Thing 27: Teaching & Learning with Primary Sources

Thing 27: Teaching & Learning with Primary Sources

As suggested in the introduction, I got started by watching the very helpful  Primary and Secondary Sources Explained video.  The example of the Great Storm made it easy to understand the differences between primary and secondary sources. This would be a great video to use when introducing (or reinforcing) this concept with older elementary/middle school students.

Selecting which articles and digital collections to explore was at first overwhelming - so many sounded good that I wasn’t sure where to start, so I decided to just jump in! I liked the sound of “classroom-ready” in the description for Engaging Students with Primary Sources so I decided to start there. Of course, little did I know it was a 64 page PDF document I was choosing to “jump in” with!  But it was excellently organized and easy to understand; I could easily scroll to pages that were most relevant. I liked the “strengths and limitations” listed for each type of source, and most sections included links for actual primary source resources.  I downloaded a copy for future reference as well.

    Next I read through the article 5 Online Activities for Teaching With Primary Sources for ideas I could use with my Middle School classes. Author Richard Byrne actually provides links to his class handouts and worksheets, so these activities are literally ready to use! Sadly, the article’s link to “Historical Scene Investigation” is no longer active, but I plan to see if I can find that resource on my own.

    The third and final article I read was 10 Resources for Teaching With Primary Sources written by the same author as the article above and featuring the video featured at the very beginning of this “thing”! Links to resources such as the World Digital Library and LC’s Student Discovery Sets are provided. Like the article mentioned above, a couple of the links included in this article are no longer working (such as  National Archives Experience Digital Vaults) , but overall this is a really nice collection of go-to resources for teachers.

    Next it was time to explore some of the Digital Collections listed! I decided to click through all of these to see how they differed and which ones I felt would be most Middle School student friendly.  I began with Digital Public Library of America and as I continued going through these links for various digital collections, an idea for this “thing’s” learning activity came to me. I decided to create a “Primary Sources” resource tab on my library webpage for use by both teachers and students. (Must say I was very pleased with this idea!).

    After curating the logos, links and descriptions, I was able to put together a decent looking resource which can viewed by clicking on the green “Primary Sources” tab on my website at http://mms.dboces.opalsinfo.net/bin/home . I also shared some of these resources with my grades 7-12 social studies teacher and have been receiving notes of thanks from many of them. Thanks for another great “thing”!