Fluent Essays

Part 1: Wrestle with the essential question(s) and respond to it/them. Answer the question(s) clearly and concisely, providing evidence or examples for claims, cite the readings/videos/podcasts when appropriate, making connections to your life and/or current events, and being reflexive over how the material has shaped your previous and present understandings of the topic.  Questions:  What is a primary source? What is a secondary resource? Which one is better for using with students? Why?  Please make real-life connections Here are the sources: https://www.loc.gov/item/webcast-9269/ PLEASE USE ONLY THE SOURCES PROVIDED JUNE 2005 745 KEITH C. BARTON is a professor in the Division of Teacher Edu- cation at the University of Cincinnati. He is the co-author with Linda Levstik of Teaching History for the Common Good (Erlbaum, 2004). He wishes to thank Jere Brophy, Alison Kitson, Linda Levstik, Walter Parker, and Stephen Thornton for their valuable insights and feed- back on this article. Primary Sources in History: Breaking Through the Myths Using primary sources in history classes is all the rage. But if teachers are not reflective about the best use of such materials, they may engage students in exercises that are neither historically nor instructionally sound. Mr. Barton points out common misconceptions about primary sources and suggests ways to maximize their educational potential. BY KEITH C. BARTON V ISUALIZE the following class- room scene. Students walk into history class and pull out pack- ets of primary sources — or, in a more technologically advanced school, they log on to a collec- tion of digitally archived docu- ments. History books are used only for reference, and lectures are virtually absent. In- stead, the students work in small groups to analyze each source and evaluate its reliability — determining its ar- gument, establishing who created it and when, and iden- tifying the bias of the author. Later, they compare sources and reach conclusions about the events or time periods portrayed, and they discuss reasons for their differing in- terpretations. Sounds like good history instruction, doesn’t it? Well, not necessarily. Teaching History • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 746 PHI DELTA KAPPAN For over a decade, I have suggested, along with many other historians and educators, that teachers make use of primary sources as an alternative to lec- tures, textbooks, and worksheets. Although such rec- ommendations are nothing new, they have recently begun to attract a larger following. Primary sources can be found on tests, in commercially available pack- ets, in archives on the Internet, and even in textbooks. Many teachers use these resources in inspiring and in- tellectually rigorous ways. Researchers in social stud- ies and educational psychology, meanwhile, have in- vestigated how students (and teachers) make sense of such sources. Thus, even if their use is not as wide- spread as many reformers would like, primary sources clearly are the order of the day. Unfortunately, the use of primary sources in each of these settings often reveals fundamental misconcep- tions about history. In some cases, scholars who have little experience with historical methods appear to be passing along mistaken ideas about what historians do. In other cases, the use of primary sources seems to be driven less by a concern with historical authenticity than by demands for standards and accountability. The mis- understandings that arise from these practices, if not ad- dressed, will result in classroom procedures that are not only inauthentic but irrelevant and ineffective. The fol- lowing are seven common beliefs about primary sourc- es. Some have been stated directly, either in academic manuscripts or in books and articles for teachers; others may not have been articulated so explicitly, but they none- theless represent underlying assumptions of those who define the curriculum or of other educators. But each one is a myth. Myth 1. Primary sources are more reliable than second- ary sources. Perhaps this is not the most common belief about primary sources, but it is surely the most ridicu- lous. Because primary sources were created during the period under study or by witnesses to historical events, some people believe that they provide direct insight in- to the past and have greater authenticity than later ac- counts. Secondary sources, in this view, are corruptions of the originals and are prone to successive layers of er- ror and bias. Some children hold exactly this view. They think we know about the past through oral stories that have been handed down over the generations, and each transmission introduces a new round of mistakes, just as in the game of “telephone.”1 Few educators would entertain this misconception, yet they may believe that primary sources retain a puri- ty that makes them more reliable than secondary ac- counts. However, primary sources are created for a va- riety of reasons, and some of those reasons have noth- ing to do with objectivity. Sometimes primary sources represent narrow or partisan perspectives; sometimes they were created intentionally to deceive. The speeches of white politicians in the American South during Re- construction are primary sources, for example, but a sec- ondary work by a modern historian — although pub- lished over a hundred years later — is a far more relia- ble account of the era’s political system, because it does not attempt to justify white political dominance. Secondary sources can also exhibit narrow perspec- tives, but they have the capability of providing more complete accounts than primary ones. Despite histori- ans’ potential biases, as well as their human propensity for error, they normally consult numerous primary sourc- es when investigating a historical episode. Thus their ac- counts — the secondary sources they create — will tend to be more reliable than those found in any single pri- mary source. Newspapers, another common secondary source, also require corroboration and supporting evi- dence — at least those printed in the modern era do. This does not make them infallible sources of objective information, but it does mean that a newspaper story has a higher probability of providing reliable informa- tion than would a primary source in isolation. Ultimately, we cannot depend on any single source — primary or secondary — for reliable knowledge; we have to consult multiple sources in our quest to devel- op historical understanding. Whether a source is pri- mary or secondary has no bearing on its reliability, much less on its usefulness for a given inquiry. The mistaken authority assigned to primary sources sometimes results from a more basic confusion about the range of his- torical evidence, and this leads to the second myth. Myth 2. Primary sources can be read as arguments about the past. Some scholars suggest that primary sources can be read just as any nonfiction texts are and that this Ultimately, we cannot depend on any single source — primary or secondary — for reliable knowledge; we have to consult multiple sources in our quest to develop historical understanding. JUNE 2005 747 involves analyzing the structure and logic of their ar- guments. In this view, historical inquiry is one type of reading behavior. This myth is based on a misunder- standing of the variety of evidence used in historical in- vestigations. It equates all primary sources with one par- ticular type of document, known as “testimony.” Testi- mony does involve texts written by those who witnessed (or claim to have witnessed) some occurrence. The col- lection of accounts by participants in the Battle at Lex- ington Green is a well-known example of this kind of source: officers, militiamen, and bystanders all gave ac- counts of what they remembered of the battle.2 Such testimony, however, represents only a small por- tion of the sources used by historians. Historians use census records, tax rolls, court proceedings, wills, deeds, photographs, advertisements, physical artifacts, and many other sources, none of which can be read as testimony, because none was created to present an argument about what happened — or at least, not to present an argu- ment about what historians are investigating. Histori- ans ask questions of sources that the people who creat- ed them had no interest in, and in many cases the cre- ators could not even have conceived of the questions historians ask.3 Census records in 19th-century Amer- ica, for example, were created to provide demographic information to the government, primarily for the pur- pose of determining congressional representation. His- torians, however, use them to examine issues such as changing family structures and economic relations — questions that the records themselves were never meant to address. In some of my own historical work, I have investi- gated how the hiring of slaves in antebellum Kentucky was motivated by changing norms for domestic labor (as women were no longer expected to perform house- hold drudgery) and how such hiring was made possi- ble by the expansion of market relations in the coun- tryside.4 I relied, in part, on newspaper advertisements that offered slaves for hire, on guardians’ records that de- tailed who hired the slaves of deceased owners, and on correspondence requesting to hire slaves from Brutus Clay, one of the state’s largest slaveholders. These rec- ords were not created to provide testimony about the interrelationships of slave hiring, the market, and do- mestic labor in antebellum Kentucky. They were cre- ated to get the business of hiring done, by people who may not even have recognized that market relations and domestic norms were changing. Moreover, the creat- ors of these records certainly weren’t interested in doc- umenting such changes either for one another or for a historian of the late 20th century. (Nor did they realize they were living in the “antebellum” period.) The be- lief that primary sources function as textual arguments lays the foundation for the third, and most common, myth concerning primary sources. Myth 3. Historians use a “sourcing heuristic” to evaluate bias and reliability. This is the most pervasive myth about primary sources — at least in educational settings — and it demonstrates a fundamentally misguided under- standing of how historical knowledge is constructed. In this view, historians examine primary sources and speculate on the extent to which they can be trusted to present accurate accounts of past events. This involves two sets of considerations: first, the ability of the creat- ors of the sources to accurately know those events (Were they present? Were they deceived in some way? How soon did they produce their account?) and second, their in- terest in conveying events accurately (Were they trying to cover up something? Were they trying to curry favor? Were they blinded by prejudice of one kind or anoth- er?). This perspective on historical methodology leads to classroom exercises in which students are given sets of sources and taught to evaluate the bias that may re- sult from authorship, purpose, time of creation, and so on — a process often referred to as “sourcing.”5 This view of primary sources is flawed for a number of reasons. First, as noted above, it can apply only to the class of sources known as testimony, which consti- tutes only a small portion of the sources used by his- torians. When a source does not attempt to provide tes- timony, its reliability is rarely questioned because there is no reason to do so. It is the very fact of the existence of the source that constitutes historical evidence. For example, Brutus Clay’s account books contain numer- ous contracts with neighbors who hired slaves from him. There are no questions of bias or reliability to be asked 748 PHI DELTA KAPPAN of these contracts, because it is their very existence that provides evidence of slave-hiring. Unless Clay was so mentally disturbed that he spent his days fabricating these contracts, there is no reason to think that such hiring did not take place. Historians do not work un- der the assumption of a worst-case scenario in which people in the past invented misleading details of their daily lives to fool future scholars. Moreover, even when working with certain kinds of testimony, questions of bias and reliability may be ir- relevant. Like many slaveholders, Brutus Clay placed notices in his local newspaper to announce the avail- ability of slaves for hire; these often began by adver- tising “Good Cooks and Washers.” One could easily conclude that such advertisements were not reliable, be- cause Clay was trying to convince hirers that his slaves were worthy. Thus he had a motive for referring to them as “good” cooks and washers, whether they were or not. But historians are unlikely to be interested in whether these slaves really were good cooks and washers; histori- ans are interested in how slaveholders appealed to po- tential hirers, and again, it is the very existence of the advertisements’ text that provides evidence to answer this question. In many circumstances, historians seek out sources precisely because of their bias. To understand a variety of viewpoints that were operative during the U.S. civil rights movement, for instance, historians — and stu- dents — would need to read sources written from the perspectives of Malcolm X, George Wallace, the Black Panthers, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Com- mittee, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and others. Each of these would be “biased,” in that each advocates a particular social and political agenda, but that does not make them useless as sources of his- torical knowledge. Quite the contrary. It is the unique bias of each source that helps us understand the range of viewpoints people held at the time. A great deal of historical analysis is devoted to just this question: What were the ideas, attitudes, and beliefs of people in the past? To answer the question, biased sources must be used, because that bias constitutes evidence of peoples’ ideas. As Seán Lang points out, historians do not ask, “ ‘Is this source biased?’ (which suggests the possibility of unbiased sources), but rather, ‘What is this source’s bias, and how does it add to our picture of the past?’ ”6 This is not to say that recognition of bias is unim- portant. All historical research involves consideration of bias, but it only occasionally involves examining the bias of particular sources, as many classroom exer- cises and research tasks suggest. Rather, historians are more interested in the bias that results from the types of sources that are used. Any set of sources constitutes a selection from among all the possible records that were created, or that could have been created. Some people (or institutions) left behind records whereas others did not, and some records have survived whereas others have not. Therefore, historical remains are biased toward those who produced records that have survived to the pres- ent. For example, evidence for patterns of life in the Co- lonial Era is weighted toward the literate and elite, be- cause these are the people who most often created en- during records. No individual source is necessarily un- reliable, but the overall body of evidence is weighted toward particular segments of the population and is un- likely to be representative of those who left behind less evidence of their ideas or behavior. In evaluating his- torical accounts, students should learn to look for the relationship between the kinds of claims made and the types of evidence used, but this is a far cry from having them look at individual sources and try to “spot the bias.” The mistaken belief that historians’ chief task is the evaluation of bias in individual documents has led to the next two myths of primary sources. Myth 4. Using primary sources engages students in au- thentic historical inquiry. This myth often constitutes the implicit rationale for including primary sources in textbooks, on tests, or as part of classroom exercises. The mere presence of primary sources appears to lend au- thenticity to historical exercises. That is, historians use such sources, and if students use them, they too must be engaged in historical inquiry. This myth stems from a lack of understanding of how historians use primary sources, and so it may be the most fundamental misunderstanding of all. Historians do not often use sources in any of the ways that are usually identified by educators. That is, they are not primarily concerned with “sourcing” them, corrobo- A great deal of historical analysis is devoted to just this question: What were the ideas, attitudes, and beliefs of people in the past? JUNE 2005 749 rating them, or explaining their meaning. In fact, it would be rare for historians even to use the phrase “pri- mary sources,” except in a bibliography. What histori- ans work with is evidence. Primary sources are one of the most important forms of evidence, but the differ- ence between these two concepts shows just how far educators’ ideas diverge from the work of historians. One common use of primary sources is to engage students in a “document-based activity,” either as a class- room lesson or as an assessment activity. At its simplest level, students may be given a single primary source and asked comprehension questions. For example, a copy of the Northwest Ordinance may be accompanied by ques- tions such as “What does this say about slavery? About fugitive slaves?” At a more sophisticated level, students are given a variety of primary source documents, often written from conflicting viewpoints, and asked to re- spond to an essay question using the entire set. One Ad- vanced Placement document-based question, for exam- ple, asked, “To what extent had the colonists developed a sense of their identity and unity as Americans by the eve of the Revolution?” The sources provided included private correspondence, a speech in the British Parlia- ment, a declaration by the Continental Congress, pub- lished works from the 18th century, a list of relief do- nations, and the famous “Join, or die” illustration.7 Neither activity engages students in authentic his- torical inquiry. The first requires only basic compre- hension of a text, yet it is difficult to complete because of the antiquated and legalistic language of the docu- ment. The second is more complicated, but it is no more authentic, because the task has been created outside the context of historical research. That is, the sources have already been chosen, and the students are simply asked to explain what they mean. But historians do not work with “source packets,” and they would never al- low anyone else to select their sources for them.8 His- torians ask questions about the past, and they seek evi- dence that will help answer those questions. They se- lect the evidence themselves, and they do so precisely because of its authorship and purpose. They do not an- alyze sources in the ways suggested either by document- based questions or by research on sourcing, because they have no reason to work with other people’s collections of documents. Myth 5. Students can build up an understanding of the past through primary sources. Many of us are prone to the belief that, if a little is a good, a lot must be better. So if working with primary sources helps students bet- ter understand history, then spending all their time with such sources will improve students’ understanding im- measurably. Evidence suggests that this assumption is incorrect. But it makes little sense to think that knowl- edge of a subject as vast as history could be built up entirely through piecemeal analysis of primary sources. How many thousands of sources would students have to consult to develop an understanding of the Indus- trial Revolution, or the history of women’s rights, or the reasons for the Vietnam War? Students don’t need to consult 200 years of census records to learn how the population of the U.S. has grown; they can simply be told or read it in a book. They should know that some- one has consulted the records, but doing so themselves would be a misuse of their time. Moreover, students’ ability to make sense of primary sources depends directly on their understanding of the contexts in which the documents were produced. Stu- dents can learn a great deal about slavery from adver- tisements for runaways, for example, but to do so they need background information: what life was like for slaves, what their legal status was, what the geography of the region was, and what means of transportation were available. Similarly, students will be able to inter- pret Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech only if they know that African Americans at the time faced 750 PHI DELTA KAPPAN segregation and legal discrimination, that the speech was part of a larger movement for civil rights, and that King was a leader of that movement. They also must understand his references to the Declaration of Inde- pendence and the Emancipation Proclamation, or else the speech will be unintelligible. None of these things can be read directly from the sources themselves; students need to encounter expla- nations of these topics in secondary sources — a teach- er’s description, a passage in a trade book, or a file in some electronic medium. Historians do the same. Al- though they use primary sources as evidence, they would be unable to do so without knowledge of the larger frame- work of the past, and this comes from having read the secondary works of other historians. Without prior knowl- edge, sources are literally incomprehensible, and it is im- possible to construct meaning from them.9 Myth 6. Primary sources are fun. Although numer- ous publications have described students’ motivation and enthusiasm when using primary sources, such sourc- es are not inherently interesting, and students do not al- ways enjoy working with them. Educators in the United Kingdom, where “sourcework” has featured prominent- ly in history classrooms for many years, have become acutely aware of how sources can be used in ways that are neither exciting nor motivating — and certainly not fun. The use of primary sources is an expected part of history classrooms in both primary and secondary schools there, but sources sometimes become the focus of iso- lated lessons that are separated from specific historical knowledge or meaningful inquiry. That is, teachers some- times simply assign sources to see if students can ex- tract information and identify bias, and such “source- work for sourcework’s sake” becomes mechanistic and dull. British history educators even have a name for this practice: “Death by sources.”10 The use of sources in North America may be head- ing down the same path. Countless lesson plans for pri- mary sources are available commercially and through government or nonprofit websites, but these lessons of- ten emphasize the same mechanistic approach that Brit- ish educators are coming to avoid. Too often, students are simply presented with a document — one that may have no connection to their prior knowledge, experi- ence, or interests — and asked to identify when it was written, by whom, and for what purpose. In exercises like these, the ability of primary sources to raise ques- tions, inspire wonder, and provide evidence is lost, and students may find themselves completing boring and irrelevant tasks that transform their initial interest in history into active avoidance and dislike. Myth 7. Sources can be classified as “primary” or “second- ary.” Sometimes students are taught that certain sourc- es (such as diaries, photographs, wills, depositions, and so on) are primary ones, because they were produced by direct participants in the events of the past, while other sources (usually newspapers and the works of his- torians) are secondary, because their authors were not present during the events. (Textbooks and reference works often are considered “tertiary,” because they are a fur- ther step removed from primary sources.) Yet just as it is impossible to determine a word’s part of speech with- out knowing how it functions in a sentence, there is no way to identify a source as primary or secondary with- out knowing how it is used as evidence. The nature of a source does not derive from the kind of object it is (i.e., a letter versus a textbook), but from the purpose it serves in a historical investigation. If a historian (or a history student) wants to know how text- books of the 1940s portrayed interactions between Na- tive Americans and Europeans in the 18th century, then those textbooks are primary sources; for information on the interactions themselves, however, they are by no means primary. Similarly, if we want to know what George Washington thought about British treatment of pris- oners of war, his letters are primary sources, but if we want to know how those soldiers actually were treated, the same letters are secondary sources. The simple fact that a document is a textbook or a letter provides no indication of whether it should be classified as primary or secondary. Furthermore, some sources defy categorization al- together. A documentary about World War II, for ex- ample, seems like a secondary source because it was produced by someone not present during the war, yet it may be composed entirely of photographs, newsreel footage, and interviews with participants — each one of which is a primary source. However, these primary sources will have been edited to shape the overall ac- count that is presented in the film. Can a collection of primary sources be transformed into a secondary source simply because it has been arranged in a particular way? If so, then there can be no primary sources at all, be- cause we do not have complete and unmediated access to the past: all historical sources have been shaped by the circumstances of their creation and preservation. Ultimately, we might be better off jettisoning the misleading distinction between primary and secondary sources altogether. A more inclusive phrase such as “orig- inal historical sources” might help counter the belief JUNE 2005 751 that sources can be sorted into neat categories that are independent of any broader historical inquiry. W ORKING with original historical sources can be more interesting than reading from a textbook or listening to a lecture. Such sources can create personal connections to history, as students read the words written by liv- ing, breathing humans like themselves. (Students don’t typically view textbook authors as real people.) Visual evidence such as photographs, artwork, and advertise- ments, meanwhile, can tap into alternative forms of prior knowledge and increase access to history for stu- dents who do not respond well to written texts. And material artifacts that students can touch and manipu- late — such as old tools, clothes, or appliances — can be popular additions to the classroom. Indeed, much the same could be said for historical fiction, games and simulations, or role plays and dramas. What, then, are the unique contributions of original historical sources, the functions they can serve better — and more authen- tically — than other approaches? There are at least four: 1. To motivate historical inquiry. Much of the poten- tial of original historical sources lies in their ability to stimulate curiosity, just as “discrepant events” do in sci- ence. Science teachers often use physical demonstra- tions (such as objects of unequal weight falling at the same speed) to pique student interest and create cog- nitive dissonance. Students usually cannot explain such events using their prior mental frameworks, and when they face tangible evidence of such limitations, they might be motivated to engage in further study and investiga- tion. People generally strive for more consistent and com- prehensive views of the world, and direct observation can reveal gaps and fault lines in previous conceptual understanding. In history, original sources can serve much the same function. Startling or unusual sources — whether physical arti- facts, visual images, or written text — often provoke ques- tions. Elementary students who explore household ob- jects from the 19th century, for example, may wonder what their purpose was and how they were used. Photo- graphs of white resistance to school integration can lead middle school students to ask what was going on, why it was controversial, and what happened to the people involved. And secondary students who examine certif- icates of indenture, advertisements, property lists, and legal statutes from the early Colonial Era can develop hypotheses about relationships between race, national- ity, religion, and legal status.11 All these questions should lead to self-motivated inquiry. But such questions will not develop automatically, because few sources are in- herently interesting. Teachers must help develop stu- dents’ engagement through careful probing and discus- sion. 2. To supply evidence for historical accounts. Most schol- ars who advocate the reform of history education ar- gue that students need to understand how historical accounts are created. This argument has been the im- petus for much of the attention to original sources in recent years. There are, however, at least three ways in which sources can contribute to this goal, and educa- tors need to strike a balance among the three. The first is the most familiar: in order to learn that historical … Soci Studie~ . ' . Socia Justice l CHING STRATEGIES fot· ..,_MENTARV CLASSROOM Rahima C. Wade Foreword by Sonia Nieto tlaching for social justice series Essent ial Teaching Strategies 71 had the oppo rtunity t o learn in-depth about the person they role-played but also to learn about many others from their peers ' presentati ons . A simulation , as use d in social studies ed ucat ion is us II . . f h . . , ua y an imagi nary replication o a 1sto ncal eve nt. Often a simulation involves stud ents playing the ro les of specific pe ople . f or exampl e, Kri s's sec- ond graders did a simulation about Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bu s Boyc ott . Key roles were Rosa, the bus driver, and th e police officer. Man y of th e stude nts played th e " ordi nar y pe opl e " who mad e th e boycott successful. Kris noted h ow po w e rful th e si mulati on experience was , es pecia ll y for on e stude nt . " This one little girl just became Rosa Parks like th J t ' s who she was. She just had this sense of being a strong worn ~ and s tanding up for wha t was right . !In her writing ! she talked about h n \ \' she felt like she was Rosa Park s and really standing up fo r some- thin g that n eeded to be changed ." Through ro le -plays and simulations, teachers are m eeting bot h soci al 1us tice and academic content objectives . Students can discover the personal mo tivation and life experiences that contribute to some- one li ke Frederic k D ouglas s or Rosa Parks becoming an acti vist while also learning abo ut significant hist or ical events in U.S . his tory . Whtie co mmercial sim ulations for elementary social studies are readil y avatl- able , upper eleme ntary students can also write thei r ow n simulat ions by first w riting the story of an eve nt and the n deciding on the roles . Stu dents can w rite a script or, for an easier fo rmat , ad -lib their parts . PRIM ARY SOURCES Like role-play, primary sources are a m eans fo r conn ec ting stud ent s w1th hist0ry in concrete and meaningful ways. Prima ry so urces are maten- als directly from a time peri od (e.g., journal s, diaries, newspaper a.rucles, so ngs, gove rn me nt document s, letters, public not ices, uan sc npt s of s~eech es, photos , and so forth ). Ln con t rast with text book excerpt s or historian's accou nts , primary sources allow students to analyze and Interpret historica l evidence and to cons truct their own un de rstandings of hi~ torical e vent s. for ex.ample Su e used slave journal s and S01ourncr Tr ·h' ' Ut s speech '' Ain' t I a Woman " to h elp her s tudent s understan d th e Past and b · · ecome ins pired to e ngage in comm unn y acuvism . . Photos are an especially effective primary so urce for the elementary classroom as they can be us ed at an y grade leve l regardless of students ' Social Studies for Soc ia 1 lu\t1,, 72 h n also be very effcc uvc in facilitating stud .J. b Jiues T ey ca d en11 reawnga I f . i mpathY for others . Kara u se ph otos to he! h d tan<l1ng o anu e f p tr un ers J h <l- raJc ESL stud ent s look at war rom a perspect1ve seco nd· an t ir g nc1 J h U S media : <, ft cn ,n clu <le in t e . We had a few !photos! at that ti_me fro~ ou r loca l new spape r and u s ~->urces The rest were all internattona l sources . We had mayhe JO pho ws that we thought from o n e w ay or another showed the Iraq is ' point of view . Th e k ids eac h chose one that spoke to them and wrote about it. And I felt that rea lly did a sw1tch m the kid's mind of bei ng able to see th a t there was another side to this, that the re was n ' t just th e Un ited States' side and our soldiers ' side . Students gene rally enjoy working with prim ary so urces because they prese nt history as a mystery or a puzzle to be so lved usi ng the available evidence. Working with primary sources als o gives students a strong message about multiple perspec tive s. Th e re is no one correct ver:.ion of the pas t; people's views of historical eve nts are very differ· ent depending on their values, beliefs, and experiences. For example Paul Reve re would likely tell us a very different story than a British soldier about the event l di f ,, he mi d· . s ea ng up to and t h e significance o t night nde" de One w~y to illustrate how primary sources can lead to different un rstandings of h · . and give each .15t0ry 1s to divide the class into small groups group a differ · · r topic fr om a ume d em primary source on the same event O f the peno Ask t d d·ng 0 evem based h s u ems to share their understan 1 . klY on t e pnm ·11 qu1c realize that one 's d ary sou rce they anal yzed . Th ey W I 50f un erstand · · h ource mformauon availahl mg 1s greatly infl ue nced by t es d g of the event ask studen c. To develop a m ore thorough understan i~o rn each of the ongtnal ts to form new gro ups that include one person urces, and if needed . group!; Sludents can then discuss all th e so _ 08 f , engage I f f1 1ctJ m orma t1on n unher rese arc h to address an Y con w Primary sourc es al su studelltS ould n0 t hJ v,.: ace . provide a window into hi stof"Y that d joiJ!· n;i ts Wrp • • css to othe . I rs an . . ,en by pcopl rw1se . Read in g pe rsonal ette ,,., 3Jl11\ and can h ·l e in the n hl.1 1 " ' c P student'> 1 p.a 5 t emp hasiz es our com m0 e 5nar' rea 1zc th d plaC at pcoph: ac ros s ume an esse ntial Teaching Strategies 73 •milariti es, despite their differences. This realization can lead anY 5 1 111 d nts to fee l more empathy and caring for those who are different st u e hemselv es, which will hopefully lead to their desire to work for from t 1 b . h , rights and wel - emg. ot ers VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS Another essential strategy for soc ial justice teachi·ng 1·s a t. · . r 1suc expres- sion through both visual and performing arts. Student voice is a central compone nt of social justice education and the arts provide additional oppo:tunit i_es for s~lf-exp_res_sion. From puppetry, dance, and singing to drawing, pnntmakmg, pamtmg, and other visual media, the arts present students with additional ways to express their opinions and values on soci al justice issues . Using caption drawings with primary age students can help us as- sess what young children are learning from their social justice educa- tion. This strategy involves the teacher writing a dictated caption under the stude nt 's ill ustration. First, one asks the students what is going on in their pictures an d then records the child's thinking at the bottom of the page. This strategy can serve as a check on students' understanding of abstract or unfamiliar concepts. When Molly 's students were study- ing the Undergrou nd Railroad, she learned that a few students didn't unders tand it in the historic sense because they drew pictures of trains under the groun d. This example shows how the caption-drawing strat- egy can expose students' misconceptions of the past. Music can als o be an important component in social justice teach- ing. Music has played a central role in many human rights movements, from slavery to t he Civil Rights Movement to contemporary pea_ce mo vements. Students can learn to sing songs from the past or wnte songs to affirm ot hers or to create awareness of inju Stice. From proteS t 5nngs to Schoolhouse Rock, there are many opportunitie~ for integrat- ing music in a soci al justice-oriented social studies curncul~m. , T Th eek I observed m Molly s eachers sometimes create songs too. e w . . d to a dassroo m the whole school was studying the ConStitutwn, ue rectnt fed;ra l mandate Mnlly and one of the first-grade ~eac~ers met ~ver b · · t nmameanmg- «lf rcak to try to figure out a w ay to teach the Con_sth1tu ~o 11·f1'ed version ul\ . . . Th meupw1t as1m p vay to primary age children . ey ca Fifth Edition Investigating with Children in Ele.~ent~ry and Middle Sc~.pols Linda S. Levstik • Keith C. Barton \~ , C am el D ies, Lose Three Ti urns ong the m ost difficult sources for E nglish language 1 ks are am . . . d , . earners to understand ...-cxtbo 0 1 sentences, passive voice, an extensive use o fp ro n o . W h , , 1 · · com p ex· . uns. en L nglish J ro their d others) m ust read textbook p assag es-an d especially w h th . h an- J11' ers (an . . en ey ave to do so ,e 1¢11 . • im portant to proV 1de the follow ing supports: gti:1!1 dendy-1t is indepd1 . di. ,,,sions so that. students can connect the content o f upcom ingpassag1:es to th : b kgt ,,Jing sen, ' . , ctr ac ound , Prfft nd expenenccs. kflowie<lgc ~-•ew s so that students ace alerted to potentially unfam iliar w ords a d h • vQ(ab11/a,Y O vo,v• ' n p rases that they "'' ncountcr. . . ww c . ,1 • 0 that students can use visual clues and hcadm gs to predict the cont.. d . . ~di£/lvtg11mcs, s ent an orgaruzanon • . bo<>k passages. of tcxtd .J:n,us so that students can be responsible for particular sections rather than being h ·I d , 5tdtone ,ram ,,, , ovcrw c m e IcngthY chapters. . . . . by . 1 -_ , so that students see visual layouts o f how m form anon 1s presented in , Graph« organ .,_ •. ·: . a passage. ,.L : p•Actzce so that students better understand how to record and synthesize th . , N ote•t"""ng '~ ' • c content m textbooks. ; w ith adaptation, textbooks _and_ teacher talk should not dom inate social studies classroom s. ].iven_ h difficult it is for E nglish language learners to develop their abilities w hen m ost tm agine ow the read are in textbooks, m o st w ords they hear com e from the teacher, and m ost w ords wo rds Y · · N n l" th ib · b · · . esult from answ enng questions. o t o y 1s s onng, ut It 1s far too narrow a set . . . . • ces to becom e proficient m a language. L inda and R enee, like all the teachers in this of expenen . . . k ·ve students rich and vaned chances to take part m the language o f history by exposing boo ,gt d h · h th l . f . V an .ety o f sources an avm g t em express em se ves m a range o w ay s-n o t JU st them to a . . • ally but all the tim e. S tudents are surrounded by m eam ngful and authentic language use, occasm n , both w ritten and spoken, and they delight in the chance to becom e part o f it. W HEN OBJECTS ARE THE PRIM ARY SOURCES Clearly, art and architecture can m otivate student interest and inquiry, but there is another im portant reason to help students analyze and interpret m aterial culture-som etim es objects are the only evidence available for studying past cultures. B efore the discovery o f the R osetta Stone (w hich made it possible to read E gyptian hieroglyphics), art, architecture and other rem nants o f daily life provided the prim ary evidence for understanding ancient E gypt. fo r the earliest hum an com m unities, however, there can be no R osetta S tone, because these people left no w ritten records. T he only w ay we can m ake sense o f their lives is through m aterial cu ltu re-th e objects people left behind, w hether cerem onial objects found in burial sites, discarded household goods, o r tools left at w ork sites. W hen archaeologists unearth the rem ains o f buildings abandoned in the w ake o f w ar, fam ine, m igration or changing fashions, or they collect seeds and anim al rem ains preserved in garbage pits, they help us better describe hum an m igratory and trade patterns, the shift from hunting and gathering societies to settled agriculture or the spread o f artistic and technological innovation and patterns o f econorruc developm ent W hile reading and interpreting m aterial culture is the foundation for studying the m oS t dis~t past, it also enhances the study o f cultures less distant in tim e and place-including o~r 0"".n. souror _several years, fifth-grade teacher Jenny S chlarb focused on m aterial objects as_ ~l~t~ncal ces. A fter training w ith Prqject Archaeology a program that introduces teachers to act1V1t1es and tAesohurces for teaching w ith and about archae~logy she decided to ask for help from the K entucky re aeot · ' • I · al fi ldw ork andJ ogical Survey (K A S). K A S includes K -12 student.~ in on-going archaeo ogtc te buil, ennyw as h h d L ind d R enee Jenny t up a . sure er students w ould love this experience. A s a a an .' ,,_ . ct repenn1re f ·ed h ·deas D raw m gon no/e Arrb O tn and true activities and continually soug to u t new 1 · d aeokigJ suoo,,. . . . . rtifacts that represente their li o b ~ ao n s, Jenny asked her students to b n n g m objects o r a !I' ed D ·d vCS---pictur d fi rth She also shar aVl M acaulay'. , 1 es, toys, a favorite cereal box, D V D o r C D an so O ." . J-ler stu- d sm ote/ ,r1 L-M h J gical excavat1on. · cntstoved °' o ,: rysteries, a hum orous account o f a future arc aeo O . . ---deciding . . the w ays . hi h . . ted m aterial objects 'tt~let "' In w c archaeolooists in the book m ism terpre th tuden•s a ~as a " o- l gave e s ... g,,)(j lau !h b sacred um ," for instance. M acaulay's send-up o f archaeo ogy g U t als · · b' cts 0 pointed out som e o f the pitfalls o f interpret1ng O JC · 79 R eading textbooks inde- pendently requires extensive S U pP ort. C ruz & Thornton /2013), Short /1998) English language learners need rich and varied experiences w ith language. Som etim es obiects are the only evidence for studying past cultures. LaM otta & Schiffer (2001 ) H odder (2009) Levstik, H enderson, & Schlarb (2003} From an archoeoio!lical perspective, artifucts refer lo anything m ade or used by hum ans. M acaulay(1993) A cognitive check can be as simple as asking: "What were the most important things you learned?" or, more specifically, "What evidence did you uncover about lives in Henry Clay's house and lives in the slave quarters?" Cooperative learning requires structures that ensure students must work together. Aitken & Sinnema (2008/, Cohen ( 1986/, Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec {1993/ Hess (2009/ I D. Lose Three Turns Came ,es, ·d mobiles to illustrate archaeological concepts (d· . , dents also create . h d . 1sa n . Jenny s stu d h eology· defining strat1grap y an artifact). While !.,'IJ1shin al ontology an arc a ' • student g between p e . • nd themselves of common terms, they particular! t·k s mad . d of the mobiles to rem1 I d . y I ed a " e goo use d t teacher. The locked, g ass-toppe box displayed . mys. b " d veloped by a stu en . a rotaan tery ox e rized as either artifacts or non-artifacts. When fo . g array b. . that students catego · . ' r instan of o 1ects ,, d h ould it be identified as an artifact? As one student • 1 . ce, ll'as k ""ust a rock an w enc d k I k exp ained a roe J • 11 h meone used a rock to " o wor , i e kind of reg!lllar h. · , You h d b able to te w en so c ips f a to e "th ,· ust sitting there, not used by humans." · ron, a . e" from a rock at was I th • " . " . . ston . . t f their study of archaeo ogy was e dig. Dig sites ch The most exciting par O . . . . . anged f d t , nthusiasm never waned. One class participated in an . ton, t year but stu en s e · excavati year. 0 ' _ the site of Henry Clay's nineteenth-century plantation I on of ossible slave quarters on . . · nterview P th all this experience as one of the most interesting ways to lea b td three years later, ey rec . . . rn a out th f t dents worked at one of the excavation umts-a series oft • h e Past. Each group o s u . . renc es d d f th stored plantation house. Students examined strat1graphies (th I ug some yar s rom e re di . . e ayers of . . th • t they helped excavate), screened rt tn search of artifacts and clean ·d deposits in e urn s . • f . . e , sontd "d .6 d Id b ttles and buttons nails and fragments o china. Archaeologists e and I entl 1e o o ' . . . ncouragtd thi k b t time clues-the evidence of changing technologies for manufactu . th=to naoo . . . . th ,: d as well as context-the location of artifacts tn the stratigraphy At ob1ects ey ,oun - . . . . · each of . d t used the skills they practiced m class. As students shifted from 1-ob t . b these sites stu en s . . " o Jo ,one of the boys, muddied and grinning, exclauned that this was the best day o f my life." By the end of the day when students ga~he~ed on the lawn to discuss their experiences, it was clear that some objects were more easily interpreted than others. They could easily con- clude that iron tools indicated access to manufactured goods, toys the presence of children, and blacksmithing tools the pres~nce of horses. On the other hand, a long, thin metal rail protruding from the side of an excavation led some students to conclude that they had found pan of the Underground Railroad. And, even though they had been excavating slave quarters the majority of the day, some declared that Henry Clay opposed slavery-something a guide had told them during the house tour. Although it required very little discussion before students r: cognized the inconsistency, the ease with which they accepted the guide's interpretation suggests how import- ant "debriefing" can be. Debriefing conversations offer teachers opportunities to assess what their students are learning and to address misunderstandings quickly. Jenny realized, for instance, that she hadn't made it clear that the Underground Railroad was a secret escape route, not a subway. She was also surprised by how little transfer there was from one activity (excavating the slave quanm) to another (touring the reconstructed home). This is a common problem with field trips. It is easy to assume that students see and hear what we intend them to. As with so many other aspects of teaching, however, careful observation and a relatively quick cognitive check pay enor- mous dividends. As you can see, many of Jenny's (as well as Linda's) activities require students to work in groups-in fact, most of the activities throughout this book require some kind of cooperation. It's important for teachers to understand the difference between structured group work (often known as cooperative learnini) and simply having students "work together." In order for group tasks to be effective, certain structures and procedures have to be in place. One of the rnoSt important is that working together is not an option, but is required by th e very nature of th,e assignment. Sometimes this involves assigning roles to group members (so that each s_tudents t 'b · · · uon 1s to conn utlon ts required to complete the task), but another way of requiring cooperll ·hie have students complete a single task. For example rather than oiving each student a graP . • e ' b- . ' studen~ organizer to complete and telling them to work together-which always results tn some c sheet working together and some working individually-Linda gives th e entire group 1ust on their to fill out. Of cours d . . . . k 0 ver from e, some stu ents could still decline to participate, or ta e unt· classmates and th· · k · a· idual acco . . . ' ls reqwres two further elements of effective groupwor : tn iv hingof ability (m which h d . ) d the teac eac stu ent ts held responsible for learning the content , an . )( ner.i- group skills (in whi h d 1 . . f ffectivc Cl >r . . c stu ents earn and practice the norms and purposes O e eraoon tton). Just as effecti di · . . •ff> tivc c00P . ve scusstons reqwre that students learn how to discuss, e ec reqwres that stud t I h · en s earn ow to cooperate. 80