Professor Lucas E. Morel looks at the history of slavery in the U.S., examining the Founding Fathers' attitudes towards slavery and the policies on slavery written into the founding documents of the U.S.
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Professor Gordon Lloyd follows the early history of the United States from 1776 to 1787, focusing on the forms of government that were established to try to realize the sentiments expressed in the Declaration of Independence.
Professor Christopher Flannery examines the prominence of the Declaration of Independence in U.S. history and present life, the context in which it was written, and the intentions of its drafters. He looks at the ethics and morality represented in the document.
Professor Christopher Flannery examines the prominence of the Declaration of Independence in U.S. history and present life, the context in which it was written, and the intentions of its drafters. He includes readings from historical documents.
Professor Lucas E. Morel looks at the history of slavery in the U.S., examining the Founding Fathers' attitudes towards slavery and the policies on slavery written into the founding documents of the U.S.
Professor Gordon Lloyd follows the early history of the United States from 1776 to 1787, focusing on the forms of government that were established to try to realize the sentiments expressed in the Declaration of Independence.
Professor Christopher Flannery examines the prominence of the Declaration of Independence in U.S. history and present life, the context in which it was written, and the intentions of its drafters. He looks at the ethics and morality represented in the document.
Professor Christopher Flannery examines the prominence of the Declaration of Independence in U.S. history and present life, the context in which it was written, and the intentions of its drafters. It includes readings from historical documents.
The institute is divided into three levels, as follows:
101: This 40-hour training begins with an in-depth study of the Declaration of Independence. Participants will then be taken through the ancient and European origins of the U.S. Constitution, followed by the American origins. The training will continue with a famous Federalist debating a famous Anti-Federalist over whether a New York State convention should vote to ratify the Constitution in 1788.
Then attending teachers will be taken on a walk through the seven articles of the Constitution. The remainder of the time will be spent studying the First Amendment and famous Supreme Court cases on the First Amendment, including the current term cases.
The agenda is divided into blocks of time spent with scholars, followed by break-out sessions where activities are demonstrated on the curriculum covered in the scholar sessions.
201: Available to those teachers who have completed the 101 session, the advanced session begins with a look at the "Ladder of the Bill of Rights." The remainder of the three-day, 18-hour institute is spent studying Amendments Two through 10, along with Supreme Court cases decided under each of these amendments. Break-out sessions follow each scholar session with activities on the Bill of Rights.
301: The one-day, seven-hour Update Session is available to those teachers who have previously attended both 101 and 201. Participants will spend most of the time discussing Supreme Court cases that have been decided during the past few years with the scholars. They will also receive a new activity guide, which includes lessons on Federalism and writing.
In this online exhibition from the Library of Congress you will find three primary source documents—the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights—along with more than 350 other related sources including laws, acts, essays, letters, political cartoons, and more. The exhibit displays images of the documents in their original and in interactive forms.
Each of the three major documents appears on the home page. Clicking on a link that begins "Read more about the history of..." takes you to a collection of short (1-2 paragraph) essays on steps in the process of creating the document, with each step accompanied by related primary sources. By clicking on a link that begins “View all items from Creating the...” you are taken to a page where you can view all the available documents related to the major document.
Rather than presenting the documents as works that spontaneously came about, this site can be used to teach and learn about the steps that led to the writing of the documents. For example, if you are interested in documents that were written prior to the U.S. Constitution, you can find more than 50 primary sources related to and predating the U.S. Constitution, including the Articles of Confederation and Thomas Jefferson writing on black education. If you are overwhelmed by the number of sources, you can create a free myLoC account where you can download, save, and store the documents you are interested in.
The best part of the website is that you can interact with the documents, completely dissecting them. (In order to interact fully with the documents you need Microsoft Silverlight, free to download on the site.) Clicking on “Interactives” in the menu at the top of the screen takes you to the interactive documents. Once you choose a document, the screen splits in two; on the left an explanatory text overview appears and on the right the original handwritten primary source. By clicking the “Explore” icon and then "Show Themes" on the right-hand side, you can explore the many themes of the primary source. For example, if you click on "Explore" and "Show Themes," the exhibit highlights parts of the document related to “The Pursuit of Happiness,” "Consent of the Governed," or three other themes. Click on a section marked with "The Pursuit of Happiness" on the Declaration of Independence, and you will see an overview/explanation of the idea on the left. Then you have the option of clicking “Where does this idea come from?” Clicking on that brings up documents that are related to the theme, such as Two Treatises of Government by John Locke, with the related passage in each highlighted.
Clicking on "Explore" also lets you click on "Transcribe." "Transcribe" pops up a window that you can drag over the primary source. The window shows a transcription of the handwritten text beneath it, including any changes the writer made to the document.
Teachers as well as students in grades 6-12 will find this website useful in learning about the history of each of the three major primary sources and about where the ideas in these documents come from.
Teachinghistory.org Teacher Representative Karla Galdamez wrote this Website Review. Learn more about our Teacher Representatives.