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There's More Than One Way to Engage with Primary Sources!

Site: Colorado Education Learning Management System
Course: High Impact Instructional Strategies in Social Studies
Book: There's More Than One Way to Engage with Primary Sources!
Printed by: Guest user
Date: Friday, 3 May 2024, 10:03 PM

Description

In this module, educators will learn 5 different strategies to engage students in reviewing, comprehending, and analyzing primary sources.

What is a Primary Source?

Primary sources are the voices of the past. They are the raw materials of history — original documents and objects which were created at the time under study. They are different from secondary sources, accounts or interpretations of events created by someone without firsthand experience.  Documents, letters, posters, film, artifacts, photographs, maps, etc. can be primary sources that tell the story of people, places, an events of the past.

Why Use Primary Sources in the Classroom?

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

Using Primary Source Analysis Strategies Helps:

  • Enrich student understanding of content

  • Build historical thinking skills and context

  • Derive conclusions based on evidence

  • Examine bias, perspective, and POV

  • Reinforce the importance of sourcing


Table of contents

1. Zoom-In

This strategy focuses students' attention on one small piece of an image at a time.  By doing this, students can describe what they see, make inferences, and draw conclusions.

  1. View this short PowerPoint demonstrating the Zoom-In strategy
  2. How to Create a Zoom-In Inquiry Activity

REFLECT:

    1. How might you incorporate this strategy into your classroom?
    2. What skills will students demonstrate through a Zoom in Inquiry?

2. Sentence-Phrase-Word

The Sentence-Phrase-Word thinking routine helps learners to engage with and make meaning from text with a particular focus on capturing the essence of the text or “what speaks to you”.  The power of the routine lies in the discussion of why a particular word, a single phrase, and a sentence stood out for each individual in the group as the catalyst for rich discussion. Learners must justify their responses and it sets the stage for considering themes, implications, predictions, and lessons to be drawn.  We are going to look at slave narratives for this strategy.

The Library of Congress and Slave Narratives
  1. What they are, context of collection, etc. 
    • Caution: These slave narratives contain language and themes that may be offensive to some. Must be understood as historical language and taken in context.

SlaveMap

Building Historical Context and Empathy 

Read through the excerpts of the slave narratives linked below.  

  • Slave Narratives

Here is the Sentence-Word-Phrase graphic organizer

  1. Review the text that you have read and select: 

        • a sentence that was meaningful to you and helped you gain a deeper understanding of the text. 
        • a phrase that moved, engaged, provoked or was in some way meaningful to you. 
        • a word that captured your attention or struck you as powerful. It is useful to have students write their sentence, phrase and word on three separate post-it notes. 
2.  In a group, briefly share your responses and explain why you selected the sentence, phrase and word that you chose. As the group is sharing have one member of the group act as a recorder. Or, if using post-it notes, post the notes for each response in a chart under the headings sentence, phrase and word. 
3. Look at the groups’ responses. Consider: 
  • What implications/interpretations surrounding the text emerge from the group’s responses? 
  • What common themes emerge in the group’s responses? 
  • What aspects/points of the text are lacking? Why do you think this is? 2 Have each group member reflect briefly on their current understanding of the text and how the protocol process contributed to his or her current understanding.
For complete directions on how to implement this strategy, click here

3. Source Comparison

When comparing two sources from different time periods, it allows students to see change over time and then consider how that change may affect people and places.


Railroad Maps 1870 - 1890

  1. What differences do you see between the two maps?
  2. What might you infer about those differences?
  3. What do these maps show about changes in transportation in 20 years?

Reflect:

  1. When might you use this strategy in your classroom?
  2. What higher order thinking skills might students demonstrate with this strategy?

4. Levels of Listening

Listening is the active process of receiving, interpreting, and responding to messages.

It is necessary to explicitly teach listening skills. Break students into groups. Give each group a different level to listen for. Listen to the recording 2-3 times, sharing out as a class discussion each time. Levels of Listening - Questions.

There are 5 levels of listening:

  1. Discriminative
  2. Precise
  3. Strategic
  4. Critical
  5. Appreciative

For this strategy, have students listen to a short speech, poem, etc.  

Listen to Tanya Winder read her poem 5 times, each time focusing on a level of listening. Tanya's poem is entitled:  like any good indian woman

Tanya WinderTanya Winder 

Part of Living Nations, Living Words Project by the Library of Congress https://www.loc.gov/item/2020785246/






The levels of listening in further detail: See this slide deck for types of questions aligned with each level of listening.

Discriminative:

    • Identifying individual sounds or sources  
    • Phonological awareness  
    • Vocal expression  
    • Onomatopoeia  
    • Nonverbal clues

Precise:

    • Associating words and meanings
    • Deducing the meaning of words from context 
    • Understanding grammatical structures 
    • Recalling details 
    • Recalling sequences 
    • Recognizing multiple characters 
    • Following directions

Strategic:

    • Connecting ideas/information 
    • Distinguishing between inferences and factual information 
    • Accommodating new information 
    • Assimilating new information 
    • Summarizing 
    • Predicting 
    • Questioning 
    • Synthesizing

Critical:

    • Recognizes bias 
    • Recognizes speaker's inferences 
    • Distinguishes between fact and opinion 
    • Evaluates sources
    • Understands power dynamics, privilege, and marginalization

Appreciative:

    • Gains experience listening in a variety of forms 
    • Recognizes the pleasure that listening can bring 
    • Recognizes feeling or mood that is evoked 
    • Recognize the power of language 
    • Appreciates how words flow from a speaker
Reflect:
  1. How might this strategy encourage student engagement with primary sources other than texts and images?
  2. How could you bring more diverse types of primary sources into your classroom?

5. Artifact Bag

Artifacts can tell amazing stories about the owners, or location, or the past.  This strategy gives students an opportunity to not only build a story about the owner of a bag of artifacts, but to build an artifact bag that tells their story.

This strategy introduces the practice of using primary sources; where to find primary sources, what they are, how to examine them, and how to construct a context to tell more of the story.

Introduction to Personal Primary Sources

Display personal primary source documents and personal artifacts that reflect something important in your own life. Display the artifact and instruct the students to use the Primary Source Analysis Tool to record their observations of the artifact. Before the students begin, select questions from the teacher's guide Analyzing Primary Sources to focus and prompt analysis and discussion.

Some suggestions for personal artifacts are:

  • published documents-an official document about you, i.e., driver's license, birth certificate, teaching credential, passport;
  • unpublished documents-a letter written to you, diary, journal;
  • oral traditions/histories-a family story, and
  • visual documents/artifacts-a photograph, drawing, caricature, trophy, locket, or medal.
Student Activity

Ask students to bring their own personal artifacts and display them for their group of three students. Teams of three review each artifact supplied by team members and interpret them to determine information about the owners' personalities and lifestyles. Each team works together to complete the Primary Source Analysis Tool, answering additional questions from the teacher's guide to Analyzing Primary Sources at your discretion.

Sharing the Results

When the groups' Primary Source Analysis Tools charts are complete, the reviewers share their results with the class. The artifact owner constructs the context that reveals more of the story. 

Reflect:

  1. How does the artifact bag strategy illustrate the work of historians?
  2. What higher order thinking skills might students demonstrate through engagement with an artifact bag?

Source: The Library of Congress - https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/primary-sources-and-personal-artifacts/