Inquiry-Based Teaching Tools Available!
Check out the high school history units that use our newspapers as primary sources! See Teach It: Bringing Connecticut History to the Classroom! All of these inquiry-based exercises are aligned with the new Connecticut Social Studies Framework. These include:
- Roots of Labor Unrest in Progressive Era Connecticut
- African Americans in Progressive Era Connecticut: The Battle Over the the Jack Johnson Fight Film
- The Immigrant Experience during World War I: Enemy Aliens
- Free Speech and Seditious Speech on the Connecticut First World War Home Front
- Black World War I Veterans Demand Civil Rights
- “Making Munitions is a Woman’s Job” during World War I
- “Women of Connecticut: Are You Helping?” The Reaction to Emergency Food Measures During World War I
Additional teaching units have been developed for Chronicling America by the NEH and by other state projects. Some of them can be viewed at EDSITEment and at National Digital Newspaper Project Extras! The Connecticut Project would love to come and demonstrate the use of Chronicling America to your teacher group or library. We are also looking for teachers and school librarians who are interested in using or helping to develop lesson plans using the Connecticut newspapers that become part of Chronicling America. If any of these things interest you, please contact Nicole Besseghir at Nicole.Besseghir@ct.gov and 860-757-6525 or Gail Hurley at Gail.Hurley@ct.gov and 860-704-2222.
Guides to Newspaper Content!
Guides to Newspaper Content, which provide sample Connecticut newspaper articles and bibliography for a variety of topics, may be of use to teachers as well.
Exactly What Primary Sources Can You Find Here?
The Connecticut Digital Newspaper Project (CDNP) has begun contributing issues of our state’s newspapers to Chronicling America, a fully keyword searchable online archive of historic newspapers. Sponsored by the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities, Chronicling America is a fabulous resource for teachers and school librarians anxious to introduce students to primary source research skills such as gathering and evaluating information, analysis, comparison and contrast, critical thinking, and the use of technology (Edsitement).
Are you Homeschooling?
Our free online Connecticut newspapers can be used to illuminate the historical periods covered in these chapters of the Time 4 Learning High School US History II Course (reviewed on the CT Home Schooling Network site):
Chapter 4 – The Gilded Age, 1865-1900
The materials in this chapter examine this period of wealth and elegance in America, tracing the growth of industrialization, the railroads, westward expansion, and considering their effects on the land, people, and economic development of the country. It is organized into sections that will teach, reinforce, and test students on the industrialization of the United States, the Transcontinental Railroad and the closing of the frontier, and societal and political issues of the Gilded Age.
Chapter 5 – Modern US, 1890-1920
The materials in this chapter examine the transitions that the United States made both domestically and internationally to become a world power. It is organized into sections that will teach, reinforce, and test students on emergence of the US as a world power, reform in the United States, and the events and causes of the Great War.
Chapter 6 – Post-War US, 1918-1940
The materials in this chapter examine life in the US after the Great War. It is organized into sections that will teach, reinforce, and test students on the events and culture of the 1920s, the economic collapse and the Great Depression, and the Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.