Teaching with Primary Sources at Eastern Illinois University

Primary Sources in the Classroom

Why Use Primary Sources?

http://memory.loc.gov/learn/educators/handouts/prsrc.pdf

For years historians and educators have understood the value of primary sources in K-12 education.

Students at their desks

  1. Primary sources expose students to multiple perspectives on great issues of the past and present. History, after all, deals with matters furiously debated by participants. Interpretations of the past are furiously debated among historians, policy makers, politicians, and ordinary citizens. Working with primary sources, students can become involved in these debates.
  2. Primary sources help students develop knowledge, skills, and analytical abilities. When dealing directly with primary sources, students engage in asking questions, thinking critically, making intelligent inferences, and developing reasoned explanations and interpretations of events and issues in the past and present.
Develop critical thinking skills…

Primary sources are snippets of history. They are incomplete and often come without context. They require students to be analytical, to examine sources thoughtfully and to determine what else they need to know to make inferences from the materials.

Understand all history is local…

Local history projects require students to "tell their stories" about familiar people, events, and places. Memories from an adults perspective provide a glimpse of history not available in a textbook. What evolves is the sense that world history is personal family history, which provides a compelling context for student understanding.

Acquire empathy for the human condition…

Primary sources help students relate in a personal way to events of the past coming away with a deeper understanding of history as a series of human events.

Consider different points of view in analysis…

In analyzing primary sources, students move from concrete observations and facts to making inferences about the materials. "Point of view" is one of the most important inferences that can be drawn. What is the intent of the speaker, of the photographer, of the musician? How does that color one's interpretation or understanding of the evidence?

Understand the continuum of history…

It is difficult for students to understand that we all participate in making history everyday, that each of us in the course of our lives leave behind primary source documentation that scholars years hence may examine as a record of "the past." The immediacy of first-person accounts of events is compelling to most students.

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Selecting Primary Sources

American Memory Search

Learning Page Lesson Framework. (n.d.) Retrieved October 1, 2007, from http://memory.loc.gov/learn/lessons/fw.html

Interest

What kinds of sources are of particular interest to my students?

Reading Level

How difficult is the reading level of the primary source compared to my students' abilities? What might help my students comprehend this material (a glossary of terms, for example)?

Length

How long is the source? Do I need to excerpt a portion of the source given my students' abilities and/or time constraints? How do I ensure that the original meaning of the source is preserved in the excerpt?

Points of View

Are various points of view on a given topic, event, or issue fairly represented in the sources I have chosen to use? Have I achieved proper balance among the competing points of view?

Variety of Sources

Have I included a variety of types of sources (e.g., published, unpublished, text, visual, and artifacts)?

Location

Where can I or my students find the sources we need (the school or public library, the local history society, over the Internet)?

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Why Do Primary Sources Offer Unique Inquiry-Based Learning Opportunities?

Why do primary sources off unique inquiry-based learning opportunities? (2007). Retrieved October 1, 2007, from TPS Northern Virginia http://www.primarysourcelearning.org/primary_sources/why.shtml

  1. Offer an object to look at & refer to. Learners can point to the things that they see in the source. Digital primary sources can be enlarged and cropped to look closely at one section at a time. Students can go on to conduct research or read a textbook and then return to the primary source to use their new learning to see more details in the source.
  2. Connect to personal experiences. Learners relate to primary sources on a variety of levels. Perhaps the relationship is as simple as the learner has taken a picture or written a letter, the learner may have visited the location where the primary source was created, or the source may connect with learner background knowledge about the subject or time period when the source was created. The first impulse that a learner has when looking at a primary source is connect what they see to their previous experiences. Making connections to previous knowledge and experiences is one of the most important factors in successful learning.
  3. Raise curiosity. Primary sources are fragments of life that have survived. Whether the source is a picture, letter, map, sound recording, or oral history, the source does not come to the learner with an interpretation. Primary sources inspire questions such as: "What is this?" "Why was it made?" and "What might this tell me?". Primary sources are real mysteries that learners with all levels of expertise can solve.
  4. Have multiple meanings. The past is constantly being interpreted in new ways as discoveries are made. Primary sources may support multiple and novel interpretations. Because there is no one correct answer students are required to justify their thinking and use their own knowledge and experiences to develop unique interpretations of the primary source.
  5. Relate to multiple subjects. Our experiences in life are not neatly divided into subject such as Science, Math, Music, Social Studies, and Language Arts. Rather our experiences usually relate in some ways to many subjects. Since primary sources are fragments from real life, the sources usually relate to many subjects. Learners may use their expertise in a particular subject to interpret and see details in a primary source. The same source maybe referred to in many subjects.
  6. Require reflection and making connections. Learners can refer back to the same primary sources many times to find new discoveries. Just one quick glance at a source won't be enough for a learner. Learners will need to revisit and think about what they see in a primary source. This thinking process encourages learners to reflect on their understanding or a topic and make connections between their knowledge and experiences.

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How Are Teachers Using Primary Sources During Instruction?

Teacher and students

How do teachers use primary sources during instruction. (2007). Retrieved October 1, 2007, from TPS Northern Virginia http://www.primarysourcelearning.org/primary_sources/how.shtml

When teachers Connect they:

Use primary sources to illustrate curricular topics, build context or background knowledge, generate thinking, and make connections with students.

In the classroom, Connect looks like:

One primary source is used in an Introduction with an Understanding Goal and Investigative Question.

When teachers Integrate they:

Connect +

Ask students to read, analyze, and interpret primary sources and use evidence from primary sources to support a hypothesis related to curriculum.

In the classroom, Integrate looks like:

A collection of primary sources and secondary source information are used in an Investigation.

When teachers Construct they:

Connect and Integrate +

Ask students to consider multiple perspectives through analysis of primary sources and use primary sources to articulate new understandings related to a discipline and curriculum.

In the classroom, Construct looks like:

Several groups of primary source collections and previous research on the topic are used in a Formal Assessment.

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Skills Students May Develop Through Interaction With Primary Sources

 

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Using Primary Sources Quick Start

American Memory Search

Using primary sources a quick start. (2007). Retrieved February 19, 2008, from http://www.loc.gov/teachers/preview/primarysources/

Primary sources are the raw materials of history - original documents and objects that have survived from the past. They are different from secondary sources, which are accounts of events written sometime after they happened.

Examining primary sources gives students a powerful sense of history and the complexity of the past. Helping students analyze primary sources can guide them toward higher-order thinking, better critical thinking and analysis skills.

Before you begin:

  1. Engage students with primary sources.
    1. Draw on students' prior knowledge of the topic.
    2. Ask students to closely observe each primary source.
    3. Who created this primary source?
    4. When was it created?
    5. Where does your eye go first?
    6. Help students identify key details.
    7. What do you see that you didn't expect?
    8. What powerful words and ideas are expressed?
    9. Encourage students to think about their personal response to the source.
    10. What feelings and thoughts does the primary source trigger in you?
    11. What questions does it raise?
  2. Promote student inquiry
    1. Encourage students to speculate about each source, its creator, and its context.
    2. What was happening during this time period?
    3. What was the creator's purpose in making this primary source?
    4. What does the creator do to get his or her point across?
    5. What was this primary source's audience?
    6. What biases or stereotypes do you see?
    7. Ask if this source agrees with other primary sources, or with what the students already know.
    8. Ask students to test their assumptions about the past.
    9. Ask students to find other primary or secondary sources that offer support or contradiction.
  3. Assess how students apply critical thinking and analysis skills to primary sources.
    1. Have students summarize what they've learned.
    2. Ask for reasons and specific evidence to support their conclusions.
    3. Help students identify questions for further investigation, and develop strategies for how they might answer them.

Analysis tools and thematic primary source sets created by the Library of Congress can provide helpful entry points to many topics.

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