The Student As Historian

This eBook is based on an innovative teacher’s workshop held in June 2015 - The Student As Historian ~ Teaching with Primary Sources from the Library of Congress. This ebook contains both the training materials and fourteen teacher-designed document-based questions for grades 4 through high school. 


This project used the extensive online collection of the Library of Congress to foster historical thinking skills - examine and analyze primary sources, understand historical context, compare multiple accounts and perspectives, and take a position and defend it with evidence.


The lessons draw from a fascinating collection of text and multimedia content - documents, posters, photographs, audio, video, letter and other ephemera. "Stop-and-think" prompts based on CCSS skills guide students through analysis of the primary sources. Essential questions foster critical thinking. All documents include links back to the original source material so readers can remix the content into their own curated collections.


The eBook was designed and edited by nationally-recognized history educator Peter Pappas (School of Education ~ University of Portland). It's a great resource for use in the classroom, and it serves as a model for teacher or student curation of historic content into interactive digital DBQ’s. 


Readers will learn how to:

- Flip instructional content to maximize class time.

- Use free digital tools to support collaboration.

- Learn how to search and find free historical resources at the Library of Congress.

- Use the standards / curriculum to craft an essential question that’s worth answering.

- Choose documents that  students can interpret with limited background knowledge.

- Use scaffolding questions to guide the students in a close reading of the documents that will help them answer the essential question. 


This is not an official publication of the Library of Congress and does not represent official Library of Congress communications.