Introducing Ashleigh and Favorite Library of Congress Links

Hello! My name is Ashleigh Oatts and I’m taking over for Jason as the TAH Grant Assistant. I’ve been all over Knoxville and middle Tennessee working in museums and historic houses, so I won’t list them all, but currently I work as the Assistant Director at Marble Springs State Historic Site (John Sevier’s home) when I’m not at ETHS. Some of you all may have met me on a TAH trip to Blount Mansion- I worked there from July 2010- June 2011.

I worked with the Teaching with Primary Sources across Tennessee (TPS-TN) program while I was in graduate school, so I thought I’d share some of my favorite things found within the Library of Congress Web site to introduce you all to me. If you receive the TPS-TN newsletter, you may have seen these before, since I eagerly looked forward to writing about all the cool links/ images/ games I would find. I’ve stayed away from the areas usually covered in Level I workshops from TPS.

1. “How the States Got Their Shapes” Webcast : I just discovered that a television show exists now on the History Channel, but the author of the book that inspired it, Mark Stein, gave a talk that was turned into a Webcast by the LOC. What’s even better is that if you don’t have time to watch the whole Webcast, the transcript is available. I’m not even going to spoil it, but there’s a great bit about Kentucky and Tennessee that I didn’t know about. 
2. Presentations & Activities: Did you know that the LOC has games geared towards students (but are equally fun for everyone?) As part of my job, I looked at every link under Presentations and Activities (be sure to notice that “Activities” requires an extra click), and I’ve got to say, “It’s No Laughing Matter” and “The Declaration of Independence: Rewriting the Rough Draft” were my favorites (trust me- this was a hard decision to just keep it to two!) Don’t forget to check out the Presentations page- there are so many great links here too. 
3. Veteran’s History Project: My favorite time period is World War II, so it’s no surprise that I like this part of the Web site. Those teaching 11th grade can also PARTICIPATE! Also- this project isn’t limited to just World War I and World War II. It covers all wars that America has been involved with since World War I, including Iraq and Afghanistan.
4. Today In History: So, I may have stretched the truth a bit- this one does seem to get covered in Level I training, but I wanted to point out my favorite feature: “Archives”. Want to see what happened on a specific day (say… your birthday or special event or something)? Or, want to see what events mention specific names or places? That can all be found through Archives. 

I hope this list provided some cool new areas of the Library of Congress’s Web site for you to check out! I look forward to working with all of you.

Posted by Ashleigh Oatts - 07/02/2012, 01:39 PM