The Library of Congress

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Lesson 5 - Introduction to On-Line Searching and the American Memory Collection: Early Motion Pictures, 1897-1916

The American Memory Collection is introduced via the collection entitled, Early Motion Pictures, 1897-1916. The teacher demonstrates a search using the keyword immigration. Three titles should come up in the search (preload these three films beforehand since it is too time consuming to download them during class). The class views them and discusses why or why not they would be useful in learning more about immigration. Two films are about Ellis Island and provide information on the topic of immigration. The third film shows an arrest in San Francisco's Chinatown. It appears to have little which will advance knowledge about immigration. The teacher should lead the discussion and record the children's statements on chart paper or on the computer.

Lesson 6 - Searching Texts: American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940

1. Place the children in groups of three or four to a computer.

2. Give some background on the WPA Life History Collection. The children should know something about why the collection was made, how it was made and when it was made. They should be prepared to encounter difficult vocabulary, dialect and a range of beliefs, some of which are racist. There should be ample discussion of this before the children work with the Collection. It is assumed that the teacher will have thoroughly familiarized himself or herself with the documents before the children use them.

3. Depending on students' prior experience and grade level it might be worthwhile to demonstrate how to read one of the WPA documents before the children begin their group work.

4. Guide children in searching the WPA Life History Collection using the keyword immigration.

5. The groups should select as many titles as possible and skim them to determine which will advance their understanding of immigration and which will not.

6. They should keep notes on their process. For example, some of the titles will have nothing to do with the immigrant experience. The title will come up because an interviewee simply referred to immigrants.

7. Each group should select a number of documents to save. These should be documents they view as having advanced their understanding of immigration.

8. At the end of the session the whole class should discuss why they saved certain documents and not others. The teacher should record their discussion on chart paper or on the computer.

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Lesson 7 - Searching Photographs Independently: Touring Turn-of-the-Century America: Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company,1880-1920

1. Place the children in groups of three or four per computer (ideally the same groups as the previous session).

2. Review the collection. Explain what it was, why it was made and when it was made. Again, it might be worthwhile to demonstrate how to examine a photograph from the collection before the children work on their own.

3. The children should do two searches in the collection. For the first, they will use the keyword immigration. For the second search they will try a synonym.

4. Each group should save several photographs which advance their understanding of immigration.

5. They can keep a record of their search process in order to discuss what worked and what didn't.

6. At the end of the session the class should come together and discuss their experiences. Their comments can be recorded on a large piece of paper.

Lessons 8 & 9 - Assessment

For the next two sessions each group should review the documents and photos collected and organize them into a poster. These posters can be done off or on line depending on the resources available. The posters should tell a story about immigration. The children will utilize their prior knowledge of immigration along with their new knowledge gained through the previous lessons to create these posters.

Lesson 10 - Celebration

The final session should be one where the children can present their posters. Each group should present their poster to the class and explain why they did the poster as they did. Administrators and parents can be invited to this session. The posters should then be exhibited.