Funded by a grant from the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources program, Exploring the Writing Process with Primary Source Materials complements classroom writing instruction with activities using primary source materials from the Library of Congress’s digital collections that inspire, motivate, and empower students to write. Using primary sources coupled with complimentary learning materials, students will learn more about the steps of the writing process, including journaling, drafting, revision, editing, collaboration, and publishing. Exploring the Writing Process with Primary Source Materials offers teacher-created lesson plans as well as student exercises that can be incorporated into class curriculums or be used for individual study.

Our downloadable lesson plans invite students to study primary sources from the Library of Congress’s digital collections to further their exploration of the writing process. Lesson topics in this collection include journaling, drafting, revising, editing, collaboration/corresponding, and publishing. Each lesson includes direct links to primary source materials on the Library of Congress’s website, lesson instructions for students, and accompanying student hand-outs that can be used for in-person or virtual learning. These lessons may be used individually or together in order to model the writing process. Our lesson plans are teacher-created and align with Common Core State Standards as stated in each lesson. For these lesson plans, the assumption is made that students can define what a primary source is and what an artifact is. Current lesson plans focus on Rosa Parks, Frederick Douglass, Clare Boothe Luce, Langston Hughes, Woody Guthrie, and Walt Whitman.