Open Registration for Summer Professional Development

We are now accepting applications for Primarily Teaching—our summer institute for educators on using historical documents in the classroom. Learn more and apply online.

Summer 2015 workshops will be held at our locations in:

• Atlanta (Morrow, GA) June 22–26
• Chicago, June 22–26
• Seattle, July 6–10
• Washington, DC, July 6–10
• West Branch, IA, July 20–24

All workshops will have a national theme—Exploration, Encounter, Exchange in History—matching that of National History Day in 2016. Participation in the National History Day competition is not required.

Each National Archives location will explore a specific case study, with original documents in our archival holdings, that fits within this broader theme:

• Atlanta: To the Moon!: NASA Records
• Chicago: The U.S. Encounters a World War: The WWI Homefront in the Midwest
• Seattle: Effects of Lewis and Clark on Modern Native America
• Washington, DC: Chinese Immigration to the United States, 1882-1920
• The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library (West Branch, IA): Case Studies from the Hoover Library

Digitization of documents related to these case studies will be our priority. You will find between 3 and 5 items (documents, photos, maps, etc.) to scan and describe. We will add these to our online tool for teaching with documents—DocsTeach.org—while participants are onsite. During the workshop, you’ll produce a DocsTeach learning activity using the digitized materials.

After guided research using the case study, you will have the opportunity to continue researching the case study, or go on to independently research a more specific topic of your choice related to Exploration, Encounter, Exchange.

Last year’s participants in Chicago, Washington, DC, Atlanta, and Boston located and scanned almost 150 primary sources that are now available to educators on DocsTeach!

Topics included:

• immigration,
• civil rights,
• the Tennessee Valley Authority,
• school segregation,
• and investigations into Ellis Island.

Join us this summer!

Primarily Teaching is made possible in part by the National Archives Foundation, through the support of Texas Instruments and the William Randolph Hearst Foundation.