This framework will help you use primary sources throughout your teaching. For years, historians and other educators have understood the value of primary sources in K-12 education. History, after all, deals with matters that were furiously debated by the participants. Interpretations of the past are furiously debated as well, among historians, policy makers, politicians, and ordinary citizens. By working with primary sources, students can become involved in these debates.
Primary sources help students develop knowledge, skills, and analytical abilities.
By dealing directly with primary sources, students engage in asking questions, thinking critically, making intelligent inferences, and developing reasoned explanations and interpretations of events and issues in the past and present. Use one or two short primary sources to begin a lesson, unit, or block of instruction. Generate one or two well-crafted questions about the sources. Use the questions to spark a class discussion or as a task for pairs of students to answer. Ask students to freely write their reactions to a thought-provoking document.