Why use primary sources? What
is history and how can we make sense of it? How can we excite our
students about the past and teach them to think like historians?
One way we can learn about the past is by examining primary sources.
They make history come alive. They offer different points of view.
Students will find them engaging. Analyzing them will encourage
historical thinking. Making connections to the past will help them
understand the present.
What are primary sources? Textbooks,
encyclopedias and biographies are examples of secondary sources
that use information provided by someone else. Primary sources come
from direct personal experiences or observations. Examples include
photographs, journals, newspapers, letters, music, interviews, movies
or songsheets. This activity links to a sampling of the millions
of primary sources in the American
Memory collections.
Observe, think and ask. Holidays
and celebrations are an important part of America's culture. Use
the holiday-related primary source links in this activity to help
your students connect to the past. As they examine the featured
documents, encourage them to carefully observe what they see and
hear. Draw on their prior knowledge to find out what understanding
they already have about the documents. Stimulate their critical
thinking skills to encourage further questioning and research. Practice
the process with various media types – written documents,
images, sound, and movie files. We have provided a simple graphic
organizer to use as a note-taking tool. When you finish analyzing
these sample documents, search
for more examples throughout the collections. Once you get started,
it will be hard to stop!
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