Primary sources are powerful teaching tools, but teachers don’t always know where to start when planning inquiry-based primary source lessons. Join me as I plan a Zoom-In Inquiry lesson using primary sources from the Library of Congress. 

⏱️ 1900 words, 7 minutes

Why teach with primary sources? 

At their best, primary sources increase rigor, relevance, and accessibility for all students. 

• Rigor: Primary sources demand complex interpretation and have no “right answers.” They require background knowledge and an understanding of sourcing and contextualization—who made the source and in what time period. 
• Relevance: Primary sources cover a wide range of topics, allow for interpretation from multiple subject areas, and offer connections to diverse student experiences and interests. 
• Accessibility: Primary sources come in multiple formats and contain multiple levels of complexity. They can also be easily modified to add supports and extensions. 

What is Zoom-In? 

Zoom-In is a learning routine that invites students to uncover a primary source piece by piece. 

• Students begin by looking closely at just a small piece of a primary source. 
• As more of the source is revealed, students answer a series of increasingly complex questions with details from the image. 
• Once the whole image is revealed, students learn more context about the image. 
• Finally, students use their new understanding of the image to help them answer a bigger question that connects to broader learning goals.
  

How do I make one? 

• Learn more about Zoom-In inquiries through this free online professional development. 
• Watch me model how I make my own Zoom-In inquiry below. 

My Zoom-In: School Integration

I’ve decided to make my Zoom-In activity about school integration as part of a unit on the 20th-century Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. 

Start at the end 

Strong lesson planning almost always starts from the end. I’ll begin by considering: 

• What I want students to know and be able to do by the end of the lesson. 
• What big question I want them to be able to answer. 

In this particular lesson, I want students to know that: 

• Not everyone in the U.S. has always had access to education. 
• For hundreds of years, it was illegal for many African Americans to learn to read and write. 
• Even after the end of slavery, Black and White students learned in segregated schools. 
• The Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education ended legal segregation of schools in the U.S. 

I want them to be able to: 

• Look closely at primary sources and make evidence-based claims from what they see. 
• Revise their thinking as they learn more from what they see and read. 
• Connect primary sources to broader historical context and past learning. 

The big question I want them to answer should connect to the larger themes and essential understandings of my unit. Since my unit is about the Civil Rights Movement and its push to expand access and equality for racial minorities, my big question will be: 

How has race affected who has gotten access to education in the United States throughout its history?

I’ll write my big question down on a slide that will come at the end of the lesson. 

Find an engaging source 

Now I need a source that will help my students make sense of this topic, preferably a visual one like a photograph or a painting. It needs to have compelling details that invite curiosity and push students to inquire further. 

The best place to start is the Library of Congress, which has a vast collection of primary sources and resource guides that will help me find what I need. 

• I start by searching “Brown v. Board of Education” on loc.gov. 
• The first item that comes up is an exhibition called “Brown v. Board at Fifty” that features a number of images related to the decision. 
• I scroll through the images and come up with two candidates:
• An image of Dr. Kenneth Clark conducting the famous “Doll Test” with a young Black child in 1947. 
• An image of a newly-integrated elementary school classroom in Washington, D.C. from 1955

Both are powerful images, but I end up deciding to go with the second image because the first requires more context about the experiment that won’t really help my students achieve the objectives for this lesson. 

• For students who are curious, I’ll still include the image and information about the Doll Test in the Extension materials later on (see below).

Crop in on a powerful detail 

I begin designing the actual Zoom-In activity by placing the full image on a blank slide. From there, I duplicate the slide and get ready to make my first crop. 

The first piece of the image you show students is arguably the most important.

• It should inspire curiosity and get students excited for the next piece of the image you reveal. 

In this image, there are a few details that jump out at me: 

• The expressions on the students’ faces, particularly the goofy smile on the face of the Black girl in the middle and the side-eye from the girl second from the right.
• The clothes the students are wearing, from frilly dresses to shirts and ties. 
• The line of socks and shoes going across the bottom third of the image. 

Any of these could be good places to begin, but I actually don’t really want to give away the fact that this image is of an integrated classroom at the beginning, so I might stay away from students’ faces. 

I like the image of a single student’s shoes as a place to start. For one thing, you can’t immediately tell the race of the student, particularly since the image is in Black and White. For another, shoes are relatable (I’ve had a lot of sneaker heads in my classes) and invite questions about the context: 

• Are they dancing shoes? 
• Church shoes? 
• Why is one slightly off the ground? 

I crop in on a small square of just two sets of shoes, and I add the simple question: “What do you notice in this image?”

Reveal more and sequence questions 

It’s time to give students more. I duplicate the first crop and look for the next piece to reveal. 

• I could go sideways and show more shoes, or I could go vertically and reveal the student. 
• I decide that it’s more engaging to reveal the student and her funny expression. 

To go with this new image, I’m just going to ask students what else they notice now. 

I continue revealing more of the image, layering increasingly complex questions as I go. One of my goals for this lesson is to get students to pay attention to context, so next I’ll ask them to look for clues about where and when the image was taken. 

Once they’ve done that, I’ll show them even more of the image and give them a chance to revise or add on to their earlier claims. 

• The additional context of visible desks and students lined up will likely confirm for students that this was taken in a school. 

Finally, I’ll show students the whole image and ask them what they think this image is about. 

Give students context 

Now that I’ve made my Zoom-In, I need to figure out two things: 

1. What do students need to know before they start the Zoom-In to make sense of the image? 
2. What should I reveal to them after the Zoom-In to give them a more complex understanding of what’s going on? 

I decide that in order to understand what’s going on in the image in the first place, they need some background on our overall topic: access to education in the U.S. 

I create two short slides with three bullet points each about the most important context I think they’ll need before they start: 

• Education has not always been available for everyone in the U.S. 
• Even after more people got access to education, children of different racial backgrounds were often kept separate from one another. 

After they do the Zoom-In, I’ll reveal the context of where and when the image was taken and introduce them to the key event of Brown v. Board of Education. 

Check for understanding

After each piece of historical context, I need to check to make sure all my students understand what I’ve taught them. To do that, I’ll write two quick multiple choice questions to use as formative assessments. 

• If most students don’t get the correct answer, I’ll know I need to reteach the content to the whole class. 
• If some students don’t get the correct answer, I’ll offer those students a help resource. 

Find students’ starting positions 

I started at the end, and now I’m back at the beginning. Before I teach students the historical context they’ll need for the lesson, I have to warm them up and learn where they’re starting out (some teachers call this part of the lesson the “Do Now” or the “Bell Ringer”). 

• To do that, I want to start with something relatively low-lift (but meaningful) that everyone in the room can do. 

My lesson is about education and who gets access to it. All of my students have experience with education, so I want to start by giving them a chance to connect personally to the topic. 

• I decide to ask students what a learner looks like, since so much of my lesson will be about visual things, including race. 
• I might have students draw what they think a learner looks like, but I’m worried I’ll lose time on students’ artistic endeavors. 

I decide to have students pick from a set of images and explain why they think that image shows what a learner looks like. 

• I go back to loc.gov and search for historical images of students. I make sure to pick images with a diverse set of students and teachers (in terms of race, gender, age, and context). 
• If some students finish early, I’ll keep the drawing as an extension option. 

Let students reflect on their learning

To recap, I’ve now planned: 

• The beginning of the lesson, when I learn students’ starting positions. 
• The content-heavy part of the lesson, when I build students’ background knowledge. 
• The Zoom-In activity itself, when students engage with the primary source. 
• The big question students will answer using what they’ve learned from the image and the context. 

Once students have done all that, I want to give them a chance to reflect on what they’ve learned and make meaning from the lesson, drawing broader conclusions and connecting to past learning. 

To do this, I’ll have students use a learning routine that gives them a chance to think about their own learning (what learning scientists call metacognition). 

• I’ll ask students to compare their thinking about the image from the beginning of the Zoom-In to the end. 
• I’ll support students’ doing this by offering a structured way to respond, using a sentence frame: “I used to think… but now I think…” 

Offer extensions 

Now my lesson is all but done, but I still want to make sure that I give students ways to continue with their learning. 

• There are a whole bunch of topics and sources that I didn’t include in the lesson that some students might find fascinating. 
• Others might just want a straightforward review of what we discussed today. 
• I’ll offer students the option to learn more but won’t require it. If your school offers extra credit or other kinds of incentives for exemplary work, this would be a great place to use it. 

The finished product 

Attached below you’ll find my finished slides for this lesson, which I made interactive through Pear Deck. 

If Pear Deck isn’t your thing, you can also find handouts to go with the slides where students can take notes on what they’re seeing on paper. 

• Pear Deck Slides
• Google Slides
• Handouts