Teaching with Primary Sources

Want to bring your class to our archive? Or do you want our archive to come to you? The Gore Center staff and graduate assistants instruct classes on primary source literacy and American history using documents, photographs, objects, and oral histories from our own collections. We also love helping students with National History Day projects! Contact Sarah.Calise@mtsu.edu or Donna.Baker@mtsu.edu to get plan and schedule classroom instruction. 

***Due to staff and funding constraints, we tend to only instruct classes in the Middle Tennessee grand division. If you are located in West or East Tennessee, please contact us to see if a visit from us is possible, or if we can connect you with one of our partners in your area.

Topics Covered in Classroom Instruction

Due to the content of our collections, our classroom instruction focuses on late 19th and 20th century American history, and we are especially equipped to teach Tennessee-specific subjects. 

• The Civil War & Reconstruction
• World War I, the Roaring Twenties, and the Great Depression
• World War II
• Civil Rights Movement
• Cold War
• Modern United States
• African American Issues in Contemporary Times
• United States Government and Civics

Other Opportunities

If our classroom instruction does not quite fit your needs, here are some other ways we can serve you:

Navigating Digital Collections: We recognize that our classroom instruction is limited to modern American history courses. However, our staff are professionally trained to help you find information, so we would be more than happy to locate digital sites and collections that contain primary sources on world history and geography, ancient history, European history, and beyond. 

Building Your Own Primary Source Activities: Maybe you want to build your own primary source activities, but you do not have access to archival material. Our staff can provide primary sources from our own collections or help you use sources from digital collections managed by institutions throughout the world. You can use our primary sources on-site or we can send you materials to work with.

MTSU’s Teaching with Primary Sources: MTSU has our very own Teaching with Primary Sources department that is dedicated to serving educators across Tennessee by improving the way primary sources are used to promote critical thinking in the classroom and across the curriculum. Check out their website for lesson plans, primary source sets, and tools for teachers: http://library.mtsu.edu/tps/