Elementary Educator's Guide to Primary Sources: Strategies for Teaching

I remember the first time I brought primary sources into my elementary classroom. I passed out copies of Revolutionary War engravings. I told students what they were, and I waited. I think I expected some magical moment of learning to happen, for students to be amazed by these connections to history. Instead, they didn't know what to do with them. I was losing the moment, but I thought that I could save the lesson. I started telling them why I thought the engravings were important and special. I thought this was a great solution, modeling my thinking for my students so that they could value these pieces of history like I did. I realized later that this wasn't the solution.

Students didn't need to begin by appreciating the primary source. Instead, I needed to give students a framework to look at these primary sources to make sense of them and make meaning from them. They needed to start by analyzing the source. As students analyze a primary source, they find what they value in the source, make connections to other learning, and identify what the source makes them wonder about. I found that I didn't have to model these things; I simply had to give them a structure where they could do it on their own.

There are multiple analysis strategies that can be used with elementary students. They come from educators, scholars, and institutions and aren't unique to my work. What is unique are aspects of how they are used with some of our youngest learners.

See, Think, Wonder Strategy

The See, Think, Wonder strategy was the first primary-source-analysis strategy that I learned, and because of that, I compare all other strategies to this. It originates from Harvard's Project Zero as one of their Visible Thinking strategies and has been paired with the use of primary sources in education by the Library of Congress.

See, Think, Wonder asks students to look at a primary source in three ways. They are asked to make observations, naming or identifying things that they see in the primary source. Thinking about the source is reacting to it, making connections, or inferring something from the source. Here, students have an opportunity to bring in their own background knowledge to help them make sense of the primary source. When wondering, students ask questions about the primary source or about the event or person the source is connected to. These questions can help lead them to future learning and other resources.

See, Wonder, Think Strategy

While the See, Think, Wonder strategy can help students generate questions, using a similar See, Wonder, Think strategy can shift the analysis to focus on the questions that students think of related to the primary source.

One of the powers of a well-selected primary source is that it makes students wonder. There are times, through analysis, that a teacher may want students to focus on analyzing a primary source as a way for them to develop their own questions. This may be done as an introduction to a unit of study or a particular lesson that will connect with other resources. Students generating their own research questions may be another reason primary sources are used in this way.

The See, Wonder, Think strategy makes one change to See, Think, Wonder. This change alters the focus of students, guiding them to generate questions on the basis of their observations and then begin to think of possible responses to the questions. The strategy feels familiar to students who have used See, Think, Wonder. That familiarity may make it an appealing choice. It also may make it a strategy that requires less modeling from a teacher.

Close Reading Strategy

Many schools use a close reading strategy to use with fiction or informational nonfiction texts. Close Reading can also be an effective strategy when working with text-based primary sources. The use of the Close Reading strategy with primary sources was inspired by my reading of Christopher Lehman and Kate Roberts's book Falling in Love with Close Reading. While that book does not specifically mention the use of primary source text, the pairing of historical text with the strategy seemed to open possibilities to student understanding. Its simple and straightforward approach makes it a good choice when pairing with primary sources, but if a student is already familiar with another Close Reading strategy, adapting that to analyzing primary sources may be a better approach.

Close Reading with primary sources is limited to text-based formats, such as letters, newspapers, or diaries, but can also be used with transcribed audio formats, such as recorded interviews or speeches. The three-step process asks students to read a primary source through a particular lens, to use that lens to uncover patterns in the primary source, and finally to work with the patterns to uncover new understanding.

Analyzing Like a Historian Strategy

This strategy is modeled after Stanford History Education Group's Reading Like a Historian strategy where students focus on historical reading skills to make meaning from a primary source. This four-step process can be complex and is likely one a teacher would use after students are familiar with other primary-source-analysis strategies. The layers of analysis do encourage students to look at a piece from several different angles and give them a unique way to independently think about the primary source.

The Analyzing Like a Historian strategy guides students through a four-step process to analyze a primary source. The first two, sourcing and contextualizing, ask students to quickly identify basic information in the primary source and then place that source in a historical context. As students begin to carefully look at the source, they use a close reading or other analysis strategy to draw specific meaning from the source. Finally, students are asked to corroborate their understanding from this primary source with another primary source or other learning that has previously taken place.

Using Visible Thinking Strategies as Exit Slips

Visible Thinking strategies encourage students to express their thinking through voice or writing. One notable resource is Harvard's Project Zero, which has a wealth of resources that encourage this type of sharing that makes thinking more evident and also helps students process and reflect on their own learning. This type of work pairs well with the deep levels of thinking that happen as students fully engage with a primary source. Elementary teachers can use variations of these strategies as a way to gain evidence of student thinking. This can help when reviewing the effectiveness of a lesson and help support future learning.

Visible Thinking strategies can be presented as an exit slip, a quick-written response from a student that gives the teacher insight into a student's learning. This may be submitted on a digital form or written on a slip of paper. The purpose is to get feedback that is quick for a student to produce and for a teacher to read and evaluate. These exit slips may be an observation of the class as a whole or may bring awareness about a single student. They typically are formative assessments that a teacher can apply to help bridge the learning from the primary source analysis to the connected learning.

There are many reasons why a teacher may want to use an exit slip with a Visible Thinking strategy at the end or at a pivotal point within a lesson. Possibly, the teacher only had time to focus on one part of a primary source analysis but wants a larger insight into how his or her students view the primary source. Maybe the teacher wants to try a new primary source analysis or a variation on the analysis. A Visible Thinking exit slip may help the teacher understand the impact of the strategy on student thinking. There may also be lessons where students perform a primary source analysis and the teacher's understanding of student learning is unclear. Any of these warrant a Visible Thinking strategy exit slip.

Learn more from Bober about how to apply these strategies with your students in his book Elementary Educator's Guide to Primary Sources: Strategies for Teaching, where he offers step-by-step processes and detailed examples. And take a look at his lessons "Defining Vocabulary Through Primary Source Analysis" and "Exploring Maps of the Solar System with Primary Sources" to help your students analyze compelling primary sources today!