Analyzing a Primary Source with Online Interactives

Congress, Civic Participation, and Primary Sources Projects:
The following interactive projects were developed by a number of organizations and supported by grants from the Library of Congress. Each project is intended to provide young people with engaging and meaningful opportunities to learn about Congress and civic participation using primary sources from the Library’s online collections.

Primary sources have tremendous educational power and can be used effectively in many different ways with students at all grade levels. The projects below reflect different organizations’ varied approaches to teaching civics using primary sources, and each has much to offer.

Contact your librarian for effective strategies for teaching with primary sources or see the Library of Congress Using Primary Sources page.

Eagle Eye Citizen   See my blog post HERE. Developed by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, Eagle Eye Citizen engages middle and high school students in solving interactive challenges in American history and government with Library of Congress primary sources in order to develop civic understanding and historical thinking skills. Topics include immigration, suffrage, slavery, civic participation, naturalization, political parties, the draft and civil rights. The interactives are introductions to deeper investigation using links to additional primary sources. There is a 60 minute workshop agenda with videos and worksheets to download as well.

Engaging Congress This fun, interactive game that uses primary source documents to explore the basic tenets of representative government and the challenges they face in contemporary society. This app may be downloaded from Google Play, iTunes, or played on the Web with WebGL. Students will engage in game activities for understanding such concepts as States’ Rights, the Federal Budget, Separation of Powers, and Political Influence. This game aligns with the C3 Framework and leads students through inquiries that help them in answering compelling questions as they analyze primary sources.

KidCitizen This online interactive developed by Muzzy Lane Software, features a series of interactive episodes where K-5 students observe primary source photographs from the Library of Congress, explore the concepts of government and civics, and connect this information back to their own lives. The episodes work on Macs, PCs, Chromebooks, iOS and Android tablets. There are currently six episodes available on the topics of Child Labor, Community Helpers, American National Symbols, Congress, Political Activists, and Primary Sources. These episodes walk students through the See, Think, Wonder inquiry process using an animated child called Ella who gives clues and praise and additional information. The primary sources include children from long ago that today’s students can easily relate to. As an introduction, the episode on Community Helpers is recommended for elementary educators or the episode on Child Labor for upper elementary educators. This app includes an Editor feature that middle school and high school teachers could use to create their own episode with age appropriate features.

Case Maker from Bean Creative Teach students to think like detectives. Case Maker features 20 pre-made civics education challenges that can be used in a classroom today. Each Challenge has a Challenge Code to make it simple to share with your students. From there, students can review the challenge, add annotations to the related primary source documents, and build a series of case folders. When done, students can then use the presentation mode to show off their work, or use their case as a reference for any sort of project.

DBQuest from iCivics DBQuest introduces students to major questions in civics and history. A Big Question acts as guiding light for deep examination of three selected primary resources. Each document challenges students to dig into the text itself and find the relevant information through document–based supporting questions.  

DBQuest uses a scaffolding tool to support students as they analyze curated primary sources that give multiple perspectives about an important historical event. Teachers and/or students can select a Guided Inquiry Tool or a Freeform Tool that provides the same structure but less assistance. Topics include:  The Nashville Sit-ins, The Louisiana Purchase, America’s Founding Preambles, and The Constitution’s Cover Letter. Teacher Guides and student handouts, downloadable for each DBQuest, give background context and multiple strategies for the Observe, Reflect, and Question inquiry cycle that is the heart of the Teaching with Primary Sources program.