Teaching with Primary Sources: Using Primary Sources
What are Primary Sources?
Primary sources enhance learning and encourage students to make connections between lessons and tangible historical evidence. Teachers have found that using primary sources in their lesson plans improves literacy, comprehension, and critical thinking skills. Incorporating primary sources into any education level is possible when designing education level appropriate exercises using the primary sources.
The first step in teaching with primary sources is to be able to easily articulate what a primary source is to students, as well as the difference between primary and secondary sources. Below is a video from the Library of Congress that can be used to explain this.
K-12 Education
The Library of Congress has created a plethora of resources to support teachers in using primary sources in their classroom. Their resources are primarily geared towards K-12 classrooms, though these resources may also be helpful for higher education instructors. Here is a list of various resources provided by the Library of Congress:
- The Teaching with Primary Sources Journal: Strategies and resources for K-12 classrooms from the Library of Congress
- Getting Started with Primary Sources
- Teaching with Library of Congress Primary Sources
- Teachers Guides and Analysis Tools
In addition to Library of Congress, other North Carolina and public institutions have created resources for teachers to support using primary sources. The North Carolina State Historical Records Advisory Board published a Teaching with Primary Sources tutorial with guidance for both elementary and secondary K-12 students. The North Carolina Digital Heritage Center has produced K-12 Activity Worksheets to support teachers in instructing students on how to analyze sources like newspapers, photographs, and maps.
UNC's libraries also offer education materials for K-12 educators look for books on teaching with primary sources. Below are some of the libraries holding that may be beneficial to teachers starting to incorporate primary sources into their lesson plans.
What Primary Sources Teach by ISBN: 9781440878565Publication Date: 2022-08-26Build confidence in delivering primary source-based instruction with easily adaptable, skill-based lessons that can be used in a variety of learning environments. Each lesson offers suggestions for differentiating instruction with diverse audiences, worksheets, and activity templates.What Primary Sources Teach provides practical and transferable lesson plans focused on skill-based instruction, including step-by-step instructions; ideas for differentiation; corresponding teaching tools, such as worksheets and activity templates; and suggestions for assessment. This book includes resources that are intuitive to classroom teachers and easily adoptable by librarians and informal educators tasked with translating their current primary source-based instruction to a K-12 environment.This book celebrates the role of primary source education and provides a wide range of educators with a shared language for articulating the relevance of teaching with primary sources. The reader will build confidence delivering primary source-based instruction as they work their way through the lesson plans, tools, and resources offered in this book. Eventually, they will feel comfortable designing lesson plans of their own for primary source-based instruction.
Teaching with Documents by ISBN: 0911333797Publication Date: 1989-01-01For teachers (secondary level) who wish to enliven their curriculum. Some 50 documents dating from the 1780s to the 1970s are presented, discussed, and accompanied by suggestions for classroom use. Spiral bound. Annotation(c) 2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Elementary Educator's Guide to Primary Sources by ISBN: 9781440863875Publication Date: 2018-12-04Focusing on student analysis of primary sources, this book explores several proven analysis strategies to use with students, including methods from the Library of Congress, the Stanford History Education Group, and Harvard's Project Zero.Many elementary school librarians and teachers want to incorporate primary sources into their lessons but struggle with how to do it. Whether you are starting from the beginning, have used strategies that didn't seem to work, or were underwhelmed by others' suggestions, this book shows you how you can successfully supplement and deepen your students' learning with primary sources.Focusing on proven strategies for elementary students, the book is divided into four sections, each of which demonstrates the strategies through real-world examples of student work. In the first three parts, it explores the three major considerations for using primary sources, strategies for analyzing primary sources, effectively using primary sources to teach different subject areas, and special considerations for different primary source formats. In the final part, the author shares tips that he has learned after years of bringing primary sources into his elementary school that will ensure success in students' primary source analysis.
Uncovering Our History by ISBN: 0838908624Publication Date: 2003-10-22In this useful handbook, expert/author Susan Veccia offers readers practical ways to incorporate these standards into their curriculum, using the resources of the Library of Congress's American Memory Website.
Teachers can also use databases provided by their library to search for articles and case studies on the efficacy of integrating primary sources into course curriculum. An example is "Getting Sources to Courses: Evaluating the Efficacy of Digital Primary Source Teaching Materials for K-12 Teachers" master's paper by Sophia Hollis in the Carolina Digital Repository.
Undergraduate Education
For undergraduates, using primary sources can enhance learning and be excellent additions to research. The American Library Association has created Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy aimed to support faculty, librarians, archivists, and other staff working with college and university students. While these guidelines are aimed for higher education, it may still be helpful for teachers and staff working with K-12 students.
Various organizations and instructors have provided reflection on using primary sources in instruction and provide educational support to higher education students and instructors. The Teaching with Primary Sources Collective posts case studies on instructor efforts to teach with primary sources and teach students on how to use primary sources in their research, like with Case 12: Scaffolding Primary Source Research and Analysis in an Undergraduate History Research Methods Course. Ithaka published a study on Teaching with Primary Sources: Looking at the Support Needs of Instructors, which can be found in UNC's library resources.
UNC's library system provides resources for instructors beginning to use primary sources in their education settings. The library offers books to learn more about primary source use geared for higher education, and gives access to databases for further research on the benefits of using primary sources in course curriculum and assignments.
Using Primary Sources by ISBN: 9781610694346Publication Date: 2014-03-20An ideal resource for cultural heritage professionals who teach with original materials, this book provides fresh, adaptable, and easy-to-implement primary source literacy exercises to improve their teaching and engage their students. Special collections librarians and archivists in academic settings are often confronted with the challenge of teaching classes outside their personal area of expertise, with very little notice or guidance--as the authors of this book can attest. Using Primary Sources: Hands-On Instructional Exercises features 30 adaptable, hands-on exercises that special collections librarians, archivists, museum professionals, and teaching faculty can use in a multitude of instructional situations with K-12, undergraduate, graduate, and library school students. The exercises teach lessons in both archival intelligence--such as building skills in using finding aids and locating primary sources--and artifactual literacy, such as building skills in interpretation and analysis of primary sources. Each exercise includes sections for audience, subject area, and materials used so that instructors can find customizable, easy-to-follow "recipes" to use regardless of personal experience and expertise. In addition, this consultable reference resource includes a bibliography of readings related to instruction in special collections, archives, and museum environments.
- JSTORProvides an image archive of important scholarly journal literature in nearly all the humanities and social sciences disciplines, international and foreign areas studies, and many of the sciences. UNC patrons have access to extensive retrospective holdings of hundreds of journals, starting with the first issues. Excludes the most recent 2-5 years of currently available journals.
Additionally, the library LibGuides offer curriculum guides focused on analysis of sources like English 105 Online Curriculum Module: Judging a Book by Its Cover.
In the "Finding Primary Sources" part of this guide, we will review how to search for primary sources, as well as explore prepared primary source sets and teaching guides for specific topics.