Incorporating visual and performing arts into instruction helps students to relate personally to academic subject matter, broadens the range of modes of expression, and empowers student voice. Philadelphia's University of the Arts has posted many guides to using the arts in instruction with primary sources.

Selected guides - go to the University of the Arts website for more: 

Emerging America's lesson plan template features a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) grid borrowed from Social Studies & Exceptional Learners (see below). It is designed to support teaching of Social Studies. Three columns call for strategies that support the UDL instructional framework (see description in Accessing Inquiry clearinghouse). 

In this lesson, students learn about the Social Security Act and its provisions to care for the elderly, the unemployed, mothers and children, and children and adults with disabilities.  Students will examine several primary source images and documents related to the New Deal era, using a primary source analysis organizer. The lesson offers options in how students can show their learning. This lesson plan has a special feature: the teacher who authored it offers reflections on how teaching the lesson worked with her class when she taught it the first time.

This lesson encourages students to visualize the journeys and lives of immigrant children in the early 20th century and also of immigrant children today. It features video interviews with kids who have recently immigrated and archival photos of child immigrants from the turn of the 20th century. The multi-day lesson is designed to help elementary school students learn from primary and secondary sources, and also uses historical fiction and imaginative prompts to develop understanding and empathy for the immigrant experience.

Who gets accepted as a citizen or as an immigrant?  Who is considered a desirable immigrant? Students will work in small groups to examine a primary source text and image set about immigrants at the turn of the 20th century.  They will use the sources to develop a deeper understanding of the hurdles and discrimination many immigrant groups faced. In addition to learning about race-based entry policies, students will observe that many types of disabilities were considered undesirable and would keep an immigrant out.

In the following lesson plan students will examine several primary source images and documents related to Civil War wounded. From the sources, students will develop a narrative about changes in the responsibilities of the federal government in response to the enormous numbers of wounded Union soldiers. This lesson can stand alone or kick off a research project. 

See the online exhibit How Civil War Transformed Disability. Use the Exhibits pull-down button above. 

The following unit plan highlights how patterns of immigration are both similar and different for immigrant groups coming to America. The cornerstone of the unit is a diagram and PowerPoint Presentation detailing the progression of the immigrant experience that serves as a model for a variety of immigrant groups. Included in the set is a Universal Design for Learning chart and an extensive annotated list of primary source documents from the Library of Congress provide a visual reinforcement of the immigrant journey both before, during, and after their arrival in the United States.