A Framework for Using Primary Sources[1]

Using primary sources in research papers and projects is a time-honored way to engage students with historical materials. Yet primary sources can be incorporated into all phases of instruction. This framework will help you use primary sources throughout your teaching.

The framework is divided into four sections:

1.     Rationale for Using Primary Sources

2.     Selecting Sources

3.     Organizing Instruction

4.     Activities for the Instructional Cycle

1. Rationale for Using Primary Sources

For years, historians and other educators have understood the value of primary sources in K-12 education. Two key reasons for including primary sources in the curriculum are:

• Primary sources expose students to multiple perspectives on great issues of the past and present. History, after all, deals with matters that were furiously debated by the participants. Interpretations of the past are furiously debated as well, among historians, policy makers, politicians, and ordinary citizens. By working with primary sources, students can become involved in these debates.
• Primary sources help students develop knowledge, skills, and analytical abilities. By 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.

 

2. Selecting Sources

Here are some questions to answer before selecting primary sources for your students:

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• Variety of Sources - Have I included a variety of types of sources (e.g., published, unpublished, text, visual, and artifacts)?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

 

3. Organizing Instruction

To organize the use of primary sources in your classroom, consider the following:

• Activity Types - How will the primary sources be used (as the basis for class discussion, written reports, in-class presentations, role playing, or other instructional strategy?)
• Classroom Management - How will I organize students for an activity? Will the primary source activity lend itself to individual, small group, or whole class participation?
• Time - How much time must I allocate for completion of student tasks?
• Assessment - What product or performance will my students create as a result of this experience with primary sources? How will I assess that product or performance?

 

4. Activities for the Instructional Cycle

Here are ideas for incorporating primary sources into four phases of instruction.

A.    Focus Activities

Focus activities can be used to introduce a topic or to re-engage students during a longer unit of instruction. Use one or two short primary sources to begin a lesson, unit, or block of instruction.

For focus activities, choose primary sources that:

∑      present a puzzle;

∑      challenge a stereotype or conventional wisdom;

∑      present a contradiction;

∑      offer an insight (or aha! experience);

∑      promote empathy (through a human interest story);

∑      present a generalization or explanation against which different generalizations or explanations can be compared later.

Present focus activities using the following techniques:

∑      Generate one or two well-crafted questions about the sources. Use the questions to spark a class discussion or as a task for pairs of students to answer.

∑      Ask students to freely write their reactions to a thought-provoking document. Then, as a class, compare different reactions prompted by the document.

∑      After reviewing one or two primary sources, have small groups of students generate a list of questions about the upcoming topic of instruction.

∑      Use contemporary primary sources to focus instruction on a historical period. For example, use a modern newspaper editorial on immigration, minimum wage, or welfare reform as a springboard into exploration of those issues in the past. Ask students to make predictions about historical debates based on what they have read in contemporary editorials. Similarly, a historical source on a recurrent topic can be used to spur inquiry into current debate on that recurring issue.

 

B.    Inquiry Activities

Help students explore main concepts in a block of instruction using an inquiry approach to primary sources.

∑      To develop an inquiry approach, provide students with a set of primary sources on a topic, concept, or time period. Students can use the Internet and other research tools to assemble sets of primary sources for themselves.

∑      Use primary source sets as the focus for a series of inquiry activities. Have students use primary source sets to answer questions about historical eras, generate and test hypotheses, and derive conclusions.

∑      Student inquiry can range from working exclusively with primary source documents to using selected primary sources to supplement the student textbook and other instructional materials.

 

C.   Application Activities

Use primary sources to help students apply the concepts they are learning and to extend that learning beyond the textbook, other instructional materials, or other primary sources.

∑      Primary sources can be used to challenge students to apply what they've learned from primary sources. Have students expand or alter textbook explanations of history based on primary sources they study.

∑      Provide students with the entire text of a primary source that has been excerpted in their textbook. Based on the full text of the primary source, ask students to defend or refute conclusions drawn by the textbook author. Then have students search online and in other sources for additional documents that support their conclusions.

∑      Present a set of primary sources in sequence. Ask students to consider how new documents support or challenge information and understanding garnered from other documents. Have students refine or revise conclusions based on their study of each subsequent primary source.

 

D.   Assessment Activities

Primary sources can be useful tools for evaluating student mastery of skills and concepts.

∑      Use primary sources to assess what students have learned and to evaluate their skill in analyzing primary sources. For evaluation activities, select either sources from the historical era under study or choose contemporary sources related to the historical topic. Actual assessment tasks might include having students:

∑      Write an essay about a primary source document. Explain how the source supports or challenges a commonly accepted conclusion about a time in history.

∑      Based on analysis of several primary sources, prepare an oral presentation taking a stand on an issue in history.

∑      Select primary source documents to create a museum display about an historical topic. Write captions for the items and justify the documents that were selected.

∑      Write a response to a primary source (speech, news article, sermon), taking the position of someone who lived at the time the source was created.

∑      Prepare a visual display (poster, magazine cover, illustrated timeline) that highlights the most important points to be gained from the primary sources under study.

TEACHING WITH BIOGRAPHIES

Biography writing is a wonderful way for students to learn about people, time periods, culture, and myriad other aspects of American history. In addition, students gain a sense of the biography genre, and learn to analyze historical data to draw conclusions. When a biography is written in conjunction with an important concept (e.g., a biography of Rosa Parks in conjunction with the concept of ìcourageî), then students are able to experience the personification of a concept by seeing it in the life of a real person.

 

Teacher responsibilities for teaching with biographies:

*          Select subject(s) that illuminate(s) one of the essential social studies (or science or literary or artistic) learnings you have identified

*          Fit the biography writing lesson to the overall sequence and content of the unit and/or yearly plan.

*          Help children meet specified learning targets

*          Teach skills needed to meet those targets

*          Keep track of what and how they are meeting those targets

*          Orchestrate the cooperative productions of biographies in small groups.

 

Below is a six-step process for helping students write a ìteam- biographyî using what M. Zarnowski has termed a ìsnapshot approachî to writing biographies:

Step 1.            TEACHER SELECTS PERSON/PEOPLE

            -Is s/he captivating?

            -Are there multiple perspectives available?

            -Is there material available?

            -Is the person appropriate for social studies themes/concepts?

            -Could learning about him/her clarify a mis/under-representation?

 

Step 2.            STUDENTS LEARN ABOUT SUBJECT

 

Step 3.            CLASS BRAINSTORMS KEY EVENTS

 

Step 4.            WHOLE CLASS (or teams) CHOOSE 4 - 5 EVENTS

            (e.g., turning points, interesting events)

 

Step 5.            TEAMS WRITE "CHAPTERS"

                        -Event description + Illustration

                        -Writing process: sharing/revision

 

Step 6.            TEAM COMPILES BOOK:

            -Foreword                                                       -Title page

            -Introduction (with timeline and map)           -Chapters

            -"About the authors"

 

ADDITIONAL POSSIBILITIES

            -Dialogical reasoning (point/counterpoint)

            -Alternatives genres (narrative, historical accounts, poetry, drama)

 

REFERENCES:-Zarnowski, Learning with biography (1990)

Possible Learning Targets (note the potential for integrating content areas)

 

Academic Targets (content)

 

Social Studies content

*          develop an understanding of the ways in which world events, views and personalities influence the individual life of a person

*          develop an understanding of the way in which an individual person's life influences the world's events, views and personalities.

*          develop an understanding of the key events or turning points that help to shape an individual's life.

*          develop an understanding of how the subject's life represents an ongoing and changing conception of critical historical and social concepts.

 

Language Arts content

*          develop an understanding of historical biography as a literary form.

 

Art content

*          develop an understanding of the ways illustration add to and enhance the text

*          develop an understanding of the power of the visual to express the emotional qualities of the text

 

 

Intellectual Skill Targets

 

General thinking skills

*          interpret emotion and thought as expressed through language (visual and written)

*          organize sequence of events logically, literally, and spatially.

*          design and produce illustrations

*          suspend judgment

*          deal with ambiguity

 

 

History skills

*          reason historically (select key events, research evidence, etc..)

 

Language Arts (writing) skills

*          show improvement in final product over first drafts

*          show improvement in use of conventions (vocabulary, grammar)

*          show improvement in organizational conventions (titles, page layout, etc.)

*          adhere to the group decisions as to the format, vocabulary, reading level, and use of titles.

 

Art skills

*          show improvement in use of illustrations in the following areas

                        -expression of emotional content

                        -relevancy to the text

 

 

Social Skill Targets

This list of learning targets for social skills should be generated by the class. Once skills are identified then an observation checklist can be developed. See example of "clipboard" checklist for civic discourse. Once skills have been targeted, then it is important to teach the skills needed before assessing them.

 

*          waits until others have shared ideas before adding more

*          asks others for information or ideas

*          offers ideas, opinions and information

*          completes own important part of the work

*          criticizes ideas not people

*          repeats others ideas before responding/contributing to discussion

*          works toward the group's goals

*          combines ideas of group members