Thanks for a great discussion, everyone! A few notes and links from our discussion...please add your favorite websites, resources, and ideas in the comment section.Favorite resources, websites:
Mindwalk Activity (Library of Congress)
An introduction to primary sources - what they are and how they can be analyzed.
History Matters (George Mason U.)
Gateway to web resources for teaching U.S. history. Helpful materials on how historians make sense of evidence.
History Link
Source for Washington State History resources, including materials for students and teachers on using primary sources.
Electronic Enlightenment (UW restricted)
Great source for primary sources, all disciplines, from the 18th century.
Digital Docs in a Box
Digital documentary kits in a few topic areas.
Burke Boxes
From the Burke Museum at UW, collections of artifacts, including curricula, that can be checked out by educators for use in the classroom.
Teaching ideas:
- Jill shared another institution's program for incoming freshman in which they are introduced to 'stations' of primary sources, showing how those artifacts can help answer questions about a range of issues and how objects are connected. A good introduction to how historians use artifacts as evidence.
- Students have a hard time digging into primary sources when they don't have enough historical/topical context to interpret the sources they're seeing. Theresa has used secondary and reference sources to help students identify relevant concepts, events, key terms, etc., then asks them to them track down primary sources on that subject. She has them send them to her, which she compiles, showing them the wide range of sources that can be gathered on a given subject.
- We discussed using online modules/tutorials/lectures to convey primary source basics, which may help free up more classroom time for conceptual discussions and exercises. It may also be effective to create guides on finding/accessing/using primary sources directed towards instructors, to get past some of the hurdles that students have when instruction on primary sources isn't provided in the classroom or as part of the assignment.
- It's helpful to have objects/documents that students can touch and use. Facsimiles of original sources enables this to some extent (though this approach still misses some of the features that the 'real' object doesn't have).
- Evaluating and analyzing primary sources is important, recognizing the bias and audience for a work. Can be helpful to dissect the creator of the primary source to recognize the position of the author and their particular perspective, which is necessarily incomplete.
- We discussed the importance of promoting primary sources in all formats, including artifacts, ephemera, photos, audio/video, film, etc. as a way to engage students in the historical period under study. For example, Theresa shows old films as students are filing in, something from the period they're about to study, such as showing 'hygeine' movies for a women's history class.
- Students and faculty are increasingly using images in their teaching, research, and presentations, and we can play a role in supporting them as they search and integrate sources. We can also help them with the challenges of citing sources and following copyright laws.
- It can be challenging to help faculty understand that primary sources are available in all formats, often reprinted in secondary or tertiary sources, and/or online. It may be useful to create guides aimed at instructors to guide them to useful resources. Often, instruction with primary sources is more effective when instructors are guiding students to particular sources, rather than just telling them to go out there and find something.
- UW Libraries Special Collections is glad to work with faculty and librarians to meet their primary source needs for teaching and learning. From consultations with librarians about available collections, to collaboration with the Burke, Henry, and Botanical Gardens. Microforms and newspapers has some materials like this that can be taken to classes.
