Library of Congress

TPS Quarterly

The Library of Congress > Teachers > TPS Program > Quarterly

Teaching with Primary Sources Quarterly
A publication for teachers

Collage of digitized primary sources from the Library of Congress' collections

Primary Source Formats, Vol. 4, No. 2, Fall 2011

This issue explores how teachers can use primary sources of various formats in instruction.
More about this issue's theme

Detail of Tilton C. Reynolds

Discovering Primary Sources of Various Formats
In this feature article, the author offers teaching strategies for different primary source formats.

Photograph of student, 1939

Research and Current Thinking
Summaries of and links to online resources-articles, research reports, Web sites, and white papers-that provide research and current thinking relating to the issue's theme.

Denise Tullier-Holly

Teacher Spotlight
Denise Tullier-Holly, an art teacher in Louisiana’s Tangipahoa Parish School System, uses primary sources in a variety of formats with students in Grades K-8.

Detail of sheet music - Scott Joplin's New Rag

Learning Activity – Elementary Level
Students investigate, “How do musicians communicate?” using the ragtime music of African American composer Scott Joplin as an example. They compare their understandings from observing a page of sheet music and a sound recording of “Scott Joplin’s New Rag.”

Bow of the Titanic from the cover of the Evening World newspaper

Learning Activity – Secondary Level
Students analyze The New York Evening World newspaper’s front page coverage of the Titanic disaster. They discuss their findings and the historical context before writing letters to the editor from a reader’s perspective in 1912 to explain why they would or would not continue to buy the Evening World based on its Titanic front page coverage.

Children reading

TPS Quarterly Archive
Previous issues of the Teaching With Primary Sources Quarterly are available through this archive.

To view PDFs Acrobat Reader