Letters and diaries, oral history transcripts, political pamphlets, and cartoons can all be introduced to young students as historical evidence to be analyzed. These sources can stimulate students' interest and help them formulate questions for further research. Using a collection of primary sources, whether compiled for you or compiled yourself, moves students closer to the way actual historians conduct research. Viewing a topic from different perspectives, sometimes looking at fragmentary evidence, students are able to construct their own interpretations in a way that textbooks don't usually encourage. Students have to weigh the validity of various accounts and attempt to explain some of the differences.
Primary sources help students construct a more complete picture of the past.
The challenge for teachers is to help students work with diverse materials and to find time to adequately evaluate primary sources of historical evidence. If your school will permit you to plan an overnight visit, expand your sights to places you can travel to in four or five hours. Through such sources as the National Register of Historic Places, the Association for Living Historical Farms and Agricultural Museums, and local historical societies you can find lists of locations in your area. Historic places can evoke thoughts and feelings of time and place in a way that texts often cannot. In addition these sites present the physical manifestations of history in a way that is very different from museums.