Developed by Lisa Jaffe, PS43X and Suzanne Tallarico, PS220X

Context

Best practices in social studies ask teachers to include the analysis of primary source documents into the curriculum. Through the use of primary documents, students can experience how history is more than a seemingly random list of facts, dates, and names. Instead, they can begin to experience the work of historians as they analyze documents for bias and credibility and construct a narrative that is supported by the evidence.

• Goals and Standards:
  • NYS ELA Standard 1: Language for Information and Understanding
  • Listening and reading to acquire information and understanding involves collecting data, facts, and ideas; discovering relationships, concepts, and generalizations, and using knowledge from oral, written and electronic sources
  • Speaking and writing to acquire and transmit information requires asking probing and clarifying questions, interpreting information in one's own words, applying information from one context to another, and presenting the information and interpretation clearly, concisely, and comprehensibly.
• NYS Social Studies Standards:
  • Standard 1, Key Idea 4: The skills of historical analysis include the ability to: explain the significance of historical evidence; weigh the importance, reliability, and validity of evidence; understand the concept of multiple causation; understand the importance of changing and competing interpretations of different historical developments.
  • Content standards will vary depending on primary materials selected for study.

Understandings

• Historians study documents and artifacts to learn about and construct a historical account.
• History is a version of what happened. This version is created on a set of documents and represents the historians best understanding of what happened from one particular point of view.

Essential Questions

• How do historians know about the past?
• How do primary source documents help us tell a story?

Knowledge

• Historical content is flexible depending on the needs of the classroom and the curriculum.
• A primary source document is a document, artifact or other source of information that was created at or near the time being studied.
• Primary sources include: photographs, letters, census data, maps, cultural artifacts or material culture, drawings, diaries, cartoons, etc. Historians study primary sources to learn about events in the past, to understand what motivated people to act the way they do, to learn about different points of view of events.

Skills

• Describe (through words, drawing, etc) a document
• Comparing different topics on the same topic. Using information around the text (caption, author, date, etc.)
• Differentiating between fact and opinion Analyze documents by asking the following questions:
  • S - What kind of source is this?
  • O - What's the occasion?
  • A - Who is the audience?
  • P - What is the purpose of the document?

Resources

• Listening in on Student Conversation assessment checklist
• Primary document analysis sheet
• http://www.boondocksnet.com/
• http://www.politicalcartoons.com/
• A set of primary sources. Ideally, these sources will work together so that students can construct one story across the set of documents.

Teacher-made Strategy Charts

• How to Be a Historian
  • Ask questions
  • Demand evidence
  • Be curious
  • Think about other points of view
• How to Analyze a Document
  • S - What kind of source is this?
  • O - What's the occasion?
  • A - Who is the audience?
  • P - What is the purpose of the document?

Learning Experiences

Day 1: How do we know about things that happened a long time ago?

Mind Walk activity: Click for detailed instructions. (You can do this either as a series of freewrites or partner turn-and-talks.)

• Ask your students to free write everything they've done in the last 24 hours.
• Share out as a group.
• Now ask your students to go back and write down what kinds of "evidence" or "traces" they created in doing those things. Give them examples-- did you buy something that you got a receipt for? did you take a test or fill out a form? did you write a letter or a diary entry? did you use your metrocard? did you throw things away? what, in short, did you leave behind?
• Again, share out as a group.
• Again, ask students to imagine a historian 100 years from now finding those bits of paper and information. What would they learn--about your life, about "American life in 2007"-- from this evidence? What WOULDN'T s/he learn? --Would they learn about your dreams? Desires? Would they learn about your eating habits?
• Share out again.

Day 2: How do we look at a primary source?

• Bring in class picture and have students describe what they see.
• Give each group a primary source from teacher's life and have students list what they see, and what they know about the teacher from looking at the source.
• Homework: Students will bring in a primary source from their own life (photo, letter, receipt, religious object, flag, or article of clothing)

Day 3: What do we learn about people from looking at their sources?

Students will swap primary sources with each other and answer the following questions:

• What is it?
• Where did he/she get it or find it?
• Why is it important to him/her?
• What do you learn from the object?

Day 4: How do we look at photographs as a primary source?

• Teacher will show photo of a child from long ago. Try to choose a photograph that has attribution and a caption describing the context. Teacher will guide students through process of analyzing a document using SOAP and the primary source worksheet.
• Students will analyze similar type sources in partners. Share out.

Day 5: How do we look at advertisements as a primary source?

• Teacher will show an advertisement (broadside) from long ago. Teacher will guide students through process of analyzing a document using SOAP and the primary source worksheet.
• Students will analyze similar type sources in partners. Share out.
• Day 6 How do we look at political cartoons as a primary source?
• Teacher will show a political cartoon. Teacher will guide students through process of analyzing a document using SOAP and the primary source worksheet.
• Students will analyze similar type sources in partners. Share out.

Day 7: How do we look at political cartoons primary source?

• Teacher will show a different political cartoon. Teacher will guide students through process of analyzing a document using SOAP and the primary source worksheet.
• Students will analyze similar type sources in partners. Share out.

Day 8: How do we look at maps as a primary source?

• Teacher will show a map (natural resources). Teacher will guide students through process of analyzing a document using SOAP and the primary source worksheet.
• Students will analyze similar type sources in partners. Share out.

Day 9: How do we look at newspaper articles as a primary source?

• Teacher will show an excerpt from a newspaper article. Teacher will guide students through process of analyzing a document using SOAP and the primary source worksheet.
• Students will analyze similar type sources in partners. Share out.

Day 10: Assessment

Students will demonstrate their ability to analyze different types of primary sources: photograph, advertisement, map, newspaper excerpt, and map by answering a series of questions about 5 different sources.