About this resource
Students will be assigned to groups of four. Direct each group to identify three different ways that past groups have preserved their history through primary sources. Explain that the students will use two of our school's subscription databases as well as the Library of Congress online to locate three unique constructs that have been developed by a past group to preserve its history.
Students will use ABC History Databases, Britannica online school database, and the Library of Congress http://blogs.loc.gov/teachers/ to locate diaries, personal narratives, interviews, newspapers, letters, oral histories, pieces of Folk life – (songs, stories, jokes, crafts, and dances which have been handed down from generation to generation) as samples of resources that preserve pieces of history.
Students will work together to analyze each primary source in order to answer these questions:
- Who created this primary source?
- When was it created?
- What ideas are expressed?
- What questions does it raise?
- What was happening during this time period?
- What was the creator's purpose in making this primary source?
- What does the creator do to get his or her point across?
- What was this primary source's audience?
Students will have time at the end of class to present one of their primary sources to the class. They will share which electronic resource they utilized to access the material, and what types of search strategies were most helpful in locating the primary source they selected.
Curriculum & Standards
Related General Curriculum / Common Core Area
History, Social Studies
Related Curriculum / Common Core Standard
History Standards: Students will use critical and analytical thinking skills to read and examine documents and objects.
Students use prior knowledge and work with multiple primary sources to find patterns.
In analyzing primary sources, students move from concrete observations and facts to questioning and making inferences about the materials.
What students will do
7th graders will apply effective key word searches and strategies to locate primary source documents. 7th graders will connect primary sources to the context in which they were created.
Resources Needed
Access to tablets or computers