University of South Carolina

Columbia, South Carolina, 29204

Last updated on August 14, 2024

Grant awarded by

Library of Congress

Region

East

Organization Type

College/University

Congressional District(s)

Fiscal Year Of First Grant

FY 2006 [10/01/05 - 09/30/06]

Contributing Organization(s)

South Carolina Center for Community Literacy, South Carolina State Library, Richland County Public Library

Organization description

For over 220 years, the University of South Carolina (USC) Columbia has provided quality and accessible education for South Carolinians. Currently, there are over 35,364 students being served by USC Columbia. USC is one of only 131 public universities that are classified as a Carnegie Foundation Research 1 (R1) University – a top-tier designation in research activity and community engagement. The school library program in the School of Information Science (iSchool) at the University of South Carolina (USC) is ranked seventh in the nation in the U.S. News and World Report National Rankings for the School Library Media specialty, and 9th in the Youth Services specialty. Overall, the iSchool program at SLIS is ranked 17 out of 62 ALA accredited schools nationally. The iSchool is the only school of information science in the state of South Carolina. Like its parent institution, USC, the iSchool is fully committed to community engagement and service.

Project description

Pairing primary sources with graphic novels provides a unique opportunity for students to learn from both old and new resources, historical and contemporary. As stated on the LOC website, “Primary sources help students relate in a personal way to events of the past and promote a deeper understanding of history as a series of human events.” Graphic novels offer a fresh and engaging look at these events of the past, and the same can be said about primary sources. Both are powerful tools for empowering lifelong literacy. We are planning to continue this focus while also extending the scope of our activities by including a picture book focal text for our elementary-educator workshop. Both graphic novels and picture books provide powerful and engaging visual mediums for students to connect to primary sources.

The foundation of our program is our professional development workshop series featuring graphic novel creators as guest speakers. We provide instruction in reading/analyzing visual texts, interacting with primary sources, and searching/using the LOC resources during each workshop. At the end of each session, participants work in pairs to create an exemplar lesson plan that incorporates visual texts and primary sources on our project website.

TPS project focus

Curriculum
Teaching Materials
Workshops

Content focus

American Revolution
Civil Rights
World War II
Art
English Language Arts
History
Library/Media Studies
Literacy
Science
Technology

Audience

Classroom teachers
Librarians/Media specialists
Teacher candidates/Student teachers

Level(s)

3 - 5
6 - 8
9 - 12

Population focus

African Americans
Asian Americans
English language learners
Hispanic/Latinx
Jewish Americans
Learners with disabilities
LGBTQIA+
Low income
Native American/Indigenous
Women and girls