News and Events

Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Summer Teacher Institute Applications Now Available

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!

New Lesson Plans with a Global Perspective

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.

The Library of Congress Teacher Conference Schedule for Early 2012
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?

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.

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

Elizabeth Ridgway

Elizabeth Ridgway, Director of Educational Outreach, passed away on December 23, 2010 after suffering a serious brain injury. Elizabeth built and directed the Library of Congress national educational outreach program, Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS). Elizabeth first came to the Library of Congress in 1998 as an American Memory Fellow. She was a middle school History Teacher from Arlington County, Virginia and quickly came to understand the power of using primary sources with students. She served as the Library’s Teacher in Residence during the years of 2001-2003 and was appointed Director of Educational Outreach in 2005.

During her tenure with the Library, Beth directed primary source-based content development for the Library's web site; developed and led many conference presentations; represented the Library to outside education organizations and wrote articles for education journals. Her contributions to the students and teachers throughout the country were professional and profound.

In her memory, the family established the Elizabeth Ridgway Education Fund to further Elizabeth's vision for education programming. Educators from around the country have benefited from Elizabeth's contribution to the Library of Congress and gifts to this fund will allow that work to continue in her memory.
Donate to the Elizabeth Ridgway Education Fund

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