8 Exploring Primary Sources
Time Requirement: 90 minutes.
Describing different types of primary sources and their research uses; creating a timeline of an event using primary source materials.
Learning Objectives
- Students will be able to identify research uses of various primary source materials.
- Students will be able to create narrative using primary source materials.
Materials:
- Primary source examples (newspaper articles, photos, oral histories, journals).
- Computers or tablets with internet access.
- Worksheet for creating a timeline.
Strategies and Activities
Introduction: Begin with a discussion on the importance of primary sources in historical research. Emphasize that primary sources provide firsthand accounts or evidence of historical events. Present the objectives of the lesson: to understand different types of primary sources and why it’s crucial to verify their reliability.
Types of Primary Sources: Introduce different types of primary sources: newspaper articles, photos, oral histories, and journals. Discuss the characteristics of each type and how they offer unique perspectives on historical events.
Why Verify? Differentiate between folklore and oral history, emphasizing the importance of verifying oral histories with other primary sources for accuracy. Folklore topics also often have accompanying primary sources. Folklorists are more interested in the narrative/story, performance, tradition, etc. and the ways and reasons people share the knowledge in their communities. Discuss potential biases and limitations of primary sources.
Assignments and Assessments
Source Analysis – Provide students with a sample primary source document (e.g., newspaper article, photo, oral history excerpt). In small groups, instruct students to analyze the source, discussing its reliability, biases, and potential limitations. Ask students to share summary of their primary source and potential uses for source with class.
Vocabulary
Oral history is a mode of creating and preserving original primary source material through gathering personal memories of community members through planned, recorded interviews. Oral history allows anyone to interact with and learn from the people in their communities through an interview or interviews that records an individual’s unique history in their own words.
Primary sources are the evidence of history, original records or objects created by participants or observers at the time historical events occurred or even well after events, as in memoirs and oral histories. Primary sources may include but are not limited to: letters, manuscripts, diaries, journals, newspapers, maps, speeches, interviews, documents produced by government agencies, photographs, audio or video recordings, born-digital items (e.g. emails), research data, and objects or artifacts (such as works of art or ancient roads, buildings, tools, and weapons). These sources serve as the raw materials historians use to interpret and analyze the past.” (via American Library Association)
