The Art of Inquiry professional development webinar provides tools and strategies to help learners design meaningful driving questions and to structure their research plans as they explore primary and secondary sources with confidence and curiosity.
The live event took place on July 29th, but the webinar is now available on demand. (The video is under an hour). We are also sharing the slideshow used in the event below as both a PowerPoint and Google Slideshow.
Additionally, materials created for the webinar that can also support your planning as a teacher and classroom learning are also available below.
If you have any questions about the webinar or items shared during it, please contact Hershawna Frison at hershawna@journeysinfilm.org.
The Art of Inquiry is the first of three sessions in the Stories That Connect: Using Film and Primary Sources to Build Belonging professional development webinar series. View all sessions.
Funded by a grant from the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources program. Content created and featured in partnership with the TPS program does not indicate an endorsement by the Library of Congress.
You can watch this webinar on our YouTube channel.
The Art of Inquiry Professional Development
The slideshow is also available as a Google Slideshow: access now.
Webinar Hand Out Materials
Windows and Mirrors
The Art of Inquiry - Active Listening Handout
This may be useful when the filmmaker joins the webinar and shares her experience.
This segment includes instruction on sourcing and analyzing assets from the Library of Congress (LOC) digital archives, equipping educators with concrete ways to bring authentic, historical voices into the classroom.
To take full advantage of this learning and tool-building opportunity, we recommend participating in all three webinar sessions.
At the end of the three-part webinar series, educator participants of any of the workshops will receive a Project-Based Learning Toolkit designed and developed over the course of the webinar series. Informed by the strategies and themes explored in each webinar, the toolkit will include practical insights, customizable templates, sample student project ideas, curated Library of Congress resources, and ready-to-use classroom strategies. It will be designed to strengthen learners’ research skills, particularly their ability to navigate archival collections, critically evaluate primary sources, and engage thoughtfully with multimedia cultural products.
Samantha Ramirez-Herrera is an award-winning filmmaker and storyteller whose work explores migration, memory, and cultural continuity through place-based narratives. She has spent over a decade documenting social and environmental movements across the U.S. and the globe, capturing stories at the intersection of identity, resilience, and transformation. In 2025, she was named an Explorers Club 50 (EC50) Explorer.
Through poetic yet grounded visual storytelling, Samantha bridges personal experience and collective history, creating work that fosters reflection, connection, and care across diverse audiences and institutions.
These tips can help you engagement in safe and productive discussions in this webinar.
The Glossary of Film Terms may be useful for the discussions around film and filmmaking in this webinar.
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