Archives: Archives and Education part 2

In response to this week’s readings about outreach, and the prompt on the syllabus, I took a look at the lesson plans from NARA’s Teachingwith Documents. The homepage is written for teachers and the material is separated into sections that easily align with chronological American history teaching sections. I clicked on ‘Expansionand Reform (1801-1868)’ and because I have recently spent time at APS, was drawn into 'The Lewis and Clark Expedition' lesson plan.

The main page of the lesson plan includes a short narrative of the Lewis and Clark Expedition followed by links to documents from the archives. On a sidebar are links to more resources, including the National History Standards that the lesson correlates to and more distinct teaching activities. The lesson plan emphasizes the Louisiana Purchase and Manifest Destiny. The website does not specify target ages, but this one seems to be most appropriate for high schools.

That the documents only include items from the National Archives highlights one of the limitations of this type of lesson plan. The Lewis and Clark journals, along with much of the expedition’s documentation are at the APS. This absence has little affect on the lesson plan, and to its credit it does list the printed copy of the journals as an additional resource. In terms of teaching students how to do research, it could be beneficial that the National Archives only has a limited selection of relevant documents because students can learn that finding an answer to a question involves looking in multiple places.

In terms of outreach, the lesson plans are effective. Making the lesson plans involve consulting with high school teachers, who wrote the narratives introducing the topics. Linking the plans with school standards also follow Rettig’s suggestion of capitalizing on what the target public already uses and needs. Now having looked at two different education sites, and visited a few more (DocsTeach from the National Archives may be a later post), I am only beginning to understand the scale and possibilities of this type of outreach.