Social Studies Methods: The Primacy of Primary Sources

1
Social Studies Methods The Primacy of Primary
Sources
2

• Jeni Venker Weidenbenner, MLIS, MAT, PhD Student
• Email MzWeidster_at_aol.com
• Section web site
• http//inquiry.uiuc.edu/bin/unit_update.cgi?comman
  dselectxmlfileu14119.xml
• Section room 192 Education

3
Pair Share

• How has your own past affected your life today?
• Select 1 of the most significant things that has
  changed your life. How would your life have been
  different if this event hadnt happened?

4
Why study history?

• "The first step in liquidating a people is to
  erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture,
  its history, Then have somebody write new books,
  manufacture a new culture, invent a new history.
  Before long the nation will begin to forget what
  it is and what it was. The world around it will
  forget even faster."
• (Source http//www.tntech.edu/history/whystudy.h
  tml Attribution Milan Kundera, The Book of
  Laughter and Forgetting )

5
What questions will help students connect with
history?

• Fundamental historical questions (NCSS, 1994)
• Who am I?
• What happened in the past?
• How am I connected to those in the past?
• How has the world changed and how might it change
  in the future?
• How do our personal stories reflect varying
  points of view and inform contemporary ideas and
  actions?

6
What are some teaching strategies that can build
knowledge?

• Field trips
• Guest speakers
• Demonstrations
• Lecture/Teacher presentations
• Games
• Role playing and simulations

• Discussions
• Reading/writing activities
• Social Studies kits
• Media
• Learning centers
• Inquiry
• Discrepant events

7
What are primary and secondary sources?

• Primary sources
• Firsthand testimony or direct evidence related to
  topic of study
• Can be in the form of a document or artifact
• Item could be a primary source in one
  investigation but a secondary source in another

• Secondary sources
• Accounts or interpretations based on the use of
  primary sources
• Textbooks are secondary sources but may contain
  facsimiles of photographs, documents, etc. that
  are primary sources

8
Why use primary sources?

• Beyond the Textbook
• Expose history through multiple perspectives and
  interpretations
• Personal Touch
• Connect students personally with people from the
  past
• Point of View
• Help students recognize points of view and
  biases, including their own, and analyze/evaluate
  interpretations

9
What types of primary sources are available for
classroom use?

• Personal records
• Birth certificates
• Social security cards
• Passports
• Diaries
• Photographs
• Report cards
• Letters
• Drawings
• Interviews
• Scrapbooks
• Recipes
• Clothes

• Other types of records
• Medical records
• Government records (e.g. census)
• Newspapers
• Artifacts
• Maps
• Sound recordings
• Motion pictures
• Cartoons
• Posters
• Historical landmarks

10
What questions can help evaluate sources?

• Who created the source and why?
• Was it a spontaneous or thoughtful creation?
• Was the creator an eyewitness or a voice for
  others?
• What biases, prejudices, values, opinions, or
  interests may have influenced the creator?
• Who was the intended audience?
• Did the author wish to inform or persuade?
• Did the author have reasons to be honest or
  dishonest?
• Was the information recorded during the event,
  immediately afterwards, or after some time had
  elapsed?
• Can the information be corroborated by another
  source?

11
What instructional techniques can be used with
primary sources?

• Evaluate the documents ask questions to
  determine accuracy and reliability
• Translate the documents paraphrase, interpret
• Examine unexpected, interesting, confusing events
• List recurring topics and events look for
  patterns
• Explore the meaning of peculiar vocabulary words
• Create imaginary sources based on the information
  found in real sources
• Compare the primary source with the information
  and views expressed in the textbook
• Compare the primary source with the information
  and views expressed in childrens trade books
  (fiction and non-fiction)

12
What historical thinking skills can be taught
with primary sources?

• Chronological thinking
• Historical comprehension
• Historical analysis and interpretation
• Historical research capabilities
• Historical issues-analysis and decision-making

13
What kinds of activities can foster chronological
thinking?

• Creating timelines
• Tracing changes in opinions, activities
• Identifying how current tools or resources that
  would have changed the historical persons life
  (e.g., George Washington with a cell phone)
• Matching dates in the document with timelines

14
What kinds of activities can promote historical
comprehension?

• Conducting interviews/obtain oral histories of
  modern events
• Locating historical places, tracing routes on a
  map
• Writing narratives of the event from various
  perspectives
• Citing evidence from the source that reveals a
  creators side of a conflict

15
What kinds of activities encourage analysis and
interpretation?

• Creating Venn diagrams to illustrate comparisons
  and contrasts of ideas, attitudes, behaviors
• Constructing a poster persuading people to
  support a certain viewpoint
• Analyzing how the world would be different today
  if an event from the past had not happened or
  had ended differently

16
What kinds of activities strengthen historical
issues-analysis and decision-making?

• Citing evidence from the sources to support a
  particular decision, course of action
• Identifying causes of conflicts
• Analyzing difficulties faced
• Assessing the alternatives that historical
  figures faced
• Identifying reasons for peoples actions
• Analyzing impact of events

17
Pair Share

• Think of a primary source that you could use in
  whatever content area you expect to teach (i.e.
  math, science, language arts, health, etc.).
  Brainstorm possibilities for using the source in
  a middle school classroom to teach each of the 5
  thinking skills in the context of your content
  area
• Chronological thinking
• Historical comprehension
• Historical analysis and interpretation
• Historical research capabilities
• Historical issues-analysis and decision-making

18
Primary Sources Resources

• Using Primary Sources on the Web
• http//www.lib.washington.edu/subject/History/RUSA
  /
• U.S. Census Bureau
• http//www.census.gov/
• National Archives and Records Administration
  (NARA)
• http//www.archives.gov/digital_classroom/index.ht
  ml
• Library of Congress
• http//www.loc.gov/teachers/
• Smithsonian National Museum of American History
• http//americanhistory.si.edu/educators/index.cfm
• Eyewitness to History
• http//www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/