A Great Website for "Reading" Teachers...and That Means All of Us

I am really happy to share with you information about a website that does something critically important and does it well. It applies CCSS Reading Anchor Standards to Primary Source Images (photographs). The website is called Primary Source Nexus and can be accessed at http://primarysourcenexus.org.  The site is a joint project of the Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) program of the Library of Congress and the Barat Education Foundation. All content area teachers should find this useful.

Here are a few things you can find at this site:
Connecting to the Common Core—Analyzing Primary Source Images
There is a table showing how each of the ten CCSS Reading Anchor Standards corresponds to a photo analysis skill at http://www.primarysourcenexus.org/2012/03/analyzing-primary-source-images

Connecting to the Common Core—Image Questions & Responses

You can learn how to apply Taffy Raphael's Question-Answer Relationships to photo analysis at
http://www.primarysourcenexus.org/2012/04/connecting-to-the-common-core
Here you will find an explanation of QAR, a photograph to analyze, and a link to a student handout for applying QAR.

Connecting to the Common Core—Primary Source Triangle

You can learn how to apply Dr. Bertie Kingore's thinking triangle to photographs, an activity for dealing with the visual equivalent CCSS Anchor Standard 2. Go to:
http://www.primarysourcenexus.org/2012/04/connecting-common-core-primary
Here you will find an explanation of this activity, a photograph to use for analysis, and a link to a student handout for creating a thinking triangle.

There's a lot more on the homepage of the website. In fact, each activity provides links to other related activities—all of which are related to CCSS. This website is informative and practical. Check it out and consider signing up to receive email notification of new posts.

Sites like this one provide helpful reminders of the CCSS connections we can make while reading, writing, and having conversations about social studies and science topics.