Teaching with Primary Sources at Mississippi State University

1. In this introductory activity, we are going to think about why we celebrate the Fourth of July/Independence Day and why we celebrate our independence on July 4.

• Discuss your thoughts on why we celebrate the Fourth of July.
  • Fourth of July image
  • Committee of Five
  • Trumbull Painting

• Reflect upon what you know and take a look at the Dunlap Broadside and the Engrossed Declaration of Independence (National Archives).  Think about what this document means to you and other Americans.

• Listen and Critically Think while I read this Letter from John Adams (one of the Committee of Five constructing the Declaration of Independence) to his wife Abigail.
  • Who is John Adams?
  • Who is Abigail Adams?
  • When was it written?
  • Why was it written?

• Revisit the Trumbull Painting of the Declaration signing.
  • Listen and Critically Think while I read this Information about the painting.

• Listen and Critically Think while I read parts of the 10 Fascinating Facts about the Declaration of Independence.
• Conduct your own online research about the Fourth of July.
• Synthesize your thoughts with the information provided to you and that you found in your research:
  • When should we celebrate our Independence Day in the United States?
    • Students must provide evidence-based arguments for how they would respond.

2. Leaving Evidence of Our Lives/Mind Walk Activity

• Listen to a story about a scenerio where there would be primary sources all around (gas station).
• Create a T-chart of the activities and the evidence from a 24 hour period of your life.  Everything that you listed is considered a primary source.
  • Example:

• Share your evidence.
• Create a list of examples of primary and secondary sources.
• Create a working definition of the terms: primary sources and secondary sources. If necessary, modify the working definition as we move forward.  Re-examine your thinking throughout this activity.
• Exploration: Conduct research online to learn more about primary and secondary sources.  Here are some useful sites:
  • What are Primary Sources?
  • Using Primary Sources
• Remember - "What is your question?"
  
• At a later time, Review and save for later use this pdf file of the Library of Congress' version of the Leaving Evidence of Our Lives (PDB) lesson. 
  • This works well with students of all ages.  I had a second grader so excited and yell out that her list was just like what they found in Pompeii (just 2,000 years removed).

3. Analyzing Sources (Photographs) with Novice Level Students

• Scaffold learning with analysis sheets such as Library of Congress's Primary Sources Analysis Tool (Observe, Reflect, and Question)
  • Other Library of Congress analysis tools
• Analyze this image using the Primary Sources Analysis Tool (Observe, Reflect, and Question)
• Review the Bibliographic Information for the image (7) and consider how that adds to your thinking.
  

4. Read, Analyze, and Critically Think about Sam Wineburg's (Stanford University and Director of the Stanford History Education Group) model and approach for thinking historically and using primary sources (Sourcing, Contextualization, Close Reading, and Corroboration). 

• A Model of Historical Thinking
  
• Questions to Ask of Your Sources
  

5. More Advanced Analysis (Documents)

• Analyze and Examine the Melchiori letter and envelope using the analysis sheet from the National Archives as if you were a social scientist.
  • Melchiori letter - The Office of the Chaplain
  • Melchiori Envelope
  • Document Analysis Worksheets (Use the Written Document analysis sheet for the level that you will teach)

6. Enter into "Imaginative Entry into the Past" through the use of primary sources (Analyzing Photographs)

• Image
• Bibliographic Information (7)
  

7. Further Analysis of Photographs...with the addition of a second source.

• Analyze some of Alexander Gardner's images:
  • Antietam Photographs
  • Photograph of President Abraham Lincoln
  • Sharpshooter Image
    • Sketchbook entry

8. Analyze a primary source set and Synthesize your thoughts

• Develop a title for this set of primary sources
  
• Watch this video about the Primary Source Set (watch after you have completed the analysis)
  
• Web sites that provide primary source sets:
  • Library of Congress - Primary Source Sets
  • NHEC - Primary Source Sets on the Web

9. Book Backdrop

• Listen while I read the story.  Your task is to Brainstorm a list of dates, people, and/or events that might have primary source connections to the book.  You are to Create that list of primary sources (primary source set).
  • Mr. Lincoln's Whiskers
• Resources I use that are related to this story:
  • Lincoln's Whiskers - Sunday Morning
  • New York Times - Disunion (Bayonets in Buffalo / Lincoln: A Beard Is Born)
  • Letter
  • Newspaper accounts
    
• An associated investigation could be "What kind of person was Lincoln?"
  • Lincoln responses
  • Now...you create a description of the character of Abraham Lincoln.