Primary Sources in the Elementary Classroom
Using primary sources in the classroom is an incredibly powerful way to teach Social Studies concepts. Primary sources help us see and understand things that happened in the past in a way that nothing else can.
This blog post explores the following:
Why Use Primary Sources
Primary sources help students understand the reality of events. Primary sources bring history to life. They build interest in the topic, as students find real people and specific events more relevant to their lives.
Primary sources reveal multiple perspectives. They help students realize that information can be subjective and will help them learn to challenge assumptions.
Interpreting and analyzing primary sources builds critical thinking skills.
Are you worried about finding instructional time to use primary sources? If you think you don’t have enough time to add primary sources to your instruction, there might be another way to use them. Rather than “adding” more things to teach, consider pairing primary sources with documents you’re already using (such as your textbook or a read-aloud book).
Are you worried about how much time it will take you to find the “right” primary sources? I’ve got you covered. Check out the roundup of the best places to find primary sources for specific time periods and topics at the bottom of this post.
Are you worried that your students won’t be able to interpret or understand the primary sources? Primary sources can be challenging to interpret at times, even for historians. However, with practice, students can learn to evaluate and interpret primary sources. We’ll get to a list of questions that you can use to teach your students to evaluate primary sources later in this post.
how to introduce primary sources
Begin by working together as a class to define what a primary source is. Then, define what a secondary source is. Discuss the differences. Discuss how each type of source is helpful when learning about a time period or topic.
Talk about nuances.
Are all interviews primary sources? Are all newspapers primary sources? Are all speeches primary sources?
Discuss how to evaluate a source by asking good questions. Teach your students to ask questions about every source. There are a few big questions to ask about every source. You won’t always be able to find an exact answer to every question for every source, but these questions can give you a good baseline of information to go off of. The more your students practice asking these questions, the more automatic and engrained the critical thinking process will become for them.
Then, give students an opportunity to practice interpreting and evaluating sources. You can do this by giving them questions to think through, such as “Who was the audience?” and “What is the main idea or point of the source?”.
Build critical thinking skills by having students practice asking good questions about primary sources.
The more your students practice asking these questions, the more the questions will become engrained in their minds. Thinking critically about sources is a crucial skill for students to develop.
Give students Practice exploring primary sources
College of William & Mary School of Education’s “HSI: Historical Scene Investigation”
Through this project, you can select from several “open investigations” from various time periods throughout history. For example, there is an investigation about The Starving Time at Jamestown. Students are directed to sort through several documents to search for clues and attempt to crack the case.
The National Archives’ “100 Milestone Documents”
“The following is a list of 100 milestone documents, compiled by the National Archives and Records Administration and drawn primarily from its nationwide holdings. The documents chronicle United States history from 1776 to 1965.”
Exploring this collection would make an excellent introduction to primary sources in your classroom. The British Museum’s resource below is another great and similar resource.
The British Museum’s “Teaching History with 100 Objects”
“One hundred objects from museums across the UK with resources, information and teaching ideas to inspire your students’ interest in history.”
4 Fun & Simple Ideas for Using Primary Sources
Turn the primary source into a mystery! Students can practice their source sleuthing skills to solve the mystery.
This activity is great for photographs, newspaper articles, and paintings.
It’s also the perfect way to introduce a new topic and create excitement about it.
If you want to do this activity as a whole class, post the primary source on the board. If you want to do this activity in small groups, place primary source documents in manilla envelopes labeled “CONFIDENTIAL”.
In either case, say absolutely nothing about the document to students. Give them time to work together to figure out as much as they possibly can about the source.
Turn the primary source into a Museum Gallery Walk. Students silently walk around to make observations about primary sources.
This activity is another great way to introduce a new topic.
You can have students jot their thoughts on paper with a clipboard as they move around. Or, you could have students respond interactively by leaving their thoughts on sticky notes around each posted primary source.
Pair primary sources with secondary interpretations.
Bring your textbook to life by pairing sections of text with relevant primary sources that you find.
Find a high-quality historical fiction book about the topic, and then pair it with primary sources.
Make primary sources personal.
Have students bring in primary sources from their family. This might mean photographs of World War II from a grandparent, for example, or really any picture from the past. Give students time to share their personal primary sources with the class.
Where to Find Primary Sources for Specific Time Periods and Topics
The Library of Congress’ “Chronicling America”
“Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1777-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.”
This free searchable database is an amazing tool for any topic. You can use it to pull primary sources yourself or allow students to use it to practice research skills.
National Archives’ “Docs That Teach”
“Choose from thousands of primary sources for use in classroom activities.” These primary sources can be searched by keyword, historical era, or document type.
LIFE Photo Archive Hosted by Google
“Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google.”
Gilder Lehrman’s History Resources
This database of resources can be searched by topic or by time period. Once you select a time period or topic, you can filter the search results to show primary sources only.
Yale’s “The Avalon Project”
This project contains “documents in law, history, and diplomacy” that are organized by time period.
