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Using Visual Primary Sources

Published on Tue, 10/01/2019

Visual Literacy: Making Lessons Accessible and Inclusive

Guest Blog Post by Wendy Harris, High School Social Studies & Teacher of the Blind at Metro Deaf School in St. Paul, Minnesota.  

You want to get your students to work with primary sources, but you have students who struggle with reading English text. Maybe they have a learning disability, English is not their most comfortable language, or any number of other reasons. Sound familiar?

Teacher Lori Austin reflects on the Industrial Revolution

Published on Tue, 08/27/2019

Guest Post by Lori Austin: A personal reflection on the Industrial Revolution by a 4th grade teacher

Over the summer of 2019, 70 teachers participated in an immersive NEH-funded Emerging America workshop exploring transformational innovation in Springfield, MA and up and down the Connecticut River Valley. Teachers learned about causes and consequences of precision manufacturing processes invented here. On this Labor Day, we publish Lori Austin’s thoughts on how this workshop helped her gain personal connections to the past.

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Supporting Engagement by Students with Disabilities in Civic Education

Published on Wed, 07/17/2019

Massachusetts, as part of reform that builds civic education into the curriculum each year from Kindergarten through high school, passed a law in 2018 to require that each student be offered an opportunity to participate in a student-led civic engagement project in middle school and in high school. As teachers and schools embark on planning for how the student-led projects will be organized, it will be valuable to think about what will support full participation by students with disabilities in this important new opportunity.

Literacy in Practice Standards Are the Entry Point for Elementary Social Studies

Published on Mon, 05/20/2019

How can we teach students the most vital skills to function as citizens? Since the early 19th century, preparation for civic life has been the central reason for public schools. As part of a multi-year effort to reinvigorate the civic mission of schools, in 2016 the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) added “readiness for civic life” to its core definition of what it means to be educated in the state. http://www.doe.mass.edu/ccr/

Teachers Making Lessons Accessible

Published on Sun, 05/05/2019

“I’ve found that if I pick the right primary sources…[I can make the lesson more accessible]. For example, I just gave some students an evacuation poster (after Order 9066 [–forcing Japanese relocation to camps]) that was selected for its minimal text which was heavy on vocabulary they would know or be able to figure out such as dates and places. I gave other students letters to the editor about the Japanese American “evacuation” and internment, and also used political cartoons.

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TPS

New Primary Source Set! Eugenics: Preoccupation with Genetic Fitness and Threats of Difference & Disability

Published on Fri, 02/08/2019

The Eugenics movement in the early 20th century United States, a pseudo-scientific amalgamation of social Darwinist philosophy and animal breeding management, gained widespread approval across the country and influenced many internationally, most notably in the the Nazi racial policies of the era leading up to World War II. This primary source set includes newspaper articles, photographs, cartoons, notes on legal cases, a video interview with a man sterilized without consent when he was a boy, a radio report on non-conse

Blog post: TPS Teachers Network and the Appeal of Albums

Published on Mon, 01/28/2019

Each week, History eNews posts links to current highlights in the TPS (Teaching with Primary Sources) Teachers Network. While the ideas and discussion are well worth logging in for, the sharing-friendly Albums tool may transform how you create and share sets of primary sources–with your classroom, with colleagues, even with Facebook and any social media where you share links with others.

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