Engaging Students with Primary Source

By reviewing and analyzing these nine selected points from Martin Luther's 95 Theses, your young historians will discern the major tenets of the revolutionary challenge made against the Catholic Church in the seventeenth century. This is...

Scholars study a historical photograph to make predictions of what happened right after the picture was taken. They research a variety of different topics and use primary sources to answer questions about common food, fashion trends, and...

Can we learn a thing or two about history by looking at pictures from the past? As young historians view 2-D and 3-D primary source photographs, they respond to a series of worksheets that guides them toward unveiling clues about the past. 

Primary sources—even those that seem mundane—offer a window into those who experienced history. Using a Red Cross map offered to soldiers stationed in Paris after World War II alongside worksheet questions, scholars consider what life...

Use primary sources to delve into seven different perspectives of the Boston Massacre. Here, historians read and examine images taken from the Boston Massacre's witnesses and participants. Then, they answer questions dissecting each...

Analyze a primary source document "Our America" which depicts a Spanish-American point of view. The class answers 3 critical-thinking questions based on the reading and create a time line of Cuba's struggle for independence. 

Middle schoolers look at different types of primary sources. They work with partners to analyze three popular culture primary sources. They write a paragraph telling whether they think it belongs in a time capsule. They will also...

Connect historical text to primary sources. Researchers observe and discuss primary sources. Then, historians bring in their own personal artifacts and connect them back to their history.

Students explore the usage of primary sources, what they are and how they originate. Artifacts are compared and contrasted as part of this historical inquiry as questions are formulated and conclusions drawn.

Why do we read primary source documents? What can they give us that other writings cannot? Provide your learners with any of the primary sources attached here (there are seven), and have them complete the graphic organizer (which opens...