>> From the Library of Congress,
in Washington, DC.
>> So today's session is on the
teaching the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Primary sources can engage students
in developing a deeper understanding
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
and its historical context.
Education experts, that's Stacie Moats and Anne
Savage, will guide you in considering audience,
context, point of view, when
identifying primary sources
to teach about the Civil Rights Movement.
So joining us, we have 2 very
special guests, we have Stacie Moats.
Stacie, since joining the Library
of Congress in January 2008,
she has worked on various
educational initiatives.
She is the Education Specialist for the
Library's Interpretive Programs office,
which develops on-site and online exhibitions
showcasing the Library's collections.
She now manages all exhibition-related
educational programming, including tours
and public programs for visitors of all ages.
Joining Stacie is Anne Savage.
She is an Educational Resource Specialist at
the Library of Congress, and she specializes
in developing and delivering professional
development content and materials for educators.
A proponent of Project Zero's Visible Thinking,
she has integrated thinking strategies into many
of the Library's primary
source-based PD offerings.
Before coming to the Library in
2005, she was an elementary teacher,
and school-based technology
specialists in Fairfax County, Virginia.
So without further ado, I'd like to
turn things over to Stacie Moats.
Stacie.
>> Well, it is really nice
to virtually meet all of you.
And I just want to make sure to
say that, please, as we go through,
I'll be asking for your feedback, of course,
and please continue the conversation thread
as we go through the various slides.
I won't be able to comment, of course,
on everything that folks are putting in,
but we will have time for
question-and-answer at the end.
Okay, so you may be surprised to learn that
the Library develops exhibitions visited
by more than 1 million people each year.
I'd like you to imagine for a minute that
you're planning to visit the Library here
in Washington, DC, and just looking at
this graphic and title for an exhibition,
what would you expect to experience?
And again, feel free to share your answers,
your responses in the chat box, please.
Photos, newspaper articles, videos, Tony says,
correspondence, demonstration posters, right,
personal accounts, it's all
different kinds of primary sources.
LBJ, speeches by LBJ.
Any other individuals that come to mind?
O'Connor. Okay, well, I wanted
to share with you a few photos
that are taken directly inside the exhibition.
And as you all picked up on on display,
we have original primary sources
that have witnessed history, whether
it's manuscripts, photographs, music,
film, and even a large 3-D object.
This is the actual flag flown by the
National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People, or NAACP, as part
of its 1920 anti-lynching campaign.
And for this exhibition, Library
specialists carefully selected over 200 items
and more than 70 audio-visual clips.
That sounds like a lot until you think about
the fact that they were taking selections,
these primary resources, from more than
158 million items in our collections.
In the NAACP collection alone, I
believe there's over 3 million items,
just to give you a sense of their project.
Now, this page from the online version of the
exhibition shows how in the online version
as well, they present the primary and secondary
sources, that contextual information that goes
with these manuscripts and everything else.
They present it chronologically in sections.
And is surprises a lot of visitors that
when they say a long struggle for freedom,
they really mean the long struggle for
freedom, starting with slavery in the 1600's,
and continuing all the way through to the
impact of the Act in the 1960's and beyond.
And the selections for this exhibition
really highlight the story not only
of this landmark civil rights legislation,
but also base it within a
broader historical narrative.
And as teachers, in many ways, your process
of selecting primary sources for use
with students is similar to that of a
specialist curating exhibition for visitors.
And I'd like to take just a moment
to share what factors you consider
when selecting primary sources, whether
teaching about civil rights or any topic really.
Okay, reading level.
Anne says age of student.
Right, whether or not the primary
sources are engaging themselves.
Practicality, Sara says, good point.
And again, feel free to continue responding to
this question and going forward with the thread.
But I'd just like to briefly
consider four key factors.
First, audience.
For instance, is the content age-appropriate?
Would it draw my students
in for closer examination,
for questioning, further investigation?
Context, is there useful
videographic information available,
especially about the source
or the publication date.
And within the item itself, will my
students be able to pick up contextual clues?
Certainly was it created during
the time or topic under study?
In other words, is it a primary source?
Perspective, certainly will the students be able
to identify perspective, and also considering,
is the item's purpose or target
audience easy to identify?
And of course, we'd also probably want to think
about things like are other items available
that represent multiple points
of view for use with the item?
Logistics, easy to skip over but certainly
important for us as teachers to think about.
So for a photograph, how clear is the image?
For a manuscript, will my
students be able to read the text?
And things like certainly the copyright,
the right status, am I able to print copies
or display the items for use in my classroom?
Even before we begin the selection process
though for primary sources whether, again,
about civil rights or any topic, of course,
we're going to think about
our instructional use.
And as a teacher, you may have an essentially
question for a unit, in much the same way
that a curator uses a big idea to
connect everything in an exhibition.
So before we look at a primary source
from the exhibition to start our practice
of these selection factors, I just want to
add one more really important consideration.
When focusing on civil rights and addressing
related issues that race and social justice,
in my experience, it's essential
to reflect on your own identity.
And so I've included a link here to
the website of teaching tolerance,
a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
They offer many free resources for learning how
to effectively approach self-reflective
practice on identity.
So I just wanted to include that since we
won't have time to go in depth on that topic.
Now, let's go ahead and apply
all these considerations
to an imaginary teaching scenario.
I'll give you some time to read this through.
Okay, and we're going to be considering an item
from the Civil Rights Act of 1964 exhibition.
And again, keep in mind that we're
using this to introduce the unit,
to spark interests, inspire student inquiry.
And it's been decided that your
students do not need prior knowledge.
And I'm going to show the item, and give
you about 30 seconds to look closely.
Okay, and to help inform our selection
process, certainly we would want
to take a look at secondary information.
And here you have the text labeled,
the secondary source information,
that's displayed along with this photograph
in the online version of the exhibition.
So again, I'm going to give you a little
time to read through this labeled text.
Okay, and I wanted to point to as well that for
this particular item in the online exhibition,
when you're live on the website
and you click that link,
it does take you to the items
in the graphic record.
Not available for everything, but for this
particular item it is, which is great because,
you know, right there you have some
important details also available
to help with your selection process.
So going back to our scenario,
and thinking about this
for a seventh grade social studies class, again,
this is introducing the units and thinking
about our essential question, would
we use this particular primary source?
Why or why not?
And I would love to hear from all of you,
please type in your responses, your thoughts.
Thinking again about those factors of
audience, of perspective, context, logistics.
I hear, yes, because it got me thinking
about who flew that flag and why.
Rob notes, they need to know lynching
means, there's no prior knowledge.
Sara writes, it's a powerful image.
Students may be intrigued
as to why, when, who, what.
So again, which someone had mentioned earlier,
this idea of the hook to draw students
into this topic of civil rights for our unit.
Mary notes that it is a simple
statement but still a question generator.
Okay, provocative image to generate questions.
So I'm hearing from most folks that
this sounds like or this appears
to be an item that you would consider using.
I can tell you that from taking students
of different ages through the exhibition,
I have the other benefit of having to
flag itself, which is just enormous.
It's I believe six feet by nine feet.
And so kind of impossible to miss.
And in many cases, I have
the students, you know,
especially since many don't have the prior
knowledge, talk with me about what they think
that term lynched means and kind of taking
from their responses what they know and using
that to guide my discussion with them,
depending on what's age-appropriate.
And also it's been a wonderful way to talk
with students to make those connections
that are so important to their own lives.
Some of the students will say, for instance,
that, you know, they hadn't really thought
about the fact that in this time
period in American history, again,
thinking about the historic context, that, you
know, how else are they going to get the word
out about this violence and how
are they going to spread the word?
And making some interesting comparisons
to what's happening in the news today,
and how people use social media, for
instance, now to get their message out.
And I see Rob has noticed a detail
here about the juxtaposition
of the American flag in the background.
Okay, so let's practice the
selection process again
but this time thinking about your own classroom.
We'll still keep with the timing, this
is going to be for an intro to a unit,
and our central question, how have
groups and individuals advocated
for their own freedom and equality.
And again, thinking about whether
you would use this primary source
in your classroom, and why or why not.
Okay, so again, I'm going
to give you some time here,
about 30 seconds, to really look at this item.
Okay, I'm going to now again give you
the text information that goes with this.
This is again the label, and in our online
exhibition, it's paired there with the item.
So again, about 30 seconds just
to go ahead and read this through.
Okay, so again, reflecting on your own teaching,
if you could share what you
think about using this.
Would you use it in your
classroom, why or why not?
Rob comments that, yes, it covers your
historical significance succinctly,
also brings up the mass movement
and role of churches.
So expanding students' understanding
from the beginning about the movement.
Karen adds, yes, it shows the importance of
religion and the power of women speaking out.
Erin's noting that she's an identifiable
figure so it offers a connection for students.
And I'd like to comment on that, in that, before
entering the exhibition, much like I asked all
of you to tell me what you expected to see
in this Civil Rights Act of 1964 exhibition,
a lot of students when I asked what comes
to mind when they think of civil rights,
not surprisingly, you know,
Rosa Parks, Dr. King,
some of the more familiar figures come to mind.
However, what they know about them tends
to be pretty limited in terms of, you know,
not going deep into their commitment
to advocacy or their personal lives.
Okay, I'm seeing many more
wonderful comments here.
Questions about the fact that
it would humanize Rosa Parks,
that demonstrates her role as a public speaker.
Might be interesting to compare
her to activists today.
I love good music, that's a great that you
noticed there, and I'm going to forward ahead
so that we can go back to
looking at the item itself.
And again, Mary's comment about Rosa
Parks and her long-term commitment
to the civil rights movement, not
just that one arrest that we think of,
but truly this commitment to the
movement and her role in it as a leader.
Great, thank you all for your comments.
And again, I'd just like to return to my
experience guiding visitors of all ages
and backgrounds through this exhibition.
And I chose these items for us to look
at because they have both proven to be
so extremely powerful in talking about
not only the Civil Rights Act of 1964
and the many individuals and groups
who contributed along the way to reach
that landmark moment in US civil rights
legislation, but it's just been really powerful
to see how, for instance, the
flag expands their understanding
of the civil rights movement going back, you
know, in this case with the flag, decades.
But again, further in the exhibition, back
to truly even before this country had begun.
And then with one like this
item, this flyer, just again,
expanding on some of these more familiar
figures and deepening our knowledge.
So just to reflect again on your own
teaching, what kinds of resources do you use?
What do you think would help your students
develop a more complete understanding?
Because again, in this case, we were
selecting primary sources that we use just
to introduce a unit, but certainly
having that contextual information
and having additional primary sources with
multiple points of view, that help explain some
of that context, are all valuable.
And I just would love to hear
from you about your own teaching.
Anne writes, oral histories, and in just
a moment here, we'll show how to find some
of the other resources available
from the Library's website,
but certainly the Civil Rights History
Project is a fantastic resource
for oral histories relating
to the civil rights movement.
Videos and lesson notes.
Videos that show the history.
Debra's talking about her love for teaching
of primary sources especially
with objects and oral histories.
That you, Debra.
The music is also another fantastic connection.
A lot of students, you know, depending on their
own interests, whether it's music or drawing,
they get really pulled into some of the
recordings available from the Library's website,
as well as some of the drafts or whether it's
a writing or incredible political cartoons,
for instance, that we have in the collections.
Ronnie mentions signs, and there is in
fact a sign from the Jim Crow era that is
in the exhibition, and again, available online.
So as you hopefully explore
later, the exhibition
and the many other exhibitions
we have relating to this topic,
you will come across some fantastic pieces.
Okay, so because I know we're short on time,
I'm going to just very briefly mention how
to find the exhibitions from the Library
of Congress, because it is, to me,
something really wonderful that the Library
does, which is to make our entire exhibition,
you know, whether that's the Civil Rights Act
of 1964, or any of the other more than 100
that we have, current and past
exhibitions that are available,
that go down to the object level
online for everyone to use for free.
So here's how you find it
from the main page, LOC.GOV,
you just type exhibitions into that search box.
And when you're in your browser, if
you continue there to this next page,
it takes you to the search results, and
you'll find exhibitions, Library of Congress.
And when you click on that again in your
browser, you'll come to this, LOC.GOV/exhibits,
which is the homepage for our exhibitions.
And you'll see, again, current exhibitions are
listed, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
And to the left side, you'll see
all exhibitions, as I mentioned,
more than 100 that are available
to us on any number of topics.
Again, here is the homepage for
the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
And I just want to point very
briefly to the learn more page here,
where we have brought together a variety of
resources related to teaching about civil rights
from the Library of Congress website.
You see related exhibitions.
And I just in particular want to point
out this free idea book for educators.
This was a collaboration between
the Library of Congress in history,
and it has not only unique
primary sources from the library,
but also many wonderful teaching ideas for
how to talk about different titles of the Act
and its importance to our history.
So again, just to kind of wrap up my
session before turning it over to Anne,
I just want to mention again that, when
you are teaching about civil rights,
it's so important to have not
only the primary sources but a lot
of that background information, of course,
like anything you're teaching about.
And so, to me, what is so wonderful
about the online exhibitions is
that the work has been done
for you, and it has been done
by experts from the Library of Congress.
They've selected topics, again, from
our millions of items in the collections
and they've paired them with expert commentary.
So the research is there ready
for you and your students to use.
Okay, so -- and I just noticed
a question here about UL's.
these are online for perpetuity essentially.
So they have committed to having these
exhibitions available and they live
on past the time that they're
here at the Library.
Okay, with that, I'm going
to turn things over to Anne,
and she's going to share some more resources
from the Library about civil rights.
Okay, as Stacie said, I'm going to share
with you several additional
civil rights related resources
that are available on the teachers page.
I'm going to be stepping through
the paths you can use later
to get to each resource on your own.
But at the very end of this session, we're also
going to provide you a list of links to all
of these Library of Congress resources.
As you see these resources, as we flip through
this brief tour that I'm going to give you,
please go ahead and share any ideas you have
in the chat box about how you might use them,
whether you -- if you see something you
have used in your classroom, let us know.
Or perhaps some ideas or questions.
So keep the chat going.
And let's start by showing you
how to get to the teachers page.
Here is the Library's homepage.
The easiest way to get to it is to scroll
down if you need to and click on the link
to teachers that you see circled.
Once you go to the teachers page, one of the
first things you're going to see is that up
at the top, we have highlighted in our carousel
of special things we want you to notice first,
the idea book for educators
that Stacie talked about.
And this will take you to a downloadable online
version of powerful resource, as Stacie said.
Something else you're going to find on
the teachers page is a link to our blog.
And from this blog, you're going to find a
number of resources related to civil rights.
First of all, if you type in Civil Rights
Act into the search box at the top,
you will be able to find a number
of blog posts about civil rights.
The first one is shown here.
This is one of several blog posts
about the webinars that we had
in partnership with Teaching Tolerance.
Stacie mentioned this group.
There are four webinars online for you to
view, and they're all very powerful, again,
with Teaching Tolerance, part of
the Southern Poverty Law Center.
And you can listen to the recordings.
Secondly, you'll find a series of
blog posts on the Civil Rights Act.
And I'm actually going to put a link
here for you to this particular one,
because this is the main blog post
the will point you to the other ones.
And this will help you help your students
immerse themselves in several important sections
of the Civil Rights Act, where they can use
primary sources to explore the aspects of life
under legal segregation, that
the Act was meant to improve.
For instance, voting, education,
freedom to work,
and one that students can really relate
to, the right to go where you want.
So check out these blog posts.
Moving along, if you look up at the
left-hand side, there is a menu,
and the next thing we will
go to is classroom materials.
And once you click on classroom materials,
you're going to find primary source sets.
If you scroll down through this
list of primary source sets,
you will find two of special interests.
And of course, for those of you new to primary
source sets, these are sets of primary sources
that we have preselected on many popular topics.
They're ready for use by you and your students.
Let's take a look at one of them, the
NAACP, "A Century in the Fight for Freedom."
Here is where you can immerse your
students in the story of America's oldest
and largest civil rights organization, told
through letters, photographs, maps, and more.
First thing you'll notice, at the top of the
page is the teachers guide written for you.
And here is where you will find historical
context and teaching suggestions related
to the items below that are
in the primary source set.
You'll also see a link to
analysis tool and teaching guides.
I'll mention a little bit
more about these in a moment.
And then of course, the primary
sources themselves.
So if you take a look, this
just shows ten out of the set.
And for each one, we include a link to
the item in the Library's collections.
We include a link to the
bibliographic information.
And also for those items that are visual items,
we've created a printable
PDF, an 8 1/2 by 11 size.
So that you can use these items
either on your computer, in the lab,
or print them out if you need to, whatever
your situation is in your classroom.
You'll also want to check out our other primary
source set that's related, and this is Jim Crow.
Which is also available in
interactive e-book format.
Okay, let's go back to the
teachers page for just a moment.
And if you notice, there's
another link we'd like to share
with you, called using primary sources.
On this page, you will find a
number of things up in the top.
Why use primary sources, which
is the page we're on now.
Citing primary sources, copyright.
Finding primary sources, and then
teachers guide and analysis tool.
>> Hi, this is Kathy.
Anne's experiencing some technical issues
with her sound, so I'm going to step in here
and show you around the teachers
guide and analysis tool.
Here you'll see all these are hyperlinked
as well, so if you click on the screen,
it will take you right to the teachers guide.
We've develop these with subject matter
experts from the Library and talking
and developing the teachers guide.
So it helps you with question prompts as you're
working with students with specific types
of materials, you can use these to get
students to observe question and reflect.
And next up, I want to share
with you over on the right side,
you'll see professional development.
In addition to webinars like we're doing today,
we have done a series of webinars in the past.
We also have online modules available
that you can use on your own.
We have six different self-paced
modules, as well as materials.
All of our professional development material
we release and make available online.
So you can get to those materials
through LOC.GOV teachers.
And then one other area that we want to make
sure that you know about is ask a librarian.
This is a fabulous resource, it's on
the top of every single page at LOC.GOV,
and you'll see that it just highlighted
at the top under ask a librarian.
And I'm going to take you to that page, and
here is where you can ask reference librarians
from around the institution specific questions
about resources that you might be searching for.
There is an area specific for
teachers, which you'll see highlighted
on your screen, and it's resources for teachers.
So we encourage you to use these resources.
And the expectation for the ask a librarian is
that within five business
days, you'll get a response.
So the more specific you
can be with information,
especially if your students are doing
research, the more specific you can be
in what you've been doing for
searching and finding materials,
the better off the librarians
will be able to help you.
So anyway, I'm going to click --
sorry, I'm going to move forward and see
if you have any questions or comments.
We have about 10 minutes
for question-and-answer.
We have -- we'll see how Anne's mic is doing.
But we certainly have Stacie on the line.
So I do want to go back to one of the points,
and this is something I want to ask Stacie,
because it was something that you all were
chatting about earlier in the program.
Which is using these primary sources
and stepping off on a unit or a lesson.
And I wanted to see if Stacie had
any further suggestions for us.
>> My experience has just been that it
just really opens up just a time of a lot
of curiosity from the students, because
they immediately recognize that, you know,
these are the actual pieces of
history, these are real people.
So, for instance, when you talk about Jim
Crow, and you talk about this legal separation
of the races, you know, it's one thing to
talk about it, but to see an actual sign
that was posted outside of a restaurant
that reads, and this is in the exhibition,
no dogs, no Negroes, no Mexicans.
That is powerful.
That is something for them
that just brings it home,
that we are talking about
the lives of real people.
And same with, you know,
understanding that these are, again,
people who are making difficult choices, not
just once, but on a daily basis, you know,
literally every moment of their
lives in terms of becoming advocates
for freedom and equality and justice.
So John Lewis, I believe somebody had mentioned
John Lewis's name earlier in one of the chats.
And we have two versions of the speech he gave
as the youngest speaker at
the March on Washington.
And it just adds this human
element to understanding that,
you know, again, these are real people.
So to see their typewritten notes
with, you know, comments, just, again,
reinforces this understanding that
it connects to their own lives
and to what's happening in the world today.
>> Thank you, Stacie, that's great.
One question that I would like to have you
address is, you work with the real materials
in the exhibitions every single day,
and you talked about the stories
of students interacting with the real materials.
What about folks who can't always make it
to Washington, DC, what advice do you have
for them and looking at real objects?
>> I am a big believer in pairing not only
the digitized primary sources from the Library
of Congress but pairing that with if
you can, field trips to local museums
and other cultural institutions in your area,
so that your students can
appreciate the real stuff.
Because it's just in our digital culture, you
know, especially for some of our younger folks,
it's sometimes hard to understand that, you
know, we have these originals that we have
to preserve and take care of and, you know,
collect so that future generations
will have them.
And for them to think about how to go out
into their own communities and, you know,
perhaps interview some folks who have lived
through experiences in their communities,
whether civil rights or whatever
the topic may be.
But but capturing that history and
capturing their own experiences,
whether it's through journaling or, you know,
even filming a video or something like that.
But that these materials are so precious
because they are our shared history.
>> Great, thank you.
Anne, I have a question from Nancy.
Do you have any tips for printing resources?
>> Yes. First of all, if the item is
something that's in a primary source set,
it will be easy for you to print if you
just click on the PDF version of it.
So take a look at those first.
And secondly, you may just find that if you
can go to an item, if you're looking at an item
in the collection, to enlarge it and try right
clicking on the enlarged version of the item.
And often, your computer will have software that
will help you step through printing that out.
>> If I could add in, for the
exhibitions, the online exhibitions,
when you go to the object level and click on
the item, you know, whether it's a page from,
you know, if it's a manuscript or if
it's a photograph, it will enlarge,
and then at the bottom of the
enlargement there is a print button,
and you can just print it from there.
>> Terrific, thank you.
And Nancy thanks you as well.
Anne, I have a question.
Perhaps you can talk to folks a little
bit more about the work that you did
with Teaching Tolerance, you and Stacie, as
a matter of fact, with Teaching Tolerance
in your four-part webinar series.
>> Certainly.
And as I said earlier, I would recommend
you listening to some of those webinars.
I think the most important thing, for me
personally, in terms of working with teachers
and students, was working with the kits
that the Teaching Tolerance
has put together for teachers.
And learning about suggested ways, for instance,
they have five suggested ways
of teaching civil rights.
And there all practical,
and they're all realistic.
And they encourage you to help the
conversation happen and find ways
to help students feel safe enough
to talk about what's happening.
There is also a wonderful section on Teaching
Tolerance about nine essential areas, again,
a way to help you think about, what are
the kinds of questions I want to be asking.
What are the kinds of -- what are
the areas I want to be sure to cover
so that I help students see
the complexity of the story.
And that might be the thing I would end
in my comment with is that I learned
through Teaching Tolerance the
importance of telling a complex story.
>> Terrific, thank you, Anne.
Stacie, we have a question.
Have you seen any emotional reactions from
kids or adults as they go through the exhibit?
>> Absolutely.
It's, again, just it's kind of
incredible the connection between some
of these historic objects
and what's happening today.
And there was, well, of course, the flag, but in
particular, there was a group we had that came
through and it was the day after the
shooting at the church, you know,
at which time people were killed.
And in one of the cases is an incredible
print of the founders of that same church,
and she encountered that in the section
that's, you know, speaking to the early history
of the civil rights movement, you know,
really the roots of this long
struggle, just brought people to tears.
And, you know, again, it's really
powerful to see how people respond
to the different objects and
how it sparks conversations.
>> Terrific.
I want to personally thank Stacie and Anne
for their present presentations today.
You guys did a great job.
And I want to thank all of you, the
audience, in sticking with us through some
of the technical issues that we faced.
But there is no better audience than an audience
full of educators, so we thank you very much,
and we welcome your feedback at the survey.
And I'm going to end the
recording and end the meeting.
Thank you very much.
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at LOC.GOV.