The Teaching with Primary Sources Journal
Strategies and resources for K-12 classrooms from the Library of Congress

Teaching About the Civil War with Primary Sources Across Disciplines
In this feature article, the author offers historical insight and strategies for teaching about the Civil War with primary sources across disciplines.

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.

Teacher Spotlight
Rebecca Byrd, a middle school teacher at New Center School in Sevierville, Tennessee, offers ideas for using primary sources to teach about the Civil War in social studies and other subject areas.

Learning Activity – Elementary Level
Students work in pairs to analyze an 1863 map of the Battle of Nashville, created by the Union army, for clues about its purpose. They form a hypothesis, support it with detailed observations and develop their own questions about the map. Each student writes a paragraph demonstrating how a soldier may have used a map like this one before or during battle.

Learning Activity – Secondary Level
Students work in small groups to analyze sets of Civil War-era primary sources, including photographs, manuscripts and sheet music. They make inferences about the short-term and long-term consequences of the Civil War for those on the homefront based on primary source evidence. Students synthesize and express their learning by writing a letter from the perspective of a civilian during the war.

Archive
Previous issues of The TPS Journal, formerly known as Teaching with Primary Sources Quarterly, are available through this archive.