Teaching with

Primary Sources

Meredith StewartCary Academy

meredithstewart.com

Questioning Assumptions

 From a blog post by a fellow teacher…

Is it our job to teach the skills one needs to be a professional historian or is it our job to expose students to the patterns of history and to teach them to think critically?

Are we forcing a “skill” on students that is not relevant to them and actually makes the subject boring to students?

Potential Benefits…

Challenges…

How My Approach to Using Primary Sources Changed

Before: Lots of leading and/or detailed questions

Jefferson thinks the people at the Constitutional Convention are overreacting to Shays’ Rebellion. What does he worry they might do as they write the new Constitution?

After: Less guidance, especially early onObserve- What do you notice? Reflect- Where do you think this came from? Why do you think

it was made? Question- What do you wonder about as you look at this?

Introducing Primary Sources...

Goal Setting With Ben Franklin

Primary Sources

in Languag

e Arts

Indentured Servants

Were they more like slaves or free colonists?

Write your initials on a post-it and place it on the continuum to represent what you think

A Closer Look•Write one or two phrases from the reading that confirmed or challenged your belief about the relative freedom of indentured servants

•Place the sticky note where you now think it should go on the continuum. (If your opinion didn’t change, put it on top of your original sticky note)

Finding Primary SourcesReading Like a Historian http://sheg.stanford.edu/?q=node/45 Geared to upper school but adaptable for middle school

Historical Scene Investigations http://web.wm.edu/hsi/index.html A little dated but worth exploring

Teaching History http://teachinghistory.org/best-practices/using-primary-sources/24490 A long list of links 

Learn NC http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/5316

Digital/Interactive Resources Student Discovery Sets (Available for iPad)http://www.loc.gov/teachers/student-discovery-sets/ 

Docs Teach (Available for iPad)http://docsteach.org 

Library of Congress Resources

Resources for Teachers http://www.loc.gov/teachers 

Digital Collections http://loc.gov/collections 

Twitter Account https://twitter.com/TeachingLC

And the Twitter accounts they followhttps://twitter.com/TeachingLC/following 

Summer Institutes http://www.loc.gov/teachers/professionaldevelopment/teacherinstitute 

What Have You’ve Used?

• Resources will be added by session participants

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meredithstewart.com

@msstewart