Missouri

Gateway Writing Project

Exploring How Primary Sources & Place-Based Writing Can Expand Our View of the World

This project, run by Gateway Writing Project at the University of Missouri-St. Louis , worked in partnership with the Gateway Arch National Park and Missouri Botanical Garden to design field trip experiences that bring together primary sources and place based writing. The goal of the project was to broaden the definition of literacy by asking students to approach the park’s museum as a text/source for writing. The project trained in-service teachers in the use of digital primary sources from the Library of Congress, provided immersive field trip experiences, and closed with the in-service teachers sharing their experiences with the broader Gateway Writing Project network.  

Missouri Council for History Education

Missouri at the Crossroads of History and Race (2024)

This project, awarded to the Missouri Council for History Education, provided K-5 classroom teachers and music specialists with tools to enhance social studies and history instruction in their schools.  Teachers participating in the program learned methods to engage students with meaningful content regarding the intersections of music and race relations in Missouri. The project provided elementary teachers with resources from the Library of Congress which helped them explore the context of racial segregation in the United States through the life and work of Scott Joplin, a pioneering ragtime composer and performer in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Common Ground: Farms, Cities and Food Security During the Great Depression

This project, awarded to the Missouri Council for History Education, held a four-day, residential summer institute during which urban and rural teachers utilized Library of Congress materials to develop lessons that promoted environmental awareness, historical thinking, and political understanding. By focusing on the issue of food security during the Great Depression, teachers developed a curriculum that examined how New Deal policies influenced the production and distribution of food at a time of economic and ecologic crisis. Teachers also learned how to use the Library’s resources, including the Primary Source Analysis Tool and photographs from the Farm Securities Administration. Finally, the four-day residential institute structure provided opportunities for community-building among rural and urban teachers. This exchange of ideas promotes deeper understanding across one of the most significant divides in our contemporary society. Developing stronger professional relationships across this geographic divide will contribute to curricula that authentically reflect the perspectives of different communities in their response to both historical and contemporary problems.

Contact: Robert Good

Columbia 93 School District

College, Career, Culture, and Civics: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Through Inquiry

This project by the Columbia 93 School District (currently Columbia Public Schools) provided professional development in the areas of the inquiry design model (C3 Framework) by utilizing diverse primary and secondary source materials as research and analysis pieces. The professional development helped teachers use high-yield strategies such as historical thinking skills with culturally relevant materials, increased all student performance in strategic thinking, MAP (Measure of Academic Progress), and EOC (End-of-Course) requirements, as well as prepared students in the areas of civics, college, and career readiness. Additionally, the project utilized instructional planning reports to make inferences about the effectiveness of source implementation and instruction in grades K–12 classrooms.

Contact: Lindsey Troutman

Lindenwood University

Trails West: Inquiries into Missouri’s Geo-History, Migration, and Immigration

This project awarded to Lindenwood University supported geographic literacy and history education in Missouri by providing educators with the knowledge, skills, and experiences in using tools of social science inquiry. Participants engaged with primary sources to design instruction, mostly through training, fieldwork, and community involvement. They also shared lesson plans at professional development conferences across Missouri sponsored by Lindenwood University and with support from the Missouri Geographic Alliance, Missouri Council for History Education, and Missouri History Museum.

Contact: Sarah Coppersmith

Missouri Association of School Librarians

Primary Sources in the School Library: Using Library of Congress Resources and Strategies to Extend Missouri Student Learning

This project by the Missouri Association of School Librarians (MASL), consisting of a series of professional development workshops and follow-up sessions, exposed educators to the use of primary sources in student learning and highlighted the online holdings of the Library of Congress through modeled examples. Two-day workshops across Missouri in St. Louis, Jefferson City, Kansas City, and Springfield focused on a partnership between librarians and classroom teachers to implement the use of primary sources with students.

Contact: Jill Hancock

University of Missouri–St. Louis

Primary Sources for Pre-service and In-service Teachers Partnership

This project, run by the University of Missouri–St. Louis, worked with pre-service and in-service teachers and students to foster knowledge, inquiry, and meaningful learning of local, state, and national history through instruction, including the creation and use of instructional toolkits. Pre-service teachers were taught how to use digital primary sources from the Library of Congress. A selected group of these pre-service teachers then trained in-service teachers to utilize the Library’s resources at the St. Louis Language Immersion School. The pre-service teachers designed instructional resource toolkits for future use in elementary schools and made them available to check out through the internet.

Contact: Lisa Dorner

Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

Professional Development Grant for Teachers in Missouri

This grant, awarded to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, was one of four multi-state project proposals submitted by members of the Social Studies Assessment, Curriculum, and Instruction collaborative of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). The purpose of the project was to provide professional development workshops to social studies teachers and introduce them to the framework of 21st-century learning and the resources available from the Library of Congress. Participants gained hands-on experience in creating documentaries using Microsoft Movie Maker and Digital Docs in a Box. Each participant developed and implemented a lesson plan that incorporated newly developed knowledge and skills.

Contact: Bill Gerling