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
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:
- Discriminative
- Precise
- Strategic
- Critical
- 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
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
- How might this strategy encourage student engagement with primary sources other than texts and images?
- How could you bring more diverse types of primary sources into your classroom?