From the Archives to the Classroom: Training Prospective Teachers through Archival Research

As the former normal college, The University of Southern Mississippi educates many of the state’s history and social studies teachers. As part of their professional development, all prospective teachers are required to take the Economic History of the United States and Mississippi History. Although these courses were originally designed as content courses, over the past decade they evolved into courses that require significant archival research. This presentation examines my collaboration with the University’s Special Collections to prepare educators to incorporate both archival materials and experiential, inquiry-based instruction into their classrooms. It describes three semester-length projects that research projects that I designed: Superfund Sites and Environmental Racism, The New Deal, and The Free State of Jones. For each project, I divided students into teams, each of which tackled one facet of a larger question. In the case of the Superfund Sites, I assigned each group a specific industry, such as the Hercules Chemical Plant in Hattiesburg. The members of the group reconstructed the history of the factory, traced its evolution using newspapers, photographs, and fire insurance maps, and then drew upon government reports and oral histories to discuss its toxic legacy. Regardless of the specific topic, each projects required students to master the secondary literature, identify and use primary sources to answer historical questions, and to collaborate with their peers to craft lesson plans that conform to the state’s social studies curriculum. By the end of the semester, students have not only mastered the content, they also have several lesson plans that include reams of primary sources they can take with them into the classroom as they launch their careers.