blog know, primary source sets provide access to a collection of primary source items that are easy to download and print. They also include a teacher’s guide with background information and suggestions on ways to help teachers use these resources to encourage engagement and critical thinking and content understanding. This particular primary source set includes items suitable for teaching younger students.

In addition to the “Suggestions for Teachers” included with the primary source set, you could ask students to:

Abraham Lincoln and his Family

• Use the analysis tool to guide a closer look at one of the portraits. What do they think was the purpose of the portrait? What point of view was the painter trying to portray?
• Compare images of presidents from the past and present to see how presidents have been depicted in history and how that has changed over time.
• Create a description of what it means to look like or to be a leader.  Do the images within the collection of portraits or in the primary source set show the presidents looking like a leader? Why or why not?

Looking for other images of presidents? Library experts have assembled a collection of presidential portraits that teachers can use to supplement the images in the Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln Primary Source Set.

What activities will you and your students do to study the lives of America’s presidents?

Introducing Teachers to Our Resources

In the first Teaching with the Library of Congress blog post, Stephen Wesson noted that, “This will be a place where Library staff can informally present teaching strategies, highlights from the collections, and the latest on new programs and teaching resources. At the same time, we hope it will be a forum where teachers share experiences, exchange ideas, provide feedback on what the Library has to offer, and take the conversation on teaching with primary sources into new territory.”

The blog and its readers did that and more.  Readers responded with great enthusiasm, and passed along or re-posted their favorite blog entries. Some comments started conversations among the Library’s staff, and those conversations led to new blog posts and deeper conversations with you, our readers. We have been overwhelmed by the responses to our posts and humbled by your compliments.

We wanted to revisit staff favorites, posts that received the most comments, and some that were highlighted by teachers who work with the Library. Here’s the list, in no particular order. We hope you’ll let us know some of your favorites.

The Wright Brothers’ Crumpled Glider

Guest written by Johnathan Abreu, this entry encouraged students to explore what inventors do to find success and how to persevere in spite of difficult odds.

Top Ten Tips for Facilitating an Effective Primary Source Analysis

Stacie Moats’ list of tips on how to facilitate a primary source analysis was extremely popular with the teacher-mentors.

Theodore Roosevelt’s Thanksgiving Truce

This post showed how a political cartoon can be used with students of various grade levels.

Occupying the Bonus Army Protests

Though Danna Bell-Russel’s reflections on the Bonus Army received no comments through the blog, it was extremely popular on Facebook with 48 likes and 34 shares. Social media to the rescue!

Dealing with Difficult Subjects in Primary Sources

A favorite of the staff and blog readers, this post spawned a follow-up entry featuring reader comments.

Farm Security Administration Photographs: Harvest Time

Anne Savage offered suggestions on how to develop classroom activities incorporating images of harvest time around the United States.

To Kill a Mockingbird

Stephen Wesson’s question about why there was a suddenly flurry of interest in the lesson on the novel To Kill a Mockingbird had the largest number of comments of any entry on this blog.

What Makes a Primary Source

Cheryl Lederle wrote about how one might define a primary source and the importance of considering “the time under study.”

What is the Library of Congress

Many blog readers were interested in learning more about the Library of Congress and making comments on how they use the Library’s online resources

Selecting Primary Sources: Knowing Your Students

Former Library of Congress Teacher in Residence Sara Suiter discussed how to select primary sources that are appropriate for your students.

Have we missed any of your favorites? Do you have any early nominees for 2012? Please let us know in the comments.

Apply to participate in a Teaching with Primary Sources Summer Teacher Institute at the Library of Congress if you want:

• A week to learn effective strategies to incorporate primary sources into your teaching;
• A week to develop a lesson plan using primary sources from the Library of Congress;
• An opportunity to interact with teachers from around the country and exchange ideas;
• To meet the Teaching with Primary Sources blog team.

The five-day institutes will provide educators with tools and resources to effectively integrate primary sources into classroom teaching. The teacher institutes are free but participants must pay for travel to Washington, D.C., and for lodging and food while attending the institute.

In addition, interested participants may earn three graduate credits from George Mason University for completing all Summer Teacher Institute and post Institute requirements (additional fees are required to obtain graduate credit).

Interested? Institute dates are listed below. Note that two of the institutes will highlight specific topics. The remaining dates are not topic driven.

• May 21-25, 2012
• June 11-15, 2012
• July 9-13, 2012 (World Cultures Focus)
• July 16-20, 2012 (Civil War Focus)
• August 6-10, 2012

The deadline to send in applications is February 17, 2012. Additional information and the application form can be found here!

This post is co-authored by Earnestine Sweeting and Danna Bell-Russel.

Since the early 1900s, February has been dedicated to raising awareness of the contributions made by African Americans. One way to introduce African American History Month is by facilitating a discussion about the ways in which African American achievement has been recognized in the nation’s past. This unique lithograph, created in 1881 during Reconstruction, is titled Heroes of the Colored Race and shows images of Frederick Douglass and former senators Blanche K. Bruce and Hiram Revels. In addition, it depicts scenes from African American life as well as some other noted Americans. An article from the Cleveland Gazette from October 1884 identifies many of the people and events shown.

Heroes of The Colored Race

Students may benefit from focusing on the individual images in the lithograph. Print a large version of the image, cut it into pieces and hand each student or pair of students a piece of the image to study. Have them record their observations, reflections and questions on the primary source analysis tool. Then have students put their pieces together and see what they gain from seeing the entire image. Select questions from the Teacher’s Guide: Analyzing Photographs and Prints to guide and deepen student thinking and analysis.

Teachers can have students:

• Explain why they think this particular image was created and why the events documented on this image were selected to be included.
• Describe the characteristics of the people represented as heroes.  Explain why one or more of the people shown in this image might have been considered heroes in 1884.
• Make recommendations about historical figures they would add or remove from this lithograph.  Make sure students use historically based evidence to defend their answers.
• Create a collection of heroes for African American History Month. What images would they use? Who would be the heroes shown? Why did students make the choices they made?

Additional Information:

• The Civil Rights Themed Resources page provides links to a variety of resources, including primary source sets on Jim Crow and the NAACP.
• Visit the African American History portal for links to resources from the Library and other federal cultural institutions that document the life and history of the African American community.

What teaching activities do you use to engage students during African American history month?

Check out two new lesson plans from the Library of Congress.

The Alaska Purchase: Debating the Sale from Russian and U.S. Perspectives supports student use of primary sources from Russia and the U.S. to examine the respective Russian and American rationales for agreeing to the sale.

A Russian Settlement in Alaska: A Community at the Meeting of Frontiers invites students to explore Novo-Arkhangel’sk, which today is called Sitka, during the time that it was the administrative center for Russian possessions in North America.

Both lesson plans use primary sources from the Meeting of Frontiers, a bilingual, multimedia English-Russian digital library that tells the story of the American exploration and settlement of the West, the parallel exploration and settlement of Siberia and the Russian Far East, and the meeting of the Russian-American frontier in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest.

Let us know in the comments how you teach about places where the history of the United States overlaps that of other countries.

We were thrilled to see the wonderful responses from the blog post on teaching difficult subjects. A huge thank you to all of those who commented, made teaching suggestions and linked to this post.

The comments underscored the importance of facilitating discussions on difficult issues with students. One commenter, a professor who teaches Introduction to Constitutional Principles to a primarily African-American student body, noted that some discussions can get difficult in a hurry. But he also stated that teachers must get aggressive with the material and challenge students to assess and analyze the changes between the time under study and the current day. Another reader noted that teachers need to promote critical thinking around primary sources, no matter how difficult the primary source.

We noticed that the large majority of readers’ comments focused on the need to make sure that students consider what

Dred Scott

events were taking place at the time when a primary source was created. The professor emphasized that when teaching cases such as Dred Scott v. Sanford, he asks students to analyze the historical context as well as the issues of the case. He also urges students to consider what such contextual information may tell them about the American experience.

Other comments noted the importance of being aware of the age and maturity level of your students. This is vitally important as some students may not yet be able to grasp the issues under study or make the connection between historic and current events.

Here are some teaching suggestions:

One way to explore difficult subjects is to use alternative resources such as music to provide commentary on the events of the day. In the November/December 2011 issue of Social Education, my colleague and fellow “Teaching with the Library of Congress” blogger Stacie Moats and former Music Division staff member Stephanie Poxon wrote an article on teaching about difficult subjects. Their article, “‘I Didn’t Raise My Boy to

I Didn't Raise My Boy to be a Soldier

Be a Soldier:’ Ideas and Strategies for Using Music from the National Jukebox to Teach Difficult Topics in History,” provides ideas and resources for incorporating sheet music and sound recordings to encourage student inquiry.

A reader-generated suggestion was to have students review newspapers from Chronicling America: Historical Newspapers to discover the language used at the time. This activity can help students understand attitudes toward specific groups at the time the newspaper was published.

One other commenter noted that the suggestions made in the previous blog post can be extended to current day issues and materials. These activities can help students learn how to analyze materials from any and all sources.

Finally, one blog reader noted that both students and society at large will benefit from being challenged to think critically about difficult topics.

How do you respond to colleagues or others who advise teachers to avoid using primary sources that address difficult topics in the classroom?

What if after 235 years all that was left to tell the story of your life was a single scrap of paper?  That is exactly what happened to a woman named Martha Morris who lived in New York during the Revolutionary War.

Martha Morris to George Washington, October 19, 1776

When George Washington was general of the Continental Army during the Revolution he kept his household receipts so that Congress could reimburse him after the war.  Today there are hundreds of these in the George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress.  Among them is this one, for laundry.  It is dated October 19, 1776, and on the top it says: ‘Cloas washed By Marth[a] the Negor wench.”  At the bottom is her full name, which appears to be Martha Morris.

We know what George Washington was doing in New York in 1776.  He and his troops arrived in the city in April to protect it from the British ships gathering in the harbor.  After a series of disastrous losses, the Americans were defeated.  In October, Washington left Manhattan. The British marched in, and for the next seven years they occupied New York City.

But what about Martha Morris?  The receipt offers a few tantalizing facts about her life:  she was an African-American woman, worked as a laundress, was probably young and poor (what is a “wench”?), and probably lived on Manhattan Island.

The receipt suggests even more questions than answers:  What did laundry work entail? Did she write this bill herself, demonstrating that she was literate?  How much did she charge for washing clothes and “Shirts for his [Excellency] General Washington”?  Why did she use English pounds (₤), shillings (sh), and pence (d)?  Do the receipt’s phonetic spellings preserve the sound of her speech? Was she free or enslaved?

Teaching Ideas

You might use the receipt to launch students into research and to construct a narrative:

Your students can use the receipt to write a biography of Martha Morris.  Encourage them to list additional questions that they have about her. Then, working alone or in small groups, students might research to locate information to form answers and construct a biography.

Students may compare the wartime experiences of Martha Morris to those of George Washington. Ask students to research where George Washington was on October 19 and to construct a timeline of events in the days immediately before and after that date. How does learning what George Washington was doing affect their understanding of Martha Morris’ life?

Students may locate another receipt in the George Washington Papers and apply similar processes of thinking, questioning, and researching.

For more resources for teachers from the Library’s manuscript collections, visit this page.

Although we will never know as much about Martha Morris as we do about George Washington, her receipt can help your students imagine what life was like for a woman who saw the American Revolution with her own eyes.

What other everyday primary sources could students work with using these sorts of questions?

Note: In the information about this receipt on the Library’s Web site, it is sometimes described as being from “Matthew Morris”. The receipt is in fact from Martha Morris.

In 2007, Dr. James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress, announced the creation of a new position, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.  Dr. Billington stated that the ambassador will be an award-winning author or illustrator whose position will acknowledge—at the national level—the importance of exceptional authors and illustrators in creating the readers of tomorrow. The Librarian appoints each Ambassador for a two-year term to travel around the country promoting the importance of fiction and nonfiction in the lives of young people.

Walter Dean Myers

Walter Dean Myers, the new National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature has written over 100 books including “Sunrise Over Fallujah,” “Fallen Angels,” “Monster,” “Somewhere in the Darkness” and “Harlem.” Myers has received two Newbery Honor Awards and five Coretta Scott King Awards. He is the winner of the first Michael L. Printz Award (for excellence in young adult literature, given by the American Library Association) as well as the first recipient of Kent State University’s Virginia Hamilton Literary Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 2009 Myers delivered the May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture, a distinction reserved for an individual who has made significant contributions to the field of children’s literature. The ceremony honoring Mr. Myers will be held at 11am on Tuesday, January 10th in room LJ 119 in the Library’s Jefferson Building.

The theme for his term is “Reading is Not Optional.”

The first National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature was Jon Scieszka.  The author of several bestselling children’s titles, including “The Stinky Cheese Man,” which won a Caldecott Honor medal, “The True Story of the Three Little Pigs” and the “Time Warp Trio,” Scieszka focused on getting parents and children to read together during his term. He also helped launch “The Exquisite Corpse Adventure,” a chapter book featuring the work of a number of noted writers and illustrators at the 2009 National Book Festival.

Appointed in 2010, Katherine Patterson served as the second National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. A two-time winner of the Newbery Medal (“Bridge to Terabithia” and “Jacob Have I Loved”) and the National Book Award (“The Great Gilly Hopkins” and “The Master Puppeteer) she worked to encouraged reading as a way to enrich one’s life and to better understand one’s family, community and the world around them.

Learn more about Walter Dean Myers and see some of his webcasts from the National Book Festival on the read.gov website.  The press release announcing Myers appointment is available on the Library’s website.

Do you agree with Walter Dean Myers…Is reading NOT optional?

Did you find an image from the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog at the Library of Congress that you’d like to share with your social media connections? Have you refined a search in Chronicling America:  Historic Newspapers that would be perfect for your class project? Do you enjoy reading the various blogs by expert Library staff but forget to check them regularly?

The Library of Congress is working to make it easier for you to keep up with what’s new at the Library and to share your favorites with others. At the top of many pages of the Library’s Web site is a toolbar allowing you to share links through sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Google, or to email, print or save the file. Look for the icons labeled Print, Subscribe or Share/Save.

Share and save toolbar

“Print” generates a printable page without the sidebars from the Web page. “Subscribe” opens a page where you can sign up to have updates about Library programs, events or blogs sent to you via RSS feed or e-mail. “Share/Save” offers a selection of social media tools as well as an e-mail feature or a permanent link to save in your browser or to embed in your own blog or Web site.

The share tools can be used with both colleagues and students:

• Save class time by sharing search results that target the exact topic you want to study with your students.  The toolbar is available for individual primary sources as well as search results in both Chronicling America and the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog, for example.
• The share/save option allows you to collaborate efficiently with colleagues. Pass along a lesson plan, analysis tool or teacher’s guide, or send the search results for classroom materials that meet your state standards.

How have you used the toolbar in your planning or teaching? If you haven’t, you could start by sharing this blog post.

This post comes to us from the 2011-2012 Library of Congress Teacher in Residence, Earnestine Sweeting.

How often do you have the opportunity to chat with specialists who provide free access to digitized primary sources and provide information on how to make these primary sources a central part of your classroom activities?

Library of Congress staff members working with teachers at a conference

Every year the Library’s education specialists bring Library of Congress resources to conferences in major cities across the United States. We look forward to meeting educators like you and providing suggestions on teaching with the Library’s digitized primary source collections.

Stop by our booth in the exhibit hall for a one-to-one demonstration of the Library’s online resources for teachers.  We can answer your questions and show you some of our new materials.

Check the conference program for scheduled presentations and workshops, which provide instructional strategies for teachers and ready-to-present professional development resources for administrators, coaches, and other educational professionals.

We’ll have more conference information later in the year, but here’s our line-up through June:

Are you planning to attend a conference this year?  We look forward to seeing you!

A new year traditionally brings the promise of new opportunity, with many people making resolutions to change for the better. People also often reflect on the past year as they await the new one.

The New Boy, January 1, 1905

This cartoon, published as the front cover of the magazine Puck, draws on the many metaphors about the New Year offering a clean start. A young boy in uniform and cap is sweeping an office clean of papers. Although many of the specific images in the cartoon may be unfamiliar to students, the labels on most of them offer a clear starting point for researching the context and the details the artist included.

Students might begin with a careful study of the drawing, noting as many details as possible, including the caption and other labels as well as the visual components. One approach is to divide the cartoon into quadrants and examine each section separately, recording details in the “Observe” column of the primary source analysis tool. Students might work with a partner or compare notes to ensure a thorough examination of the cartoon. Guide students to careful observations by asking questions selected from the Teacher’s Guide Analyzing Political Cartoons.

During the observation, students might automatically begin reflecting on what they see and interpreting the cartoon. Direct them to record those ideas in the “Reflect” column of the primary source analysis tool. Again, select questions from the Teacher’s Guide Analyzing Political Cartoons to encourage students to generate and test hypotheses about the cartoon. They may record questions as they arise in the “Question” column on the primary source analysis tool.

Teaching Ideas

To extend the learning, teachers may have students:

• Complete one of the follow-up activities from the Teacher’s Guide Analyzing Political Cartoons.
• Research historic newspapers in Chronicling America to see what information is available about the people or events named in the cartoon.
• Extend the research by browsing all front pages from January 1, 1905 in Chronicling America.
• Consider the past year. If students were to plan a cartoon with the caption “The New Boy, January 1, 2012,” what would they include in the image? Why?

Additional Resources

Visit the Library of Congress Teachers page to find a primary source set containing more political cartoons.

Primary Source Set: Political Cartoons in U.S. History

Search this blog for more ideas about teaching with political cartoons, including Political Cartoons: Seriously Funny and Theodore Roosevelt’s Thanksgiving Truce: A Political Cartoon.

Let us know in the comments how you have used political cartoons to connect to past events.