Background A primary source is an original source that is often defined by what it lacks, bias and commentary. Some examples of primary sources include pictures, works of fiction, a hand-written document, or even a live specimen. Primary sources work great in research projects, experiential learning assignments, for making cross-curricular connections, and can help teach students how to think. Primary sources can also help students learn how to draw their own conclusions and seek truths rather than just opinions.
21stCentury Primary sources provide a great connection to modern skills. First and foremost, understanding primary sources helps with media literacy. People familiar with what makes a primary source are more likely to be able to separate opinion from fact when presented to them in the media. Many primary sources are also digitized. Projects using digitized primary sources help expose students to modern resource retrieval. Students may also learn to approach the world from a more fact-based objective perspective. The ability to separate fact from opinion and place a higher value on facts can help people find common ground with other people that have different viewpoints and backgrounds. Through learning to rely on primary resources, students can draw their own conclusions about other people and their situations without having to rely on often negatively-biased opinions.
Examples #1: Using primary sources to develop a history of technology. This could be considered a tool of the scientific disciplines, but is very much cross-curricular using skills from history and mathematics. Our example has students using primary documents and patent literature to develop the technology of the history. This example emphasized learning not only the whats, but the whys and hows. The goal is to help students learn how great inventors thought when they came up with their technologies.
#2: The second example focuses on history and English. This example uses a quote, in this case a quote from Confucius, to draw out further discussion from students. The goals of using the quote as a primary resource is to create greater understanding of where Confucius was coming from and how is view of the world influenced cultures both historically and presently.
#3: This example uses a primary source reading and images from a historical event, the Holocaust. The goal of this example is to help immerse students in an event that can be hard to understand in our current place. The Holocaust, in particular, has likely been taught to the students before, but without the primary documents the students may not have been able to comprehend the severity and darkness of the event.
#4: The last example looks at primary resource from a more mathematical perspective. In this example students are asked to use primary sources to reproduce the process of discovery for an original math concept by a historical mathematician. As in the first example, one of the goals of this lesson is to help students learn how to think like a mathematician by seeing the steps and processes that a mathematician used to reach their discovery.
Primary Sources
PPT:
Background
A primary source is an original source that is often defined by what it lacks, bias and commentary. Some examples of primary sources include pictures, works of fiction, a hand-written document, or even a live specimen.
Primary sources work great in research projects, experiential learning assignments, for making cross-curricular connections, and can help teach students how to think.
Primary sources can also help students learn how to draw their own conclusions and seek truths rather than just opinions.
21st Century
Primary sources provide a great connection to modern skills. First and foremost, understanding primary sources helps with media literacy. People familiar with what makes a primary source are more likely to be able to separate opinion from fact when presented to them in the media.
Many primary sources are also digitized. Projects using digitized primary sources help expose students to modern resource retrieval.
Students may also learn to approach the world from a more fact-based objective perspective. The ability to separate fact from opinion and place a higher value on facts can help people find common ground with other people that have different viewpoints and backgrounds. Through learning to rely on primary resources, students can draw their own conclusions about other people and their situations without having to rely on often negatively-biased opinions.
Examples
#1: Using primary sources to develop a history of technology. This could be considered a tool of the scientific disciplines, but is very much cross-curricular using skills from history and mathematics.
Our example has students using primary documents and patent literature to develop the technology of the history. This example emphasized learning not only the whats, but the whys and hows. The goal is to help students learn how great inventors thought when they came up with their technologies.
#2: The second example focuses on history and English. This example uses a quote, in this case a quote from Confucius, to draw out further discussion from students. The goals of using the quote as a primary resource is to create greater understanding of where Confucius was coming from and how is view of the world influenced cultures both historically and presently.
#3: This example uses a primary source reading and images from a historical event, the Holocaust. The goal of this example is to help immerse students in an event that can be hard to understand in our current place. The Holocaust, in particular, has likely been taught to the students before, but without the primary documents the students may not have been able to comprehend the severity and darkness of the event.
#4: The last example looks at primary resource from a more mathematical perspective. In this example students are asked to use primary sources to reproduce the process of discovery for an original math concept by a historical mathematician. As in the first example, one of the goals of this lesson is to help students learn how to think like a mathematician by seeing the steps and processes that a mathematician used to reach their discovery.
Links
http://library.mtsu.edu/tps/newsletters.php (weather for science, transportation for math)
What is a scientific primary source
http://www3.wooster.edu/library/sciref/Tutor/EvSciInfo/primary.php
http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/telephone-light-patents/
Science Primary Sources
http://wwwihm.nlm.nih.gov/ Images from the history of medicine
http://es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo/index.html The Galileo project. Primary source documents tell a story.
http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/index.html Primary source documents related to the history of computing.
http://webserver.lemoyne.edu/faculty/giunta/papers.html Selected classic papers from the history of chemistry.
http://www.archives.gov/digital_classroom/lessons/barbed_wire_patent/barbed_wire_patent.htmlGliddens patent for barbed wire. A complete lesson around a primary source document.
Lesson collections:
http://www.youthsource.ab.ca/teacher_resources/ps_lesson1.html Lesson plans to connect primary sources to today.
http://www.archives.gov/digital_classroom/index.html Lessons created around the primary source documents in the National Archives.
What are primary sources:
http://www.libraries.iub.edu/index.php?pageId=1483
http://library.uncw.edu/guides/primary_secondary_and_tertiary_sources
Teaching with primary sources:
https://tpsfoundations.pbworks.com/w/page/26415575/TPS-Foundations
Works Cited
Spielvogel, J. Jackson, PH.D. World History McGraw Hill/Glencoe. New York, New York. 2008.
Williams, L. (2010, November 3). Primary secondary and tertiary sources. Retrieved from http://library.uncw.edu/guides/primary_secondary_and_tertiary_sources
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