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Guide to using primary sources for teaching.

Oer use of primary sources

Lesson Components

  • Fast Fact
  • Skill/Objective
  • Success Indicators
  • Introduction
  • Activity
  • Review questions
  • Resources

Fast fact

The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution and serves as the research arm of Congress. It is also the largest library in the world, with nearly 130 million items on approximately 530 miles of bookshelves. The collections include: books and other printed materials, sound and motion picture recordings, photographs, maps, and manuscripts. Reference: Office of the Librarian

Skills/objectives

Learners will be able to:

  • Identify resources for use of primary sources as learning materials in their own teaching disciplines.
  • Locate at least one primary source for use in their own teaching.
  • Develop a lesson plan using primary sources.

Success indicators

  • Learner will post a lesson plan that uses at least one primary source as an OER for their own teaching.

Introduction

According to the National Archives , the use of primary documents as learning materials promotes

  • Student awareness that all written history is subjective in the sense that it reflects an author's interpretation of past events, and
  • Important analytical skills.

Primary sources include:

  • personal records (birth certificates, death certificates, passports, driver's licenses)
  • federal census figures
  • newspapers
  • local government files
  • letters, personal diaries and memoirs
  • drawings and photographs
  • oral histories
  • artifacts
  • court transcripts

Complete the Introductory Lesson about primary sources available from the American Memory project at the Library of Congress.

The Smithsonian Source Teaching with Primary Sources is another useful resource for teaching American History. It includes videos, lesson plans, and searchable collection of primary documents.

American Rhetoric makes audio clips of various speeches available from a Speech Bank via the internet. Website content at American Rhetoric is free for educational uses under the Fair Use exception with attribution.

Activity

Experience

Complete at least two of the following activities:

Reflect

Post your responses to the following questions in your course Discussion area:

  • How would the learning experience be different for a student completing a lesson that uses primary sources versus the same lesson that uses a textbook?
  • What challenges might you encounter as a teacher using primary sources instead of textbooks?

Apply

  • Identify a set of primary sources for use in your teaching.
  • Develop a lesson plan using these primary sources. Post your lesson plan to MERLOT or OER Commons .

Review questions

  • What are the advantages and disadvantages to using primary sources for teaching?
  • What are the most useful resources for teaching with primary sources in your discipline and why?

Resources

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Source:  OpenStax, Introduction to open educational resources. OpenStax CNX. Apr 17, 2009 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col10413/1.3
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