I wanted to share some ways that the American Memory Collection has been a
part of my classes thusfar this year.  I look forward to hearing how others
are incorporating its wonderful resources.

1.)  Daily Document:  I've resolved to begin each US History class with some
sort of a primary source as a "bell-ringer" or "mood-creator" or whatever
you want to call it.  So far, I've managed to meet my goal each day with
most of the documents provided by the AmMem Collection (although I did start
the Civil War unit by sharing the diary of my husband's great-grandfather.)

2.) Parents' Night:  When the students received their books on the first day
of class, I also gave them a LOC or NARA bookmark (thank you, LOC!)  On last
Thursday's Back to School night, I gave the leftovers to the parents.

3.) Workshop:  I gave a little workshop to my colleagues at school last week
and asked them to let me know if any of the professional organizations to
which they belong might be interested in a similar presentation.  (Yes, I
wrote this up on our Leadership Page, and I encourage all of you to write up
your dissemination activities.  Seeing what others had done helped me to
plan my session.)

4.)  Classes:  I've used the collection in class in the following ways:
        Reconstruction Role-Playing:  I used photos from the Daguerrotype
and Civil War collections to "jazz up" the role descriptions for this
activity
        Western Expansion:  It took only about 1 hr. to found 1-2 pg.
primary sources (mostly from the American West and Federal Writers' Project)
which offer insights into the Western experience.  I found documents by
farmers, cattlemen, miners, Native Americans, Hispanics, and a buffalo
hunter for the railroad.  We'll be using these in class next week to help us
answer the questions:  Whose West?   Whose Frontier?
       Farmers and Populists:  I am designing a lesson (which will have to
be finished by Tuesday!) using the photographs and documents from either the
Northern Great Plains collection and/or Rural Life in the US page (from the
Learning Page.)  I anticipate that this will be a two day lesson in which
students do some research on these pages and then present their results to
the class.

I've got to get back to actually working on these lessons, so a hui hou
(until next time.)