Open Educational Resources
Document Type
Lesson Plan
Publication Date
Fall 9-11-2026
Abstract
This lesson plan integrates New York Public Library (NYPL) and Queens College (QC) archival menu collections to weave together archival theory, sociological theory, and ephemera as data. Students engage unorganized, digital, and material collections, visit a CUNY transfer campus, and develop critical thinking, research, and presentation skills through scaffolded active-learning activities aligned with course content. The PDF package contains assignments that constitute the multi-week lesson, as well as the IRB-approved instruments administered to students to gauge understanding/learning.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.
CUNY OER Funding
CUNY OER Initiative
Included in
Food Studies Commons, Inequality and Stratification Commons, Place and Environment Commons, Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies Commons, Race and Ethnicity Commons, Sociology of Culture Commons
Comments
This lesson plan was created as a part of the 2026 Archives and Open Knowledge Faculty Fellowship, funded by the Cultivating Archives and Institutional Memory Project with the aim of integrating CUNY archival materials into classroom instruction and research. The Fellows served as teaching ambassadors for CUNY’s archival collections, spreading interest among other faculty and their students. Through guided work with CUNY history primary sources, students will gain knowledge in the use of historical records in their scholarship.