American Views and Voices Poems

Using Walt Whitman’s poem I Hear America Singing as inspiration (see poem below), participants in the TPS special topics workshop American Views and Voices each wrote a poem. Their creative works reflect the diverse voices of America represented in Library of Congress online collections and resources they explored. Those explorations focused on ethnic and cultural collections, inventors, women’s suffrage and responses to wars and crises.

Click here to read the participant poems


I Hear America Singing      - 1900     
by Walt Whitman

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand
     singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he tands,
The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or
     at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of
     the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows,
     robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

 

Registration for our Summer Institute is now open!

Summer Institute 2010

Visions of Place: Preserving, Working, and Celebrating our Land

June 21-23 – UNC campus
 
Explore American’s relationship to the land through the lenses of history, environmental science, and arts and culture in this three-day institute. You’ll delve into rich primary sources from the Library of Congress and connect them to local and regional aspects of conservation, farming and ranching, along with oral histories and traditional music and arts.
 
Location: UNC campus – campus lodging and lunches provided; field trip included.
Pre-requisite: Essentials Exploration 8 hour workshop or equivalent.
 
 
Questions? Contact us at 970-351-1555 or primary.sources@unco.edu

  

Library of Congress Announces Teacher Institutes

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.

To apply visit the LOC website or click this link for more information.

www.loc.gov/teachers/professionaldevelopment/teacherinstitute/
 

 



Voices of America

K-12 teachers and UNC faculty can both explore a vast variety of Library of Congress resources representing Voices of the Americas through upcoming FREE workshops offered through Teaching with Primary Sources at UNC. These workshops are part of the UNC campus and community-wide collaboration focusing on this year’s theme, Voices of America.

A Special Topics workshop for K-12 teachers, American Views and Voices, is scheduled for Saturday, February 20, at UNC’s Centerra Center. See Upcoming Events for details. Pre-requisite is completion of the Essentials Exploration introductory course. To register, contact us at primary.sources@unco.edu or 970-351-1555. Optional graduate credit is available.

For UNC faculty, three workshops offered through the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning (CETL) on campus will be held over the next three months, focusing on Library of Congress online resources with ideas for integrating them into courses. Check our website for times and register through CETL.

  • January 20: Library of Congress: Diverse American Voices explores ethnic perspectives from American history using Library of Congress collections, including numerous collections focusing on African-Americans in anticipation of Black History Month.
  • February 11: Library of Congress: Early Americas explores online exhibitions and collections, including maps, documents, paintings, prints, and artifacts from the Jay I. Kislak Collection.
  • March 10: Library of Congress American Voices: Response to War and Threats takes you into online collections including After the Day of Infamy: "Man-on-the-Street" Interviews Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor, September 11, 2001, Documentary Project, and the Veteran’s History Project.

UNC created the Voices of the Americas community collaboration focus to highlight issues about and celebrations of the diversity of cultures, languages, traditions, and people who are part of the ever changing reality of the Americas. Through the various events, participants can experience the complexity of cultural traditions in the western hemisphere from a wide range of viewpoints. See http://www.arts.unco.edu/voices/ for more information .

Welcome Wyoming educators!

TPS at UNC is excited to welcome Wyoming educators into our program starting in 2010. Our desire is to build on the success of the regional pilot project in that state and reach many more educators with this expansion. The core of our geographic focus will now include northern Colorado and the Wyoming population centers of Cheyenne and Laramie. Beyond this core area, we continue our commitment to reach the K-12 educator community in outlying areas, now in both states.

We encourage Wyoming teachers to join us at the UNC Centerra Center for our ongoing TPS workshops, and anticipate that offerings in Wyoming may draw Colorado educators as well. We look forward to great opportunities for cross-boundary collaboration and learning.

Prepare for Veterans Day with Two New Primary Source Sets

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

TPS Fall ‘09 Launch for Level 2

By Kathy Ferrel, TPS Assistant Director

This fall brings the launch of our first TPS Level Two cohort group at UNC. Seven participants, having completed the 2009 Summer Institute Nation at the Crossroads: Rediscovering the Federal Writers Project, are continuing their work as Level Two participants. The goal for Level Two, as defined by Library of Congress TPS guidelines is to “evaluate, create, and teach topic-specific, content informed lessons that integrate primary sources from the Library of Congress and exemplify effective instructional practices.”

New Library of Congress Analysis Tool System

The new Library of Congress Teacher’s Page has many great new resources to explore. One of the first that you ought to check out is the new analysis tool system. This includes one well designed analysis tool worksheet for students with the categories of Observe, Reflect, Question, and Future Investigation on it. With room to write down thoughts.

There are corresponding teacher guides that go with this analysis tool. The guides are media specific including a general guide and those for photographs, manuscripts, sound recordings, etc. The teacher guide provides guiding questions and follow up activities that the teacher would use as he or she is using the tool with students.

This new system would work with all grades and content areas. To download the new tools, go to: http://www.loc.gov/teachers/usingprimarysources/guides.html

UNESCO and Partners Launch World Digital Library

Paris, Washington D.C.—The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and 32 partner institutions today launched the World Digital Library, a website that features unique cultural materials from libraries and archives from around the world. The site―located at www.wdl.org―includes manuscripts, maps, rare books, films, sound recordings, prints and photographs. It provides unrestricted public access, free of charge, to this material.