This book was funded by the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) grant. For more information about the Teaching with Primary Sources program, visit loc.gov/teachers.

Staff Editor: Kurt Austin

Interior Design: Ash Goodwin

Cover Design: Geno Church

Cover Image: 1) Skeleton of a Whale. United States Alaska, ca. 1900. [Between and Ca. 1930] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/99614675/. 2) Haywood, Big Bill, and Industrial Workers of The World. The Rebel Girl. Composed by Hill, Joe, Lyricist [Chicago, Ill.?: Wm. D. Haywood?, Chicago, Ill.: Rayner Dalheim & Co., Music Printers & Engravers, 1915] Notated Music. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017562126/. 3) Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Benjamin Franklin Papers. 4) Currier & Ives. Home Sweet Home. , None. [New york: published by Currier & Ives, between 1856 and 1907] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2002695888/. 5) Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Alexander Hamilton Papers. 6) Parks, Rosa. Rosa Parks Papers: Miscellany, -2005; Recipe for featherlite pancakes, undated. - 2005, 1934. Manuscript/Mixed Material. https://www.loc.gov/item/mss859430324/

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ISBN (epub): 978-0-8141-0251-0; ISBN (PDF): 978-0-8141-0252-7

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Introduction

TROY HICKS

As an English educator, my path to figuring out exactly what primary sources are and how to make use of them in English language arts (ElA) instruction has been a journey of humility and discovery.

When I signed on to be part of a regional Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) project in my home state of Michigan in 2019—and even after 20+ years in education at that point—I would have described primary sources and their uses in the classroom in a fairly straightforward, not very nuanced manner (T. Hicks et al., 2022). In my first attempts at understanding primary sources and the associated pedagogies, I looked, well, to the source: the Library of Congress (LOC). Primary sources, according to an oft-cited definition from the Library of Congress, are “the raw materials of history—original documents and objects which were created at the time under study” (Library of Congress, n.d.). Other sources, such as the Primary Sources at Yale Project, contend that these materials “provide firsthand testimony or direct evidence” and “are usually created by witnesses or recorders who experienced the events or conditions being documented” (Primary Sources at Yale, n.d.-b).

Thus, my own initial definition was fairly straightforward and unsophisticated: a primary source is a document or visual artifact created at a certain point in history, and examined in lessons and assignments that are taught in social studies classrooms.

On one level at least, this is a reasonable set of assumptions about what primary sources are and how they are taught. These definitions confirmed my original ideas: primary sources were simply objects that happened to be in the time and place of an important historical event. As outlined by Hicks, Doolittle, and Lee in a 2004 article “Social Studies Teachers’ Use of Classroom-based and Web-based Historical Primary Sources,” professional books and articles from the 1990s and early 2000s describe the benefit of using primary sources to “(a) prepare students to Learn to think historically through doing historical inquiry and (b) develop young citizens who are capable of informed deliberative criticism” (2004, pp. 213-214). Words like historical and citizens have, in the past, seemed to be in the purview of our social studies colleagues, so this description aligned with my preconceived notions of what primary sources are and how to use them. This focus on a pedagogical approach—one that centers the critical analysis of primary sources—was described in a 2021 report by the research group Ithaka S+R. In this report, they articulate a “primary source pedagogy” where “once appropriate sources are found, instructors must decide how to teach with them and how they want their students to engage with the sources” (Tanaka et al., 2021, p. 23).

Yet, on another level, this definition of and pedagogical uses for primary sources seemed a bit more complex. First, a caveat on the LOC website had caught my attention. With over twenty million items in its catalog, the LOC documents the best and—with the Legal disclaimer that LOC’s goal is to “offer public access to a wide range of information, including historical materials that are products of their particular times” and that some of these materials “may contain offensive Language or negative stereotypes” (Library of Congress, 2020)—the worst of American history. All of these items are there, openly available for further analysis, discussion, and critique.

This warning—that these artifacts “are products of their particular times”—began to make me think about perspectives on media Literacy, such as the “Five Key Questions” that invite students to think about the ways that media messages are constructed, and the idea that different people will experience the same media message in unique ways (Center for Media Literacy, n.d.). Also, with the variety of materials available on the LOC site, I began to wonder: did these texts, maps, photographs, or other items have to be created by or in possession of a famous person? Or, as I Learned more in my initial foray into the LOC and their teacher resources, could these sources be a bit more than just something that was attached directly to a famous person, place, or event and, instead, be some other artifact of the time?

Digging deeper into the LOC database and Learning from my colleagues, I began to see primary sources all around me, past and present. Advertisements and newspaper articles. Radio broadcasts and film clips. Maps and oral histories. Even social media posts can be considered as primary sources, even if the LOC isn’t still archiving every tweet (Osterberg, 2017), as they had once aimed to do. At that point, my ELA instincts started to kick in, as I thought about the ways in which primary sources themselves—as well as the analysis of such sources—could be considered more contextually as an analysis of Language and rhetorical choices. Whether they were created one hundred years ago, ten years ago, or just a moment ago, I started to rethink the ways in which primary sources could, like any text we might examine or create, “vary in format, genre, and medium” and could include “print-based and digital-based texts and information sources” (National Council of Teachers of English, 2019). Thinking more broadly about what constitutes a text, and thus a source, I was curious to Learn more about what counts as a primary source, for whom, and in what context.

This series of questions Led me down a second path. Through more inquiry, I discovered that many other scholars have offered definitions of primary sources, and these are anything but the straightforward definition I had once described for myself. For instance, a 1989 publication from the National Archives and Records Administration and the National Council for the Social Studies, Teaching with Documents, in outlining their collaboration that dates back to 1977, describes these documents “by those who participated in or witnessed the events of the past” and notes that “[p]rimary sources force students to realize that any account of an event, no matter how impartially presented it appears to be, is essentially subjective” (vii). I began thinking about the Literary theories and digital and media Literacy frameworks to which I had been introduced over the years, considering aspects of audience, situation, and purpose in the examination of primary sources both in the present as well as in the ways that these sources were originally created at the time.

From there, I wanted to understand how social studies educators, Librarians, historians, archivists, and museum professionals were making arguments that would broaden the conception of how we might think about primary sources not as ossified, objective artifacts, devoid of context, and instead as texts with authors, purposes, and perspectives of their own. As Jeremiah Clabough in Unpuzzling History (2016) suggests, primary sources “are filled with biases, emotions, and opinions, not to mention personal rancor, ego, and gut reactions. . . . This is why textbooks have Long avoided all but the most politically correct and pastel of primary sources” (p. 4). So, in this sense, the context in which a primary source was created is crucial, as is our contemporary understanding of these sources given the Long arc of history and current social realities.

As I continued to broaden my own under-standing of primary sources, I also realized that, in addition to the context of the source, teachers and students would also need to more fully consider the context for which the source was being examined. That is, the criteria to determine whether a source is “primary” or not is contextual and, as some would argue, quite complicated. These complications are also described by Tanaka et al. in their report for the research group Ithaka S+R noted above, as they make the argument that

What makes a source “primary” is more a function of the question being asked of the object than some inherent quality of “primaryness” in the object itself. While certain classes of materials, e.g., Letters, journals, and manuscripts, Lend themselves more explicitly to the category of “primary source,” other classes of materials can occupy a grey area between primary and secondary depending on perspective and research question, newspapers being a classic example. (2021, p. 8)

Along these same Lines of thinking, and returning to Clabough, he argues that what “counts” as a primary source can also be constructively complicated in a number of additional ways:

We do not want to make any hasty assumptions [about what primary sources are]. Everyone does not define primary sources in exactly the same way. When we use the term, primary sources, we are referring to all of the remains of a time period, everything that people created and were then, somehow, by intent or by chance in some way preserved until today. Primary sources come in many shapes, sizes, and forms. These include documents, artifacts, photographs, and different kinds of media. Any categorization that we create will contain an expanding number of types. And, no matter how complete the List, something, perhaps something very important, will be omitted. (p. 4)

These considerations of primary sources— what was included, what was Lost to history, and what was intentionally omitted—are all imperative, especially for ELA teachers who are constantly asking our students to analyze existing texts and to consider a number of rhetorical decisions in crafting their own.

In short, over the past few years, my understanding of what a primary source is, how a primary source can be defined, and by whom a source is categorized as “primary” have all changed. Moreover, I am beginning to think about a wide range of documents, images, films, monuments, places, and other types of media that can be read and interpreted as primary sources. As the research team at Yale reminds readers, in contrast to secondary sources (which interpret and evaluate primary sources) or tertiary sources (which summarize and synthesize information from primary sources), “many sources can be either primary or secondary depending on the context of the research and of the source itself” (Primary Sources at Yale, n.d.-a). Thus, a reader, Listener, or viewer must maintain a constant state of engagement when interacting with these sources, thinking about their own role in relation to the texts that they are examining.

With all these ideas in mind, I was then fortunate enough to be invited to a new project, the one described in the pages of this book. Here, the LOC was working with the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) to expand the use of primary sources in ELA classrooms. Knowing that their vast catalog of materials as well as their Primary Source Analysis tool that relied on the “Observe, Reflect, Question” protocol was often being used by colleagues in the social studies—and, to some extent, used sporadically in English Language arts classrooms—the LOC wanted to know how ELA teachers, specifically high school ELA teachers, could bring primary sources into their instruction related to Literature and composition. And, based on my experiences outlined above, I knew that this inquiry would yield a number of compelling insights and examples from around the country.

Thus, the rest of this introduction describes a year-long inquiry involving fourteen high school teachers who intentionally integrated primary sources into their Literature, poetry, and writing curricula. It is here where we pick up the conversation about primary source pedagogy as English Language arts educators, professionals who—like our social studies colleagues—have always been interested in critical analysis of texts. Although our focus may have traditionally been more attuned to Literature, poetry, and drama, ELA teachers have over the years also worked to develop these skills as students examine nonfiction texts and other forms of media including images, film, audio recordings, and web-based publications. In this sense, ELA teachers have been encouraging their students to analyze and interpret the materials that they consume and to think about the design of materials that they create, thus engaging in a kind of primary source pedagogy, even if not exactly the kind I had originally confined to the classrooms of social studies colleagues.

In sharing these ideas and bringing our dispositions as ELA educators to the task of integrating primary sources into our instruction, we are indebted to a number of perspectives on what our field has defined as disciplinary, digital, critical, and media Literacies. The skills and stances that are named in these Literacies often overlap in many ways, and can help us consider the reasons for when, why, and how we choose to use primary sources in our classrooms and curricula. Throughout this publication, readers will discover ways in which ELA teachers have taught their students to critically examine both the sources in the LOC database as well as the search parameters and filters evident in the LOC system itself. They pay close attention to sources that include paintings and photographs, poems and political posters. Across the Lessons described in the pages that follow, we see the ways that ELA teachers are encouraging their own students to see—and resee—primary sources through new perspectives, elevating the voices of the unheard, showing the stories of the unseen.

Before delving more deeply into an overview of their work, I briefly explore an overlapping set of Literacy practices—including digital, disciplinary, critical, and media Literacies—and how they guided our professional development project during the calendar year of 2022, the New Perspectives on Primary Sources project sponsored by LOC and NCTE.

Connecting Primary Source Pedagogy to ELA Instruction

As noted above, NCTE and the field of ELA education have Long been interested in a variety of theories and Lenses for creating and interrogating texts, including what are broadly defined as digital, disciplinary, critical, and media Literacies. A brief explanation of each is described below, and our group used NCTE’s Definition of Literacy in a Digital Age to ground our discussion of primary source pedagogy throughout the workshop series, the writing process for Lesson plans and chapters, and in our preparation of the final manuscripts. As with all things “literacies,” as NCTE notes, we engaged in “a wide range of skills, competencies, and dispositions” and this required that we see our Literacy practices as “interconnected, dynamic, and malleable” (National Council of Teachers of English, 2019).

Before exploring these recursive and interwoven ideas, it is important to note that this fits in with a broader history of Looking at digital Literacies and primary sources. In 2009, Mary J. Johnson—a Librarian and technology teacher, as well as a fellow of the LOC’s precursor to the TPS program, the “American Memory” project— wrote Primary Source Teaching the Web 2.0 Way. In the early chapters of the book, she argued that there is a symbiotic relationship between primary source pedagogy and digital Literacies. “Many of the skills required of primary source Learning,” she contends, “match similar Lists developed by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and the International Society for Technology in Education” (2009, p. 20). She also outlines the state of primary source digitization at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, noting that “[h]uge preservation challenges remain” (p. 21) yet educators and students have more access to primary sources than ever before, with the quality and quantity of them increasing every day.

Having access to these digitized primary sources is important, as is helping students to understand the ways in which they can transform and repurpose these digitized sources. Five years Later, in their 2014 article “Fostering Historical Thinking with Digitized Primary Sources” Tally and Goldenberg felt that this work on digitized primary sources had progressed, yet not all the way. They argued:

The full potential of digital primary sources has clearly yet to be exploited, however, as digital platforms and tools continue to be developed and refined, it will be helpful to keep in mind the various challenges and drawbacks instructors noted about digital sources. (as cited in Tanaka et al., Ithaka S+R, p. 43)

This critique demonstrates the ways in which the primary sources—though searchable online and easy to repurpose in multimodal projects—simply were not being used to capacity. Put another way, students and teachers may have more and more access to a wider variety of primary sources, and they may be using them for the kinds of critical analysis that can open inquiry. However, these sources have not been more fully explored and integrated into “born digital” projects that could range from slide decks and written reports to more interactive projects such as timelines and websites to other forms of digital media such as videos and podcasts.

In short, we have access to more and more primary sources, yet we seem not to be as fully engaged with them as we could be, and we need to more thoroughly engage in digital, disciplinary, critical, and media Literacies. Put simply, the process of analyzing primary sources is a form of Literacy. While this kind of work has typically fallen in the domain of social studies, the process of examining primary sources has a great deal in common with the kinds of Literacy Learning we want for our students, and the teachers featured here demonstrate this kind of work in admirable ways.

Toward a New Perspective on Primary Source Pedagogy in ELA Instruction

If it is not evident yet, it can be said that in the past few years, ELA teachers—and the National Council of Teachers of English as our professional organization—are focusing more on how primary source pedagogy can be implemented in our classrooms. And given the scope of the kinds of documents available through repositories like the LOC, the National Archives, or other Libraries, museums, and cultural institutions, we are excited by the ways in which these materials can be curated, annotated, and transformed through the use of digital writing tools.

Our teacher inquiry group convened under the auspices of NCTE and LOC. Our New Perspectives on Primary Sources (NPPS) project brought fourteen secondary teachers from around the United States into work with four teacher Leaders. When the project was announced by NCTE Executive Director Emily Kirkpatrick, she noted that “NCTE is [pleased to be] engaged in ongoing work with the Library of Congress, and will connect the ELA community with the Library of Congress to expand the use of primary sources in teaching.” This work began with the publication of Rebecca Newland’s quick-reference guide, Engaging Students with Library of Congress Primary Sources in the ELA Classroom. This guide is available as a free download from ReadWriteThink at www.readwritethink.org/resource/37834. From this initial work, both NCTE and the LOC wanted the efforts to grow.

The main portion of our collaboration spanned January through December of 2022 and included a variety of professional development components, Leading to this volume. We gathered in monthly workshops, January through June and once again in September, and also prepared a roundtable presentation for the 2022 NCTE Annual Convention in Anaheim. Teachers were also invited to use the LOC TPS Teachers Network (https://tpsteachersnetwork. org) as a space to share resources and engage with others involved in primary source pedagogy. As we shared our drafts with one another, we engaged in a peer review process that prepared our chapters and Lesson plans for publication in this book and on the ReadWriteThink website.

Conclusion

As I continue to Learn from colleagues who have been part of this conversation for years, and specifically through my work with the LOC’s Teaching with Primary Sources Consortium, I appreciate the ways that my own understanding of what primary sources are and how they can be used to teach continues to grow. In working with colleagues on our regional project in Michigan, we reflected on the idea that teachers and students were seeing new ways to bring digitized primary sources into their work, combining the work of analyzing these sources with critical and creative interpretations across media such as websites, slide decks, videos, and timelines (T. Hicks et al., 2022).

More to the point—and in relation to the New Perspectives on Primary Sources project described above—the stories and Lesson ideas of the colleagues in the subsequent chapters continue to push my thinking. Primary sources, in one sense, are still found in the Lists of searchable, refinable criteria on the LOC website, including “original format” materials such as newspapers, photos, drawings, periodicals, Legislation, and software, as well as “online format” materials that also include webpages, epubs, and compressed data sets. Yet, in a broader sense, these materials are just one way to enter a sustained, ongoing conversation about history and the ways that we describe what it means for us to be human. Thus, primary sources serve as a way to enter into conversation with our past, whether from Last week, Last year, or Last century, and they are equally as important as discovering more about what we will think about tomorrow and well into the future.

References

Center for Media Literacy. (n.d.). Five key questions form foundation for media inquiry. https://www.medialit.org/reading-room/five-key-ques-tions-form-foundation-media-inquiry

Clabough, J. (2016). Unpuzzling history with primary sources. Information Age Publishing. https://cmich.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&d-b=e000xna&AN=1065233&site=ehost-live

Hicks, D., Doolittle, P., & Lee, J. K. (2004). Social studies teachers’ use of classroom-based and web-based historical primary sources. Theory & Research in Social Education, 32(2), 213-247.

Hicks, T., Bush, R., & Ellison, J. (2022). Digitally writing new histories: Bringing primary sources, the C3 framework, and Literacy practices to Life. The Great Lakes Social Studies Journal, 2(1), 40-49.

Library of Congress. (2020, December 17). legal [Web page]. Library of Congress, Washington, DC. 20540 USA. https://www.loc.gov/legal/

Library of Congress. (n.d.). Getting started with primary sources [Web page]. Library of Congress, Washington, DC. 20540 USA. https://www.loc.gov/programs/teachers/getting-started-with-primary-sources/

National Council of Teachers of English. (2019, November 7). Definition of literacy in a digital age. https://ncte.org/statement/nctes-definition-literacy-digital-age/

Osterberg, G. (2017, December 26). Update on the Twitter Archive at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress Blog [Webpage]. blogs.loc.gov/loc/2017/12/update-on-the-twitter-archive-at-the-library-of-congress-2/

Primary Sources at Yale. (n.d.a). Find & discover. https://primarysources.yale.edu/find-discover

Primary Sources at Yale. (n.d.b). Welcome. Primary Sources at Yale. https://primarysources. yale.edu/

Tally, B., & Goldenberg, L. B. (2005). Fostering historical thinking with digitized primary sources. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 38(1), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2005.10782447

Tanaka, K., Abosso, D., Appiah, K., Atkins, K., Barr, P., Barrutia-Wood, A., & Baydoun, S. (2021). Teaching with primary sources: Looking at the support needs of instructors. Ithaka S+R.

Primary Sources in the English Language Arts: Windows to History

LISA FINK AND NICOLE DAMICO

When teachers hear the term English language arts (ElA), they might picture students reading canonical and young adult Literature, writing argumentative essays, or reciting spoken-word poetry. While each of these activities certainly falls under the category of what happens in a Literacy classroom, the National Council of Teachers of English/International Reading Association (NCTE/ IRA) Standards for the English Language Arts identify six specific skills: reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing, and visually representing (NCTE/IRA, 1996):

• Reading—Making meaning from written symbols.

• Writing—Using written symbols in a way that will convey information to others.

• Listening—Making connections between spoken words and their meanings.

• Speaking—Orally communicating with others.

• Viewing—Interpreting images as well as connecting visual images to printed or spoken words.

• Visually Representing—Presenting information through still or motion pictures, either alone or with written or spoken words.

To reinforce these six ELA skills, scholars contend that 21st-century teachers need to support students in cultivating the competencies necessary to analyze complex texts, make observations across contexts and modalities, and synthesize their understandings (Lynch, et al., 2018; Snow & O’Connor, 2016). In addition, students need opportunities to explore and interact with texts across genres and purposes (NCTE/ IRA, 1996), and these objectives are echoed in national and state standards. For example, the Common Core State Standards (Common Core Standards Initiative, 2010) outline that students should develop ELA skills through the exploration of nonfiction and informational texts. While attending to standards, ELA educators must also recognize the impact of reader-based approaches to Literacy (Rosenblatt, 1978). Sims Bishop (1990) reminds readers that Literature has the power to act as “windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors” for readers to both see themselves within and observe other perspectives in Literature. Rosenblatt’s (1978) reader response theory focuses on the importance of aesthetic reading, where the reader co-constructs Literary meaning. This chapter will explore how secondary ELA teachers can incorporate primary sources into their pedagogy and will offer specific examples, based on the six foundational Literacy skills outlined by NCTE/IRA (1996): reading, writing, Listening, speaking, viewing, and visually representing.

Reading with Primary Sources

Effective reading practices include providing students with reading time and access to books that represent a wide range of characters and experiences, and structuring reading communities that include both teachers and students (NCTE/IRA, 1996). Primary sources can be used to support ELA instruction by providing students with an understanding of the historical context within which the Literature they read is embedded (Waring, 2021).

The Literacy practice of close reading can deepen the investigation of primary sources as close reading encourages students to pay attention to an author’s Language and use of details (Boyles, 2013; Fisher et al., 2014). According to Boyles (2013), “close reading means reading to uncover Layers of meaning that Lead to deep comprehension” (p. 37). Fisher et al. (2014) offer three tiered questions to support students’ close reading of texts: What does the text say? How does the text work? What does the text mean? These close-reading questions closely mirror the Library of Congress (LOC) (n.d.) guide to analyzing primary sources, encouraging readers to

• Observe: students should identify and note details in the source.

• Reflect: students should generate and test hypotheses about the source.

• Question: students should ask questions that Lead to more observations and reflections.

As an example of how close reading of primary sources can be used in practice, after reading Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), students can read The Ballad of Booker T by Langston Hughes (1941), complete with Hughes’s revision notes and annotations. Students can explore both works and a host of others representing the cultural expressions of the Harlem Renaissance, an African American cultural and intellectual movement of the 1920s and ‘30s, and answer this framing question: How does each author’s work compare and contrast to the other media from the Harlem Renaissance? Additional questions that invite a close reading synthesis of each text include prompts about the background knowledge and context needed for a full understanding of the text:

• What type of text is the work? This question challenges students to identify different genres of text.

• Who created the text? This question invites students to focus on an author of a text and how their history or Lived experiences influences that text and its meaning.

• What was the purpose? This question asks students to think critically about the function of a text and the reason why it was written.

• Who was the audience for the text? This question challenges students to consider for whom a text was written and how it connects to the purpose and genre.

• When was it created? This question invites students to analyze how the time period within which a text was created influences its meaning.

• Where was it created? This question asks students to factor in the setting of a text and its origins.

Through close reading texts from the Harlem Renaissance using prompts like the ones above, students will gain a better sense of not only the authors and their works but also of the atmosphere and historical significance of the time and what prompted the wave of productivity from African American poets, artists, and writers of the time. Being able to analyze the historical context, intended audience, point of view, and purpose in primary sources transfers into students’ writing in and out of the classroom (Young & Leinhardt, 1998). This Leads to the next Literacy skill: writing.

Writing with Primary Sources

Writing is a way of communicating with others that varies in form, structure, and production process, depending on the audience and purpose (NCTE/IRA, 1996). Students need to be exposed to a wide range of writing purposes and writing forms that arise from those purposes (e.g., essays, Lab reports, research papers, poems, or Literary interpretations) (NCTE/IRA, 1996).

For example, during a poetry unit, teachers can conduct a read-aloud of Emily Dickinson’s “I’m Nobody, Who Are You?” (1891). Teachers can then encourage students to empathize with the narrator of the poem by visualizing the context and setting. Fink (2019a) offers a written invitation:

Ask students to imagine themselves stranded on a desert island for ten years. Invite them to write two Letters to send off the island in two separate bottles. One Letter should be addressed and written to someone they know and care about. The second Letter should be addressed and written to the world at Large (i.e., no one person in particular). (p. 1)

To truly Leverage the power of primary sources, educators should embed primary sources in curricula beyond the surface Level implementation as illustrations or supplemental texts (Waring, 2021). Reading and writing are inextricably intertwined, as reading widely and broadly offers a vital source of information and mentor texts for developing writers who must be familiar with and draw on what previous writers have already said. Primary sources can factor into writing instruction by providing powerful mentor texts for students to critique and analyze as they create their own writing.

With technological innovation, new modalities for expression constantly create new audiences, purposes, and invitations to compose (Damico & Krutka, 2018; NCTE 2018, 2019). Annotating is a means for readers to “talk with their texts, to their texts, about and beyond texts, and within and through texts. Annotation connects together people, texts, and ideas, enabling shared insight, engaged dialogue, and new understanding and knowledge” (Kalir & Garcia, 2021, p. xii). The act of annotating typically involves highlighting or underlining key pieces of text and making notes in the margins of the text. The Library of Congress’s Speculative Annotation resource (https://labs.loc.gov/work/experiments/annotation/) catalogues items from the LOC’s collections for students, teachers, and other users to annotate through captions, drawings, and other types of mark making. This allows students to move beyond a close reading of a text to interact with and add Layers of text of their own, enriching their understanding of the primary text.

For example, during a political rhetoric unit, students could read Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address (1861) and can use the Speculative Annotation software to mark up the text with words of their own, images, shapes, and question starters, such as What happened right before this? and What happened right after this? Students can practice their annotation skills by selecting an excerpt from the inaugural address draft and identifying the figurative Language (e.g., similes and metaphors). Students could then share their annotations with peers and the teacher to work toward a whole-class discussion around the figurative Language embedded in the inaugural address and how Lincoln’s choice of figurative language set the foundation for his Legacy. As an extension, students can experiment with using figurative language in their own writing while crafting a speech to a Larger audience such as their Local community or the nation. In the next section, we will explore what role Listening to texts like speeches can play in Literacy skills, as students make meaning of sound.

Listening with Primary Sources

Oral language is also a foundational component of Literacy (Shanahan et al., 2006). Through Listening, an active process of constructing meaning through sound (NCTE/ IRA, 1996), students Learn to understand what is being communicated and how it is being communicated. Oral Language also supports many of the skills needed for reading print texts, like recognizing and interpreting words, observing transitions and organizational patterns, and comprehending Literal and implied meanings. These skills contribute to students’ understanding of oral and audio texts (Shanahan et al., 2006).

For example, during a public speaking unit, students can Listen to famous recorded speeches and consider the following during-reading prompts to support their exploration of the rhetorical choices of the speakers. Fink (2019b) suggests:

After gaining skill through analyzing a historic and contemporary speech as a class, students will select a famous speech from a List compiled from several resources and write a piece that identifies and explains the rhetorical strategies that the author deliberately chose while crafting the text to make an effective argument. Their analysis will consider questions such as: What makes the speech an argument? How did the author’s rhetoric evoke a response from the audience? Why are the words still venerated today? (p. 1)

To complement the focus on inaugural speeches from the previous section, students might then Listen to another method of communication present at inauguration celebrations: the inaugural poem. For example, students can Listen to Amanda Gorman’s recitation of “The Hill We Climb,” read Robert Frost’s “Dedication,” or read “An Inaugural Poem,” composed for Abraham Lincoln’s second inauguration.

Some questions students could consider: How are the two means of communication different? How are they the same? This exercise would support students’ understanding of different text genres and their functions in oral Language.

Listening requires students to analyze and evaluate oral texts as they would print texts (NCTE/IRA, 1996). There are a number of primary source types that require Listening skills, including oral histories, songs, and sound recordings. Because there is an audio component to oral texts, students can consider close-reading prompts to help improve their Listening skills and identify nuances of speech that then inform their own construction of speech and oral communication. The following questions can help students embody a close-reading approach to listening: Do you hear an accent or a dialect? Is there background noise that distracts from the message? What can you learn from this point of view? What can you learn from listening to this?

After Listening to an oral text, teachers can provide scaffolding for students to think deeply about what they heard, like a note-taking sheet or a reflection. For example, after reading Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night (1956) and considering the essential question What are the consequences of remaining a bystander?, students can Listen to Wiesel’s White House millennial evening speech “The Perils of Indifference” (1999). As students Listen to Wiesel’s speech, they can consider how the interplay between the book and the speech reinforces, challenges, and expands their understanding of the essential question. Students should not be Limited to just Listening, but they should also talk and take turns speaking in class—the next Literacy skill.

Speaking with Primary Sources

Students can practice speaking skills through a variety of informal and formal experiences and for a variety of purposes, such as discussing issues in small groups, performing dramatic interpretations, debating, reading aloud fiction or poetry, or giving speeches (NCTE/IRA, 1996). Speaking opportunities can strengthen students’ thought processes and content area vocabulary and allow students to examine the ways in which information and emotion are communicated through nonverbal cues such as tone, volume, and pace. In addition, a focus on speaking in ELA can help support students’ developing presentation and oral communication skills (NCTE/IRA, 1996).

For example, during a unit on narrative writing (or memoir), students can study oral histories using the Library of Congress’s Teacher’s Guide: Analyzing Oral Histories (available at https://www.loc.gov/programs/teachers/getting-started-with-primary-sources/guides/), which offers an invitation to observe, question, and reflect upon an oral history. Students can watch (and Listen to) the recorded oral history of Gwendolyn M. Patton (2011) as she describes her experiences as a civil rights activist through organizing marches and helping to register voters in Alabama. Then, students can use Patton’s oral history as a mentor text to explore their own origins and oral histories, particularly around the essential question of What do I stand for? Consideration of their own origins and oral histories can challenge students to articulate their beliefs and values. Students could interview family and community members about the contexts within which they were born and challenge themselves to use tone, voice, and diction to paint a picture of their most treasured beliefs and convictions. Students could also record their own oral histories to publish, either with their class community or with a wider audience using a school-approved social media platform. This act of scripting, recording, and publishing their own oral histories provides students with a sense of voice and puts their knowledge of themselves and narrative approaches at the forefront. According to Waring (2021), “Primary sources can . . . help someone create a narrative, a story, or better understanding about a subject, issue, or theme being investigated or Learned” (p. ix). Engaging additional senses can also aid in Literacy Learning. Viewing is another skill to examine.

Viewing with Primary Sources

Students benefit from learning the techniques and conventions of visual Language in order to become more conscious, discerning, critical, and appreciative readers of visual texts, and more effective creators of visual products (NCTE/IRA, 1996). The kinds of primary sources that students might view can range from stationary items, like charts and graphs, sheet music, and photographs, to moving items, like films and movies.

The Library of Congress’s Teacher’s Guide: Analyzing Photographs and Prints (available at https://www.loc.gov/programs/teachers/getting-started-with-primary-sources/guides/) promotes student criticality when viewing images. Students can analyze images while considering the following questions:

• What type of photo is it? Who took the photo? When was the photo taken?

• What do you observe about the subject of the photo? Are there people, objects, activities within the scene?

• How would you summarize what is happening in the photo? Does the photo have a caption that provides additional information?

• What other historical evidence would be helpful in answering these questions?

These questions allow students to consider the context within which the text was created and help them to develop a deeper understanding of the visual as it relates to the historical period being highlighted.

In another example, while reading Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor (1977), students could view photographs of racial discrimination and segregation during the Jim Crow era, a period of time where state and Local Laws reinforced the segregation of African American citizens from the Late 1800s to the mid-1900s. Bridging their reading of the text with actual images from the time period, students can more viscerally understand the experiences that nine-year-old Cassie Logan, the protagonist of Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, had while growing up in rural Mississippi. Incorporation of multiple sources, such as visual images, into the reading of a traditional text invites students to grapple with the major source of conflict within a book and understand the motivations of the characters navigating the Landscape within which a text is set.

In addition to critically viewing images, students also need to be able to create visual representations of ideas on their own, our next Literacy skill.

Visually Representing with Primary Sources

Much like words and sounds, images convey ideas, values, and beliefs. like speaking and writing, students may use visual representation as a means of exploring how they understand a variety of texts, essential questions, and historical time periods (NCTE/IRA, 1996). The creation of visual artifacts like murals, storyboards, comics, or collages all encourage students to clearly articulate their understanding beyond the written page. Content creation also invites students to think critically about the media messages they themselves consume.

Media Literacy, the act of understanding media messages with a critical eye, is more important than ever in our current era of fake news, and students need to know how to evaluate and analyze visual sources they encounter (Lynch et al., 2018). During a media Literacy unit, students could explore the impact and efficacy of political cartoons on the cartoons’ intended audiences. Students could be encouraged to study the events of the Boston Tea Party in 1773, such as through newspapers’ coverage of the event, like the Liberty Triumphant (a political cartoon that publicly criticized the Tea Act of 1773). Fink (2020) suggests that students could then challenge themselves to demonstrate their understanding of the political satire genre by creating their own Boston Tea Party political cartoon, perhaps from varied perspectives, like the colonists, British monarchy, or even a chest of tea that had been thrown into the water. Students could then connect their study of primary sources from the Boston Tea Party to contemporary political cartoons, to compare and contrast the rhetorical moves and choices authors and creators make. As an extension activity, students could choose a current event or contemporary political issue (e.g., immigration, climate change, or LGBTQ+ rights) and craft a political cartoon to demonstrate their point of view on the topic.

Conclusion

In concert with both traditional print-based and multimodal texts, primary sources can Lead to deeper student analysis, exploration, and synthesis. Morgan & Rasinski (2012) describe this interaction: “Primary sources certainly provide students with factual information; however, they also allow for an aesthetic or emotional response that comes from being part of an event in Life” (p. 585). While the NCTE/IRA (1996) six ELA skills of reading, writing, Listening, speaking, viewing, and visually representing were discussed independently in this chapter, these skills are very much interrelated and interdependent. There are many ways to combine the skills to benefit students and create engaging Lesson plans. During just one class period, a student might demonstrate all six of the skills by discussing ideas with peers (speaking and Listening), reading additional primary sources to acquire supplemental information and ideas (reading), viewing other types of media (viewing), and presenting their ideas on a graph (writing and visually representing).

At its simplest, Literacy is the way that people interact with the world and how they shape it and are shaped by it. Educators can promote students’ critical thinking skills by encouraging students to seek multiple and varied sources to triangulate their understanding of a time period, event, or topic. The infusion of primary sources into ELA curricula can provide the foundation for interdisciplinary contexts that help hone students’ grasp of the six ELA skills, connect their Learning to important historical events and contexts, and engage in criticality and metacognitive work.

References

Bailyn, B. (1994). On the teaching of writing of history: Responses to a series of questions. University Press of New England.

Barton, K. C. (2005). Primary sources in history: Breaking through the myths. Phi Delta Kappan, 86(10), 745-753. https://doi.org/10.1177/003172170508601006

Bishop, R. S. (1990). Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Perspectives, 6(3), ix-xi.

Boyles, N. (2013). Closing in on close reading. Educational Leadership, 70(4), 36-41.

Damico, N., & Krutka, D. G. (2018). Social media diaries and fasts: Educating for digital mind-fulness with pre-service teachers, Teaching and Teacher Education, 73, 109-119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2018.03.009

Dean, D. (2006). Strategic writing: The writing process and beyond in the secondary English classroom. National Council of Teachers of English.

Fink, L. (2019a, December 3). Celebrate poet Emily Dickinson! National Council of Teachers of English. https://ncte.org/blog/2019/12/celebrate-poet-emily-dickinson/

Fink, L. (2019b, January 9). Analyzing famous speeches as arguments. National Council of Teachers of English. https://ncte.org/blog/2019/01/analyzing-famous-speeches-arguments/

Fink, L. (2020, November 4). looking at the Boston Tea Party through primary sources. National Council of Teachers of English. https://ncte.org/blog/2020/12/looking-boston-tea-party-primary-sources/

Fisher, D., Frey, N., Anderson, A., & Thayre, M. (2014). Text-dependent questions, Grades 6-12: Pathways to close and critical reading. Corwin.

Kalir, R. H., & Garcia, A. (2021). Annotation. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.

Knobel, M., & Lankshear, C. (2008). Remix: The art and craft of endless hybridization. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52(1), 2233. https://doi.org/10.1598/JAAl.52.l3

Library of Congress. (n.d.) Citing primary sources. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/programs/teachers/getting-start-ed-with-primary-sources/citing/

Library of Congress. (n.d.). Photographs of signs enforcing racial discrimination: Documentation by farm security administration-office of war information photographers. Prints and Photographs Reading Room. https://webar-chive.loc.gov/all/20220818130656/ https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/085_disc.html

Lynch, T. L., Hicks, T., Bartels, J., Beach, R., Connors, S., Damico, N. . . . Zucker, L. (2018). Beliefs for integrating technology into the English language arts classroom. National Council of Teachers of English. https://ncte.org/state-ment/beliefs-technology-preparation-english-teachers/

Morgan, D. N., and Rasinski, T. V. (2012), The power and potential of primary sources. Read Teach, 65, 584-594. https://doi.org/10.1002/TRTR.01086

National Council of Teachers of English. (2019). Definition of literacy in a digital age. NCTE. org. https://ncte.org/statement/nctes-definition-literacy-digital-age/

National Council of Teachers of English & International Reading Association. (1996). NCTE/ IRA standards for the English language arts. International Reading Association & National Council of Teachers of English. https://ncte.org/resources/standards/ncte-ira-standards-for-the-english-language-arts/

National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers. (2010). Common core state standards. Washington, DC: Authors.

Roe, B. D., & Ross, E. P. (2006). Integrating language arts through literature and thematic units. Pearson/Allyn and Bacon.

Rosenblatt, L. M. (1978). The reader, the text, the poem: The transactional theory of the literary work. Southern Illinois University Press.

Shanahan, T., MacArthur, C. A., Graham, S., & Fitzgerald, J. (2006). Relations among oral Language, reading, and writing development. In C. A. MacArthur, S. Graham, & J. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Handbook of writing research, 171-183. Guilford Press.

Snow, C., & O’Connor, C. (2016). Close reading and far-reaching classroom discussion: Fostering a vital connection. Journal of Education, 196(1), 1-8. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26612600

Sturtevant, E. G., Boyd, F. B., Brozo, W. G., Hinchman, K. A., Moore, D. W., & Alvermann, D. E. (2006). Principled practices for adolescent literacy: A framework for instruction and policy. Erlbaum.

Waring, S. M. (2021). Integrating primary and secondary sources into teaching: The SOURCES framework for authentic investigation. Teachers College Press.

Young, K.M., & Leinhardt, G. (1998). Writing primary source documents. Written Communication, 15(1), 25-68. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0741088398015001002

Engaging Students with Primary Sources in the ELA Classroom

Adapted from the Engaging Students with Library of Congress Primary Sources in the ELA Classroom quick-reference guide published by NCTE and written by Rebecca Newland.

REBECCA NEWlAND

Using primary sources in the English Language arts (ElA) classroom offers opportunities for students to explore pieces of history that can connect them to the context of Literary works such as novels, nonfiction, and poetry. Engaging students with primary sources provides an entry point to begin the inquiry process by formulating questions. Primary sources can also serve as inspiration for original writings such as short stories and poems. This chapter contains resources to use as you introduce primary sources to your students.

What Are Primary Sources?

According to the teachers site at the Library of Congress, “Primary sources are the raw materials of history—original documents and objects that were created at the time under study. They are different from secondary sources, accounts that retell, analyze, or interpret events, usually at a distance of time or place.”

With this definition in mind, we may ask:

• What role can primary source analysis play in my ELA classroom?

• Why should I use primary sources in my ELA Lessons?

• What benefits are there for my students when they analyze primary sources?

What Role Can Primary Source Analysis Play in My ELA Classroom?

NCTE’s position statement Definition of Literacy in a Digital Age calls for students to be “active, successful participants in a global society [who] must be able to explore and engage critically, thoughtfully, and across a wide variety of inclusive texts and tools/modalities.” Within this statement’s section on Elements of the Framework for Literacy in a Digital Age, primary source analysis plays a role by providing opportunities for “learners [to] seek out texts that consider multiple perspectives and broaden their understanding of the world and critically analyze a variety of information and ideas from a variety of sources.” With abundant online repositories of primary sources, teachers can engage students with items from around the world that provide insight into a vast array of cultures, time periods, and perspectives.

Why Should I Use Primary Sources in My ELA Lessons?

The report of the NCTE Task Force on Critical Media Literacy acknowledges that Literacies have expanded in recent years to include a variety of digital formats including podcasts, videos in both short and Long formats, memes, and social media content. Students are navigating these in addition to traditional print and visual formats. The task force made “Five Key Recommendations,” and recommendation 2.1 calls for NCTE to “expand the range of curriculum resources” in order to “help teachers expand their knowledge and practice.” The Lessons that follow in this text explore specific literary and nonfiction texts and media as well as strategies and best practices that can be applied across grade levels and specific curricula to enhance critical media Literacy for all students.

Primary sources in all formats—including photographs, posters, newspapers, and oral histories—offer multimodal accessibility for students to develop skills and processes that move critical thinking and curiosity beyond the traditional texts in the English classroom. Engaging with primary sources encourages students to make inferences, activate prior knowledge, find patterns, and construct knowledge related to the context and creation of standard class texts. Incorporating primary sources can:

• enhance the study of a Literary work by offering context for the work’s time period, Location, and characters. Short of the development of time travel, primary sources are the best way for readers to glimpse the historical, geographical, and societal context in which the characters are Living and events are occurring.

• stimulate student curiosity and promote engagement by introducing artifacts about which they have Little to no prior knowledge.

• help students to develop critical thinking skills through interacting with a variety of media types.

• build questioning skills as students do a close reading of primary sources such as photographs, sheet music with Lyrics, manuscripts, and newspapers.

• promote visual Literacy when using prints and photographs, auditory skills when using music or sound files, and both when using video items.

• give students a Look at what people of the past valued as well as how they presented information before radio, television, and the internet.

• provide opportunities for students to investigate events and time periods from a variety of viewpoints.

• encourage students to make personal connections with people of the past.

What Benefits Are There for My Students When They Analyze Primary Sources?

In its Definition of Literacy in a Digital Age, NCTE explores nine skills, competencies, and dispositions that “successful participants in a global society must be able to do.” Four of these can be cultivated by analyzing primary sources in conjunction with the study of Literature.

1. Explore and engage critically, thoughtfully, and across a wide variety of inclusive texts and tools/modalities.

When students engage with primary sources, they see snippets of the Lives of others. Photographs of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, maps of Civil War-era forts built to protect Washington, DC, and songs written to inspire patriotism in the midst of war show us what our predecessors valued, things that we too value today. By analyzing the raw materials of history, students explore and engage critically, thoughtfully, and ideally with a wide variety of items across formats and modalities.

2. Consume, curate, and create actively across contexts.

Primary source analysis offers students artifacts that come to them without prior interpretation. Instead, they are asked to consume sources by observing, reflecting, and asking questions, which allows them to construct a narrative that may differ from what has been offered previously through secondary texts. They can then actively create a theory or rationale for why and how events progressed the way in which they did and what resulted, supported by evidence from the primary source. And then they can follow their curiosity to discover the ways in which the past influences our present.

3. Examine the rights, responsibilities, and ethical implications of the use and creation of information.

As students explore primary sources and make connections to the Literature they read, they will begin to notice the ways in which these sources present their creators’ points of view. A narrative does this verbally, while photographs, cartoons, and even maps do so visually. This offers an opportunity to discuss the responsibility a creator has in telling the story as well as the ethical implications in the way the story is used to inform or influence its audience. This in turn pushes students to think about the ways in which they create information for small or Large audiences.

4. Determine how and to what extent texts and tools amplify one’s own and others’ narratives as well as counter unproductive narratives.

One of the benefits afforded by mining different collections of primary sources is the opportunity to offer items that honor multiple perspectives. Artifacts created by those with opposing or differing narratives help students to understand that each participant brings a unique perspective to the story. Exploring the voices that have been amplified in contrast with those that have been diminished or ignored illustrates the way stories are told and received. Understanding that a multitude of narratives exist and that there is value in considering a variety of perspectives encourages students to think about what may be missed if we only Look at an event or story from one viewpoint. This may in turn inform the ways in which students present their own narratives.

Getting Started with Primary Sources

1. Choose a class text (fiction or informational) that will be enhanced by incorporating primary sources. Consider whether the goal is for the sources to pique interest, provide context, prompt questions, or something else.

2. Using one or more of the resources provided below, search for primary sources that will connect to the chosen text.

3. Choose one or more primary sources. As you search for sources, focus on those that will best pair with the work of Literature. Consider if visual sources such as photographs, maps, or prints or textual items such as Letters, news items, or broadsides best connect with the story, novel, or poem you have chosen.

4. Primary sources can be paired or bundled, but when working with primary sources for the first time, students may be more successful working with a single source.

5. Decide how students will interact with the primary source—on a presentation board, on a Laptop, on a tablet, or on a piece of paper—and what they will do to extract information and construct understanding.

6. Download the Library of Congress Teacher’s Guide that corresponds to the item(s) you have chosen (https://www.loc.gov/programs/teachers/getting-started-with-primary-sources/guides/). The teacher’s guide works best to prompt students when they are unsure how to analyze primary sources. Select a question or two from each column of the guide to focus and promote students’ thinking.

7. Depending on how familiar students are with analyzing primary sources, it may make sense to ask students to record responses in the columns of the Primary Source Analysis Tool one at a time, beginning with the “observe” column, then moving to “reflect,” then “question.” After repeated work with primary sources, students will be able to move between the columns as they interact with primary sources.

Tips for Searching for Primary Sources

• Use broad general terms instead of specifics. You will have more success and possibly find unexpected items if you search for “Frederick Douglass” instead of “the Life of Frederick Douglass.” Even consider alternative spellings, particularly when searching for historical manuscripts or newspapers from before spelling was regularized.

• Use the tools offered by the site to narrow the search by Location, date, and format.

• Search more than one institution. While the Library of Congress and other institutions have a wealth of options, often more specialized collections will have items more appropriate for your Lesson.

• Consider reaching out to Local Libraries, historical societies, and nearby colleges and universities. They may have items that more directly connect to the work you are studying. They also often have historical records and other primary source materials that may not yet be digitized but that could be scanned or photographed for classroom use.

Five Questions to Ask When Selecting Primary Sources

1. What learning standards or essential questions am I addressing?

There is no doubt that primary source analysis activities can require an investment of instructional time. Identifying the standards or essential questions addressed by primary source analysis makes it easy to justify their use beyond the multimodal skills built while interacting with a variety of formats, both visual and auditory.

2. Will this primary source meet the needs and interests of my students?

During the search for sources relevant to a particular Literary work, it is important to remember that what we find engaging may differ from what our students will find interesting. In some cases, the options for sources may be Limited, but when possible, consider items that are colorful, not text heavy, and that have something students will recognize to serve as an entry point for curiosity and inquiry.

3. Will my students be able to place this primary source in historical context?

One primary source analysis technique encourages offering Little in the way of information about a source until after students have had a chance to interact with it. However, when students have Limited prior knowledge to bring to interactions with a source, they may become frustrated or disengaged. Some historical context or background information may be necessary for students to engage with analysis and facilitate connections to the Literary work under study.

4. Will my students be able to identify a point of view?

In order to provide scaffolding for students, you may need to explore some of the contemporary, possibly controversial ideas that were popular during the time this primary source was created. Providing or discovering the historical context of the source may help students more readily identify the point of view presented by the source. This may also include a discussion of ideological Language or symbols.

5. Will I be able to use this item successfully in my own classroom setting?

Practical considerations are important for the success of a Lesson with primary sources. Think about whether students will be more successful with printed items or digital. Consider if the source can be projected on a screen for everyone to see or should be provided to individuals or small groups. Thinking ahead about the Logistics can make the experience richer for students.

Additional Considerations for Using Primary Sources

Plan more time than you might expect for a lesson with primary sources:

• At first, students may not have much experience working with primary sources and will need time to interact with the items.

• To unlock the full power of using primary sources to develop critical thinking (among other skills), allow students ample time to observe, reflect, and question before moving on to deeper engagement and connections to Literature.

• Many historic manuscripts are written in cursive, and transcriptions will be available for only some items. Most students are not proficient in reading cursive, so they will need extra time and support. Supporting students in deciphering the original manuscript, perhaps by chunking the text or working with partners, will empower them and may engage their curiosity.

• Using primary sources as writing prompts works best when students are offered opportunities for initial reactions, second Looks, and time for extended interactions in order to draw inspiration from the items.

Many repositories of primary sources have teacher resources that streamline the search for sources but also offer Lesson plans and teaching ideas.

Citing Primary Sources

Many repositories of primary sources such as the Library of Congress offer citation information for individual items in their collections. The Library of Congress has a guide to citing items from their collections.

Following MlA guidelines for citing primary source materials when a citation is not available from the repository is a best practice to introduce to your students.

A Note about Copyright and Fair Use

Items that are still protected by copyright require extra consideration before being used with students in the classroom. As an educator you will determine if your use of copyrighted materials may be acceptable under fair use considerations, but you may find it difficult to Legally access copies of materials for your use because copyright Limits what an archive, like the Library of Congress, can provide online.

Often, digital works are not available to users offsite if the items are still protected by copyright and not yet in the public domain. Items in the public domain are “no Longer under copyright protection or [have] failed to meet the requirements for copyright protection. Works in the public domain may be used freely without the permission of the former copyright owner” (https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-definitions.html).

Items in the public domain are free to be used in any way, including for education purposes with no Limits. This is why there are so many versions of Shakespeare’s plays. His works have been in the public domain for many years and are therefore open for interpretation, adaptation, and rewriting as a creator chooses.

Items that are still protected by copyright require extra consideration before being used with students in the classroom. As an educator you will determine if your use of copyrighted materials may be acceptable under fair use considerations, but you may find it difficult to Legally access copies of materials for your use because copyright Limits what an archive, like the Library of Congress, can provide online.

Works created by employees of the federal government are in the public domain at creation, which is why many more of the holdings of the National Archives are freely available than those in the collections of the Library of Congress or museums.

The Library of Congress Teachers Site offers guidance on “Copyright and Primary Sources”

Other Sources of FREE Primary Sources

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the nation’s record keeper. They collect and preserve in perpetuity 1-3 percent of “documents and materials created in the course of business conducted by the United States Federal government.” Their locations include the historic building in Washington, DC, as well as many of the Presidential Libraries across the nation that have their own digital holdings. https://www.archives.gov/

“The Smithsonian Institution is the world’s Largest museum, education, and research complex, with 19 museums and the National Zoo.” https://www.si.edu/explore

The holdings of the White House Historical Society “include exclusive imagery of Life at the White House, its famous residents, historic rooms and furnishings, diplomatic events, holiday celebrations, and more.” https://www.white-househistory.org/digital-library

The Gilder Lehrman Collection includes items from “five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 Letter describing the New World to soldiers’ Letters from World War II and Vietnam.” https://www.gilderlehrman.org/collection

Many national and Local museums and historical houses, as well as college and university Libraries, have digitized collections of primary sources.

Exploring Ethical Consumption in a World of Child Labor

CHRISTINA TRAVIS

Many students Learn a Little about child Labor in their history classes, mostly in the context of Labor reforms that eliminated it and Launched us into the modern age where unfair Labor practices are (supposedly) an irrelevant thing of the past. The problem is, that isn’t true. Child Labor was a common occurrence when much of agrarian society enlisted the children in their families to help provide Labor on the farm or in a family business. It became a widespread problem, however, in the early twentieth century with the industrial revolution. Many children worked in dangerous conditions, often in factories, mines, or on the streets. A national reform movement arose to fight against child labor, which argued that children should be in school, not working in dangerous jobs. The Library of Congress Child Labor Primary Source Set (https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/child-labor/) has a collection of newspaper articles, cartoons, and photographs that were part of the tactics to turn public opinion against child Labor, an effort that finally led to lasting federal change. The Library’s collection includes documentary images of children at Labor by sociologist Lewis Wickes Hine, whose work was instrumental in the passage of the first child labor laws in the United States.

There are also firsthand accounts of child labor from the recorded voices of a former child coal miner and a former “Newsie.” Students in our classrooms today may believe that child labor is a thing of the past, but combining primary sources from the LOC with contemporary nonfiction sources like “The Surge in Child Labor” from The Week (2023), “Child Labor” by Eman M. Elshaikh for Khan Academy, and “12-year-olds can’t buy cigarettes—but they can work in tobacco fields” by Kaitlyn Radde for NPR (2023), along with Longer texts like Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (1905) and Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation (2001) and current websites and documentary clips, brings unfair Labor practices to Light and can inspire teens to participate in social change.

Primary Source Analysis Tool

I introduce the photograph in Figure 1 with a personal story. When my great-grandmother was this girl’s age, she was also a migrant farm worker, one of a family of German immigrants. She did not work in cotton fields, but she did work in sugar beet fields with the rest of her family in rural Michigan, having Left school when she was about eight because her work contribution to the family could not be spared. One of the jobs necessary for processing beets was to “top” the sugar beets, which was done with a curved blade and a forked tip on a kind of pole. The fork picked up beets from a pile, and the blade chopped the stem and the Leaves off the beet in midair. In an incident while processing, she nearly Lost her thumb to the topping blade, damaging it so badly that although she was able to keep it thanks to a Lot of stitching, the nerves were severed and she Lost the use of it. The dangerous nature of Labor without safeguards never Left her, and she fought hard to enable her own children to complete education through high school.

We, as a class, talk about the ways that each worker has a story, and how the collective story of workers can change the course of history. Students can be part of telling the stories and creating the social change necessary to improve Lives. I project the Teacher’s Guide: Analyzing Photographs & Prints to introduce students to the techniques of observing, recording, and questioning what they see in Hine’s image. (The Teacher’s Guide is not a worksheet; teachers might highlight selected questions in each column and encourage students to select additional as they’re useful. Find the Primary Source Analysis Tool and teacher’s guides at https://www.loc.gov/programs/teachers/getting-started-with-primary-sources/.) I model two or three responses in each column, starting out by explaining my own thinking and then eliciting responses from students to add. On our first time using this tool, I have students work in pairs to think and talk through their ideas before adding them to their paper copy, continuing to brainstorm, share, and write for about five to seven minutes. At the end of that time, I might direct a quick “pop up” share strategy, where each pair of students quickly shares one observation or question from their work, winding our way through the classroom very quickly, hearing many ideas in a short amount of time. After a “pop up” share, we might spend one additional minute adding to their sheets any observations or questions that stuck with them from the class share. An example is given in Figure 2 (see next page).

Recording Thoughts

After using this striking image to spark curiosity and engagement, and beginning the process of behaving like historians, we spend a Little time reviewing the causes and effects of the Industrial Revolution. After close and critical reading of more LOC images from Lewis Hine, students will then select from a menu of projects, with each student assuming the role of an early twentieth-century journalist, as in this LOC Lesson plan resource.

Classroom Assignment: Child Labor in America

https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/child-labor-in-america/

Specific Library of Congress Resource

Bongalis, Mae, and Mary Hufford. Children Working in Mines. 1995. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/cmns002070/.

After examining a selection of images and documents to develop historical inquiry and the role of primary sources in our research, we can use the Library of Congress’s Teacher’s Guide: Analyzing Oral Histories in a different way, to select the questions which will direct our close reading and analysis. This tool is focused on oral histories rather than images, and our own focus will deepen into developing research questions of our own based on primary sources encountered.

The oral history shared here is an interview with a woman reflecting on her work in the mines as a child. At one point in the interview, the woman is asked about how children were allowed to do such dangerous work, and she does not recognize that as a valid question. She can literally not conceive of a world where she would have been protected from unsafe labor, although she does recognize that times have changed and today’s children would not have to consider working in the mines to help a family make ends meet. This strikes students in a big way. Until now, students have been imagining, putting themselves in the shoes (or bare feet) of the children in the images we have examined and considering what their stories could have contained. Now, they can hear the story with their own ears.

In response, and in preparation for the next stage of the unit plan, where students will be conducting research based on individual contemporary research interests, the focus with our analysis tool is to choose the questions that will Lead to a fuller inquiry of the source. In this case, many students are choosing to dive into the questions surrounding the accents of the interviewee, and what the participants might have expected to accomplish by recording and documenting this conversation. This interview also acts as a kind of transition for us, closing the gap between the distant past, sepia-toned history, and the present, with audio files that bring yesterday and today bumping into each other.

Choosing Questions

After students choose the questions they want to use as the entry point for observing, reflecting, and questioning, I use the projected image of the Teacher’s Guide: Analyzing Oral Histories (Figure 3) to model an entry point we chose: the accents. We Listen to the audio recording again, Listening for clues and then projecting the LOC’s metadata about the interview to help answer Location questions. We do a quick online search to see Montcoal now, and we Learn about the Upper Big Branch mine disaster of 2010. Together, this gives us enough to do a quick write. On the back of their Analysis tool, I ask students to divide the paper into three sections, and they write a response from three different points of view: from the little girl who worked in the mines, from the woman Looking back at her childhood, and from the student’s current POV, including any reflections they can make about how their current experiences relate.

Using primary sources to pull together historical sources and current events sets students up to cultivate research questions that follow their own curiosity. For part two of the unit, students will dive into an I-search project, to determine where in the world current Labor practices fall short of the safety and parity that is the ideal. I suggest sources like https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/reports/child-labor/list-of-goods, which documents products that are still produced through child Labor or forced Labor. UNICEF also has information on child Labor around the world (https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-protection/child-labour/), including a tool to build a personalized dataset, which gives students practice at compiling data. We then use this to choose a country, a market, a product, or something similar as the focus of our I-search, getting to the heart of Labor practices. ReadWriteThink has an excellent resource for using the I-search as a way to promote personal inquiry in the classroom.

Classroom Assignment: Promoting Student-Directed Inquiry with the I-Search Paper (ReadWriteThink)

https://www.readwritethink.org/profession-al-development/strategy-guides/promoting-student-directed-inquiry

The political cartoon in Figure 4 from the National Child Labor Committee depicts a poignant scene where a child is shown bearing the weight of the world, metaphorically represented by a globe, while a grown man sits perched on top of it. This powerful image symbolizes the burden placed on children due to exploitative Labor practices, with the adult representing the oppressive forces that exploit and oppress them. Through stark visual imagery, the cartoon highlights the injustice of child Labor and the urgent need for societal action to alleviate the plight of vulnerable children.

The tool we use for this cartoon is specific to political cartoons, with different guiding questions to the tools students have used before. To begin, I project the image of the Teacher’s Guide: Analyzing Political Cartoons (Figure 5, on next page) on the whiteboard for students to examine. I point out one or two differences in the questions, including examining the point of view of the artist and the symbolism that can be shown in artwork that may not be represented in photographs, for instance. In pairs, students Look for other differences in guiding questions. Pairs then partner with other pairs to form small groups to generate hypotheses on how different questions will generate differences in analysis. For this turn, we introduce the artwork and then follow the now-familiar pattern of observation, reflection, and questioning.

After three to five minutes to record their responses, students return to their small groups to share their notes. In those groups, they open the folder of additional political cartoons I distributed and use the margins to close-read their noticings, including similarities and differences with the Hine cartoon. (I include “Happy Childhood Days” by F. T. Richards and Thomas May, “Child Labor—An Awful Blot” by Lewis Hine, “Cartoon, 1914” by Lewis Hine, and “The Galley” by Arthur Young, 1909, in the materials folder.) I project a blank copy of the Analysis Tool on the board and have groups choose a representative to use the screen’s pen tool to add a note or two to the Analysis Tool, allowing us to discuss our findings and how they provide new insight on the role of political cartoons. This analysis serves as a springboard for exploring current events articles about child Labor, allowing students to apply their understanding of the cartoons’ themes to real-world contexts, and fostering empathy and awareness about the issue.

Classroom Assignment: Ethical Consumption and Social Change

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NR-z1opOyVhct84R5ED-BZlE9dMjbHjapvQVW-Ku1OvQc/edit?pli=1&tab=t.0

Over the course of the five-day unit, students will delve into the art of persuasion as they propose one social change initiative addressing unfair Labor practices. The objectives encompass a multifaceted approach aimed at developing critical thinking skills and effective communication strategies. Students will analyze persuasive techniques employed in texts related to unfair Labor practices, evaluating their effectiveness in swaying public opinion. Through the synthesis of information gathered from primary sources, students will gain a deep understanding of the historical context and contemporary challenges surrounding unfair Labor practices. By employing persuasive techniques such as ethos, pathos, and Logos, students will craft compelling arguments to advocate for social change. The unit emphasizes the importance of primary sources in building background knowledge and engagement, providing students with a solid foundation before they delve into research on current Labor practices. Through this comprehensive approach, students will emerge equipped with the skills and knowledge necessary to propose meaningful social change initiatives addressing unfair Labor practices.

Immigration and the Evolving American Dream

JO FLORY

Throughout the history of the United States, there has been tension between the ideal promise of the American Dream and the realities immigrants and migrants often encounter. In the primary source set “Immigration Challenges for New Americans,” the Library of Congress has gathered maps, photographs, posters, charts, pamphlets, songs, and sheet music documenting anti-immigrant sentiments and other obstacles faced by those arriving in the US from around the world between 1853 and 1919, including the cartoon “The Americanese Wall-As Congressman Burnett Would Build It” (1916). Poet Emma Lazarus (“The New Colossus,” 1883), novelist Anzia Yezierska (“America and I,” 1923), former President Barack Obama (“DNC Keynote Address,” 2004), and contemporary writers like Gish Jen (“In the American Society”), Dinaw Mengestu (All that Heaven Bears, 2007), and Cristina Henriquez (The Book of Unknown Americans, 2014) are among the many voices contributing to an ongoing conversation around immigration and the American Dream, often revealing how possibility, promise, and Longing keep immigrants and migrants working toward the ideal, even when the realities they encounter clash with their initial hopes. Teaching students to identify the claims made within a set of primary sources, and thinking about where those claims fall in relationship to both contemporary sources on this topic and their own perspectives, can help them develop an understanding of the complexity of the rhetorical situation as they incorporate primary sources into their own thinking and digital argument writing around immigration and the ever-evolving topic of immigration and the American Dream.

The overarching goals of this unit are to give students opportunities to write academically and synthesize information while making connections to primary sources. Throughout, I complete work alongside them, sharing my own thinking process, making personal connections, and questioning the sources and their representation of the American Dream. This is especially helpful for the multilingual Learners in my classes, who could be hesitant about beginning work and, therefore, benefit from modeling. In this approach to teaching primary sources, both students and the teacher analyze, question, and write about sources, use them as supporting evidence, and create a digital product.

Primary Source Analysis Tool: Observing, Reflecting on, and Questioning This Film

We begin our exploration of immigration, migration, and the American Dream by using the Primary Source Analysis Tool from the Library of Congress (LOC) to analyze the short documentary film from 1903, “Emigrants [i.e., immigrants] Landing at Ellis Island” (Figure 6). This actuality film, in black and white, features European immigrants disembarking at Ellis Island. The first time through we focus solely on observing, using the questions on the LOC Teacher’s Guide: Analyzing Motion Pictures, which I pass out to students. I share the Primary Source Analysis Tool (see Figure 7), projecting it for students alongside the video, to model my thinking process as we watch the film.

We stop and discuss what they notice individually, then watch the film again before discussing reflections and/or things we notice are missing. We then watch a third time, focusing on wonderings. After this, I ask students to think-pair-share an observation and a question, asking, “What do you think Abadie might be getting at with this film? Is there a vision of immigration and the American Dream this source is conveying?” Some students wonder if Abadie wanted to document the disembarking to create understanding. One said, “Maybe he was just trying to show Americans the new US arrivals.” Another said, “I wonder if he wanted to show what people go through to get here? It’s, Like, a positive view of the American Dream as something people strive for and will sacrifice for.” This comment revealed an emergent understanding of one possible claim and the relationship between elements in the rhetorical situation.

I put students in groups of three, give them two sticky notes, and ask each group to write one claim the actuality film is making about the American Dream on one sticky note and on the other to draw a rhetorical triangle illustrating the rhetorical situation. One person from each group sticks them on a piece of chart paper already at the front of the room with the title of the source written at the top. Each primary source we investigate will be represented on a different chart paper, and we will use these to visually see the relationships between the sources. In this case, students were able to see how the film claimed that immigrants would endure difficulties to Live in America because it is seen as a Land of opportunity and presents opportunities for a better Life. It presents an America where everyone has space and opportunity. This offers a path into the assignment below, in which students are able to answer one of their questions, “What happened when people got to Ellis Island?” They take a virtual tour of Ellis Island and collect immigrant stories through interviewing family members, classmates, and/or community members to get their ideas about and/or experiences with immigration and the American Dream, asking questions such as, “To what extent do you think the United States is a ‘land of opportunity’ for everyone?” These interviews give students access to different perspectives and become evidence they can incorporate into Later assignments.

Classroom Assignment: Annie Moore Becomes the First Immigrant to Enter Ellis Island in 1892

(https://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/calendar-activities/annie-moore-becomes-first)

Generating Questions about the Primary Source

Now that students have learned about a small piece of the history of immigration, we move to analyzing the cartoon illustration, “The Americanese wall—as Congressman Burnett would build it” (Figure 8). This primary source, created in 1916, makes claims about potential obstacles and challenges facing immigrants landing in the US in the early nineteenth century to pursue the American Dream, such as those in the short film. I guide students through the questions highlighted in Figure 9, thinking through each column aloud and giving examples.

As they generate their observations, reflections, and questions, I type them into the Primary Source Analysis Tool (Figure 10), with arrows indicating how students’ thinking overlaps at various points. For example, the first thing several students say is, “The first thing I see is ‘literacy Test,’ written in capital letters.”

Upon reflecting on the source, they tentatively identify a claim saying, “I think it’s saying something about how hard the US makes it for immigrants.” This leads to the question, “Why has the US been so against immigrants in these times?” We continue in this way until I’ve recorded a list in each column. Next, students work together in small groups to complete a rhetorical triangle on a piece of chart paper identifying the speaker, audience, purpose, and context of the illustration, using the Primary Source Analysis Tool as a guide and looking up information about the history of Puck magazine. Given those elements, beneath the triangle they write a possible claim the source is making about the American Dream, citing evidence from the illustration. One group notes, “It’s claiming that newcomers are welcome, but only if they can meet a certain standard and find a way into this ‘land of the free.’” As we go around the room, each group discusses the elements in their triangle and their claim. Finally, I ask each group to write a statement on a sticky note about the vision of immigration and the American Dream represented in this primary source. Many students observe that the source claims the American Dream is only open to immigrants conditionally. Each group adds their notes to another piece of chart paper (with the title of the source written at the top), which then goes on the front wall next to the chart for the first source.

Throughout the unit, we read fictional vignettes from The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henriquez, a novel of immigration narratives relating the perspectives of different characters. After analyzing the primary source, we read three vignettes in which the titular characters face obstacles that parallel those depicted in the illustration. After reading the chapters, I put students in pairs, give them another piece of chart paper, and ask them to create a visual graphic answering the question, “What connections do you see between the challenges the main character of the vignette faces and the challenges the immigrants in the illustration face?” They illustrate how in both sources it is clear immigrants are unwelcome; there are obstacles (either proposed or already in place) designed to dissuade them or keep them out. However, in the vignettes, there is a sense of hope and possibility that sustains the characters, even in the face of challenges, setbacks, and extreme homesickness.

The assignment below, “Selecting Primary Sources for the Classroom: Supporting Research Skills,” gives suggestions for using this primary source with students. Using the “Chronicling America” database in the Lesson, students search for answers to their questions about Congressman Burnett and read arguments against his proposed Legislation.

Classroom Assignment: Selecting Primary Sources for the Classroom: Supporting Research Skills

(https://blogs.loc.gov/teachers/2016/03/selecting-primary-sources-for-the-classroom-supporting-student-research-skills/)

Before Listening to the sound recording “Don’t Bite the Hand That’s Feeding You” (1916; Figure 11), I project the information about the source and ask students to go back and Look at the date of “The Americanese Wall.” They notice that both works were created during the same year. I ask students to think about the following question as we Listen: “I wonder what happened between 1903 and 1916 that could have contributed to any commonalities between them? What clues do you find in the recording?”

Observing, Reflecting on, and Questioning This Audio Recording

As we Listen to the song, we refer to the Teacher’s Guide: Analyzing Sound Recordings (see Figure 12), working individually this time to capture our thoughts on the primary source.

As we debrief, I compile students’ observations, reflections, and questions from their analysis tool organizers, as seen in Figure 13, with arrows indicating the intersections in their thinking.

For example, they observe that a man is singing and telling someone to “go home if they don’t like something.” Upon reflection, they determine from the Lyrics that it is Uncle Sam addressing immigrants in the second verse. This Leads to the question, “How many immigrants fought in WWI?” Next, students work together in groups of three to complete a rhetorical triangle on chart paper, identifying the same elements. As we go around the room, each group discusses the elements in their triangle and the claim. Finally, I ask them each to come up with a statement about the vision of immigration and the American Dream represented in this primary source, based on evidence in the recording. Most of the groups determine that in this source, the American Dream is only open to immigrants if they conform, do their part, and are Loyal and patriotic. They write their statements on sticky notes, stick them on the chart paper with the title of the source written at the top, and then put it on the front wall with the other sources.

At this point, students are ready to begin thinking about their own claims regarding the American Dream and its attainability. In order to think more critically about the primary sources and explore using them as evidence, students begin to develop their ideas in a synthesis essay addressing the question, “What does the American Dream mean for immigrants, and to what extent is it still attainable?” To prepare, they work in groups to create Venn diagrams that visually map how the sources relate to each other, in terms of the vision of the American Dream they represent. In a synthesis essay, students read and converse with a variety of sources expressing multiple viewpoints, ultimately incorporating them into their own arguments. In this case, they cite at Least two of the sources we have studied in the unit as evidence to support their claims and respond to another source that reflects a position they disagree with, using the notes and charts they created as a reference. To extend their Learning, “Immigration: Our Changing Voices,” a Lesson from the LOC, gives students an opportunity to build on their earlier interviews as they research their family histories, read immigration narratives, and address their own questions about immigration history.

Classroom Assignment: Immigration: Our Changing Voices

(https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration-and-migration-our-changing-voices/)

Observing, Reflecting on, and Questioning This Photograph

Leading up to the culminating assignment, we analyze a final primary source addressing immigration and the American Dream. In Figure 14, photographer Lewis Hine captures the hopes of immigrant school children, being nurtured through education. We discuss Hine’s background and how his beliefs related to his choice of subject matter. The Primary Source Analysis Tool in Figure 15 captures our thinking about this photograph and its claims.

Students work together in pairs to complete a rhetorical triangle on chart paper, identifying the same elements. As we go around the room, each group discusses the elements in their triangle and the claim, with many noting, “I think this photo is saying everyone deserves an education, no matter where you come from.” Finally, each pair writes a statement about the vision of immigration and the American Dream represented, based on evidence in the photograph. I pair this primary source with an excerpt from the 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote speech by Barack Obama, in which he presents a vision of the American Dream, based on his experience as the son of an immigrant. After a group reading, students read the speech again individually, annotating for evidence of Obama’s claims about and vision of the American Dream as being attainable through hard work, education, and perseverance. We Later talk about how in both sources, education is portrayed as an important part of the American Dream, in the sense that America is viewed as having a responsibility to educate immigrants who come here for a better Life.

In the final assignment, students create a multimedia American Dream presentation in which they curate and analyze at Least six primary sources from the Library of Congress archives related to immigration or migration history that they connect to personally and can also connect to a view of the American Dream, using the “Immigration and Relocation in US History” collections as a starting point. This allows them to build on their knowledge of family history gained working on the earlier Lesson, “Immigration: Our Changing Voices,” and the interviews they conducted when Learning about Ellis Island. The goal of this assignment is for students to continue practicing the process of identifying and analyzing the speaker-subject-audience connection and become even more comfortable with the process of exploring, curating, and analyzing sources-making primary sources more accessible to them by facilitating their incorporation into their own digital work products. There is shared ownership of the assessment process, with self and peer assessments carrying equal weight in the final grade with teacher assessment.

Classroom Assignment: Primary Source Multimedia Presentations: Immigration and the American Dream

(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lYrOuFoNPsypo9h5Cv5zZnPfvCA4OZaVH55n5K_0YNY/edit?tab=t.0)

Giving students an inroad to “reading” primary sources and thinking about the complexity of the relationship between speaker, subject, and audience in digital texts can increase both students’ engagement with the materials and their awareness that the extent to which one achieves the American Dream can evolve, depending on what that concept means to the individual. Including a wide variety of texts, such as illustrations, photographs, recorded interviews, and novels, can also broaden their thinking about what “counts” as a primary source, reminding us of the ever-expanding definition of literacy in our digital age.

Bringing primary sources into the digital realm in this way increases relevance through establishing a sense of connection and an awareness of how primary sources connect to our lives. Teaching students how to make claims about primary sources through increasing their accessibility and inviting them to think about where the claims made in those sources fall in relationship to their own perspectives gives them a path to incorporating primary sources into their own thinking and writing, expanding their vision of both what a primary source is and what it (and they) might have to say.

Women’s Suffrage: Persuasive Techniques

CATElYN BOZE

We are a century past the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which afforded women the right to vote. While this seems like a long time ago, many of my students are shocked to find out that women have only had the vote in our country for about 100 years. Students are surprised not only by the relative recency of women’s suffrage, but also by the wide array of strategies, techniques, and demonstrations of that movement.

The Women’s Suffrage primary source set curated by the Library of Congress features a range of different types of primary sources, including photographs, songs, cartoons, and reports. In addition to the already curated set, the Library of Congress features a number of other primary sources on this topic for students to discover, such as a magazine cover called “Ancient History” and a series of photographs featuring pageants and performances of suffrage events (see Figure 16).

For an English language arts class, this primary source set is valuable beyond just providing historical background. This set is rife with opportunities for students to hone their analytical skills as they can analyze and evaluate the persuasive rhetorical strategies at play in these primary sources. This set of primary sources affords students the opportunity to consider the persuasive techniques used by the women’s movement, so that they can recognize these techniques in their own context and also consider how to employ them in their own writing and speaking.

This set can also be used in conjunction with literary texts. For example, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story that presents the plight of women at the end of the nineteenth century by using a narrator who seems to be suffering from postpartum depression as well as an overbearing husband. Once, as I taught this short story, I was struck by one student reflecting on how the narrator’s situation feels incredibly outdated yet in other ways rather modern and resonant. Students became quite interested in the extent to which the experience of the narrator in Gilman’s story matched the reality of women in America at the turn from the nineteenth into the twentieth century. Teachers might find that connecting some of these primary sources on women’s suffrage to “The Yellow Wallpaper” could produce fruitful discussions and reflections on the progress of women’s rights during the twentieth century.

While Gilman’s story remains a staple of short story anthologies, Gilman’s less well-known works might also be worth considering for use in English language arts classrooms. For example, Gilman wrote a series of “Suffrage Songs and Verses,” which was published in 1911 and is available in the Library of Congress collection. In this collection, Gilman includes a variety of poems that express suffragist values.

As an English language arts teacher, I found this collection valuable as a way to provide students a deeper understanding of the author and as a way for students to consider poetry in a new way. Often, my students initially find poems to be pointless and intimidating. By presenting students with poems written to advance a particular political cause, students can direct their analyses more confidently because they have a grasp on the writer’s purpose. Poetry has purpose and practicality, especially when used to advanced political ideas. I found Gilman’s poems to be a helpful way to explore how poetry can be more useful than students might expect.

Example Activity Idea: Ranking Key Quotes from Poems

1. Provide groups of 3-4 students with poems from Gilman’s “Suffrage Songs and Verses.”

2. Invite students to analyze and annotate the poems provided, noting important lines, literary devices, and themes.

3. Each student should write down the six most important quotations from the selected poems. Each quote should be on its own sticky note.

4. In their groups, students should combine their sticky notes and organize them into categories of their own design. Students should be able to explain the reasoning behind their categorization choices.

5. As a whole class, have each group share their categories, pointing out similarities and differences between the groups. Once all the groups have shared, offer students the chance to change their categories if they would like.

6. After sharing and the opportunity to revise their categories, ask students to select the five most important quotations from their group’s quotes.

7. Students should then rank their five most important quotes, affixing them to a piece of chart paper. The top quotation should be at the top of the chart paper. Students should also provide annotations that detail the rationale for their ranking.

8. Once all the groups have finished, ask each group to pick one member of the group to stay with their work to present it to members from the other groups. While one student from each group presents, the remaining members of the group will visit the other groups’ presenters to hear about what other groups thought.

9. Once all groups have circulated, students will return to the original groups and share what they have learned with the group member who stayed behind to present.

10. Consider having students evaluate these poems as arguments. Have students engage in a discussion about how persuasive these would have been to Gilman’s audience. Students could engage in a “four corners” activity in which they move to the part of the room that reflects their assessment of the poems as “very persuasive,” “somewhat persuasive,” “somewhat unpersuasive,” or “not persuasive at all.” Teachers could have students share out why they moved to the part of the room that they did, soliciting student views and using questioning to help push student thinking deeper.

11. To close the activity, consider having students connect what they noticed about the poems with what they have learned about the suffrage movement so far.

a. Students who have yet to read “The Yellow Wallpaper” could also write about what they Learned about the author’s perspective and predict what they think might be key ideas in Gilman’s story.

b. Students who have read “The Yellow Wallpaper” could consider ways in which the style or imagery in these poems compares (or even contrasts) with Gilman’s work in “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

Activity Idea: Curating Collections

1. Students will search for examples of people using historical allusion in political activities and movements. Have students brainstorm examples of possible search terms before setting students off to do their research. Students who may need more structure could also view an already curated set from the Library of Congress.

2. After some research time, ask students to select 3-4 examples of how the women’s movement used references to ancient history in their pageants, demonstrations, and texts.

3. Once they’ve assembled their examples, ask students to put the images into a set using a format of their choice.

4. After completing their short slideshows, students will present their sets to their classmates. Students will note their observations, reflections, and questions about each item in their sets. This activity will best be done as a “gallery walk,” where half the class presents while the other half visits different presentations. Eventually, have the students switch roles.

5. As students once again review the colLection and the annotations, they will now prepare their observations and evidence for a brief seminar on these questions:

• “To what extent do historical references make messages more persuasive?”

• “Why did the women’s movement borrow so much imagery from Classical Greece and Rome?”

• “Why might the women’s movement use ‘ancient history’ to help advance their message?”

• “What are the benefits and drawbacks of using historical allusions in persuasion?”

6. Conduct a seminar with students. You can consider a fishbowl configuration in which you switch students between the roles of participant and observer. Students can generate feedback for a partner while also recording interesting questions and comments. After the seminar, ask students to complete a written reflection on how the seminar impacted their thoughts on the women’s movement and persuasive techniques.

Using Primary Sources to Tell the Story of a Place

CARRIE BARBOSA

Introduction

This unit is the second of a series of inquiries on identity, place, change, courage, and rights, a topic-based structure I created as a pandemic-era redesign of my ninthgrade curriculum. In a time when we were all feeling like so much was out of our control, I intended for students to feel more connected to-and thus invested in-what we were Learning and to use inquiry and discussion to better understand themselves and the world around them. After exploring the many facets of our identities, we turned our attention to the idea of “place” as a natural extension of the idea of “identity.” We began by doing some thinking and discussing how identity is related to place.

Each Lesson has the same structure. We began with a writing prompt in the form of a question followed by whole-class sharing. The prompts set the stage for examining a primary source resource from the Library of Congress (LOC) to prepare the students for the particular aspect of “place” that was the Lesson’s focus. Following that, there was a suggested formative assessment that students could complete to practice what they Learned in the Lesson. Each Lesson-and the writing prompt question contained thereinre-presents a component of the task students will complete for the summative assessment; in it, they will research self-selected places in their city that hold meaning, write a script for and record a podcast about that place, and contribute to an interactive map that features the Locations. When it came time to complete the summative assessment, I chose a place of interest and researched it alongside my students, modeling the process. The students witnessed firsthand how I conducted my research—everything from revising my topic and methods to having many “aha” moments along the way.

Library of Congress Primary Source Set (and Why): Maine

As part of its many educational resources for teachers, the Library of Congress offers Primary Sources Sets, including one for each state in the USA. These resources provide an excellent reference point for Learning how a place can hold meaning. Since my students were Learning in a classroom in South Portland, Maine, the corresponding text set about Maine was appropriate for their inquiry. Teachers can use the general primary sources in this chapter and resources they find in the text set for their own state. They can also supplement the inquiry process with primary sources that can be found through Local state and historical society databases. For example, we used the Maine Historical Society’s Maine Memory Network and the South Portland Historical Society’s Online Museum and Research Library.

Lesson #1: What are some ways of describing a place?

a. Spend five minutes of silent, sustained writing about the prompt for the Lesson. I established this practice at the beginning of the year, and we did it every day with the exception of when we were working on a summative assessment. The rules for this type of writing are that it must be silent, and students must write for the entire time. It takes some time to build them up to sustain their writing for the entire five minutes, so it is important to give them some grace when they are Learning how to do it. I used a timer to indicate when we were finished. For this activity, I used composition notebooks housed in the classroom, but students could compose online (as Long as there were no distractions and some kind of accountability system in place). I periodically read their notebooks and commented on their writing or asked questions when I felt compelled.

b. Share thoughts from the writing as a whole class. There are many effective ways of doing this type of activity, and I like to adjust my practice according to the needs of individual classes. Methods I use include having students raise hands and share a Line, a paragraph, or the whole entry; doing a popcorn reading where all students read a Line out Loud in random order when they are ready; having students do a “write-around” when they write their comments as a silent conversation on pieces of paper that are passed around the room at time intervals; or having students write 1-3 Lines as a response to a question posted in a CMS.

c. Share a specific Library of Congress resource: Views of the Ruins in Portland. Since this is the first lesson using the Primary Source Analysis Tool, it is important to guide students through the process.

d. Use the Primary Source Analysis Tool (Observe, Reflect, Question) and consult the Teacher’s Guide to Analyzing Photographs and Prints (both resources can be found at https://www.loc.gov/programs/teachers/getting-started-with-primary-sources/guides) for guiding questions before Launching the Lesson. I found it helpful to project both the image under observation and the tool, side by side, and give each student a paper copy as I guided students through the process. I like to follow a whole class/small group or pairs/individual format for presenting the information. As a first step, I model my thinking and fill out the form as I go, supplying information for each of the three columns. Afterward, students work in small groups or pairs to add some text to each column and then share the information they added. Then students work as individuals to add a third section of text to each column, followed by sharing again. The whole class can come back together to complete the section for “Further Investigation.”

e. Example Formative Classroom Assignment: Have students use the text set about any state, along with additional primary sources about that state from the Library of Congress, to select another image and complete the Primary Source Analysis Tool. Additionally, have students identify what kinds of sensory experiences a person might have at the Location, giving examples for all five senses. Lastly, have students write two paragraphs from the perspective of someone in that place. What might that person be experiencing? This can be completed in their composition notebooks or the “Additional Notes” section of the tool.

Lesson #2: How does a place hold meaning? How does a place move, inspire, or impact people?

a. Spend five minutes of silent, sustained writing about the prompt for the Lesson.

b. Share thoughts from the writing as a whole class.

c. As a frontloading experience, share this website (Who are the Wabanaki?) with an overview of the Wabanaki, the native people of Maine. Then, share the essay “Passamaquoddy Song” from the LOC for another overview of the Wabanaki and the Nation of Passamaquoddy. For another state, research and Locate introductory information about the native people of that Location. A great place to start is the LOC resource “National Atlas. Indian tribes, cultures & Languages.”

d. See Figure 18 for the LOC Primary Source Analysis Tool for the map Located at Wabanaki Today (use other maps depending on the Location). Before guiding students, consult the Teacher’s Guide: Analyzing Maps (found at https://www.loc.gov/programs/teachers/getting-started-with-primary-sources/guides on the LOC website).

e. Example Formative Classroom Assignment: Have students read the article “735 acres of ancestral territory in Piscataquis County is returned to Penobscot Nation” and respond to this quote: Lucas St. Clair, representative of the Elliotsville Foundation, is quoted as saying: “I learned the Wabanaki believe that they belong to the land and the western perspective is that land belongs to individuals and this is at the root of the misunderstanding of the way we treat Land in Maine and around the country.” For another state, have students read an article about the indigenous people of that area.

f. Extension: Listen to some of the traditional Passamaquoddy music from the LOC. The performance begins at timestamp 8:35. Consult the Teacher’s Guide: Analyzing Sound Recordings (found at https://www.loc.gov/programs/teachers/getting-started-with-primary-sources/guides).

Lesson #3: How does a place bring people together? How does that make people feel?

a. Spend five minutes of silent, sustained writing about the prompt for the lesson.

b. Share thoughts from the writing as a whole class.

c. Read and discuss articles about cherished gathering places that have closed in communities around the country. My classes read an article about a loved local skating rink that most of them had visited many times throughout their childhoods that closed in 2019 (“Happy Wheels Skate Center in Portland Has Been Sold, Will Close”) and its joyful reopening in 2022 (“Happy Wheels Rools On”).

d. Have students turn and talk about meaningful places from their lives where they have gathered with others. Share as a whole class.

e. Example Formative Classroom Assignment: Discuss the importance of place through the lens of bringing people together. Have students research and report on a location in their community where people gather with others. What are the characteristics of the location? In what ways and for what reasons did it bring people together? Examples: a roller-skating rink, park, church, camp, etc.

Lesson #4: How can a place honor someone or something?

a. Spend five minutes of silent, sustained writing about the prompt for the lesson.

b. Share thoughts from the writing as a whole class.

c. Examine the LOC image of the World War II Memorial, Washington, DC. Before guiding students, consult the Teacher’s Guide: Analyzing Maps on the LOC website (found at https://www.loc.gov/programs/teachers/getting-started-with-primary-sources/guides). Use the Primary Source Analysis Tool (see Figure 19) with an eye toward the symbolism in the map and memorial plan. What specific things do you notice that serve to honor the people and events of World War II?

d. Example Formative Classroom Assignment: Have students research a place in their town, city, or state that honors someone or something (such as a person or a particular event). Have them search for places with monuments, statues, memorials, plaques, informational displays, etc. Another option is to research the topics listed in the Further Investigation section.

• Extension: Locate someone who was a part of the design, construction, or dedication of the place, or someone who is being honored by the place and interview that person about the personal significance of the memorial.

Culminating Task

For the summative assessment, students will use what they learned in the lessons to choose and research a local place of significance. There are several steps to the assessment and corresponding appendices:

a. Overview: As a first step, students should read the overview document to establish the timeline for the assignment and look at a list of possible places to investigate. The list I generated expanded each time I did the assignment because students would propose additional locations, or I would discover more locations as I conducted research alongside them. Students can be given links to information about each site if they need a solid jumping-off point. I also shared with them the location I chose to investigate, pointing out the surprising things I discovered as I researched. I model my excitement at making these discoveries and emphasize that they should choose a site that interests them, not something random from the list. Each student has been to at least one, if not many, of the locations on the list, so there is something for everyone. Once students began to make decisions, I created a table with everyone’s names and choices so I could easily remember what they were all working on. I made the list available on our shared electronic space so students could also ask each other questions about the locations.

b. Research Guide: Once students have chosen their place, the next step is to conduct research. Early in the school year, I have our head librarian visit the classroom and teach the students how to conduct effective online research and access state-sponsored databases and resources. Because of their instruction and the practice they have already had, they can Launch into the research process without much guidance. Once they started, I would circulate the room and conduct 1:1 conferences to help them along the way. When I felt the room was at a point of self-sufficiency, I would connect my Laptop to the projector and join them in the research process. I find it helpful for them to be able to look up from time to time to see my engagement and watch my process when it feels natural to them. When I found something significant, I would say something about it. A large part of the research document is a series of questions based on the individual Lessons they have already completed. At this time, they can read back through the freewriting they did in their notebooks to help them reflect and prepare to answer the questions about their specific place.

c. Script Framework: Before students embark on this step, it is important to stop and create a name for the podcast. I would ask for suggestions, list possible names across all my course sections, and have students vote electronically for their favorite. Then, I incorporated that into the script format. I felt it was important to have a uniform opening for each podcast to mimic the structure of professional podcasts. The rest of the framework continues a uniform structure but allows for individual information and creativity. It also ensures the students do not leave out any information sections and incorporate details and quotes from their sources. The conclusion is also uniform to again sound like a more professional production.

d. Peer Review: Since I have students engage in the full writing process for every writing assessment, peer review is an important step. Even though it is a regular practice, I always provide students with specific steps and questions catered to the particular assignment. I am also sure to include a step for the writer to complete once their paper is returned to them. Students are required to submit the peer review paper when they submit their scripts. Along with the peer review, I also give them my feedback and make recommendations for improvement.

e. Recording the Podcast: When it is time to record the podcast, I have the Technology Integrator teach a lesson about the procedure for recording. She modeled the process and provided them with a step-by-step handout. Then, students would take turns recording in small meeting rooms in our Learning Commons (Library) or at home if preferred. Students uploaded their recordings to our electronic classroom, and I kept a copy of each in an electronic folder.

f. The Map: Using an online map, I created a map of the podcast locations. I added color coding and symbols according to the type of location. When someone visited the map, they could access the podcast recording via a link.

Appendix 1: Overview of Podcast: What Makes This Place Significant?

Overview:

For the final project of our place unit, you will create a podcast about a place in South Portland, Maine. The idea of the podcast is that the person hearing the podcast would be listening to it while they are in the actual place. This podcast should be five minutes long (that translates to 500 words).

Timeline:

Step 1:

Choose your place from the list (or propose one of your own). Research, take notes, and answer the questions for thinking about the place.

Step 1 (continued):

Research, take notes, and answer the questions for thinking about your place (day two). You could also visit the place if you are able.

Step 2:

Write the script using the provided framework.

Step 3:

Participate in a peer review.

Step 4:

Revise based on feedback and polish the final draft. Record the podcast at home and export to a CMS.

Places:

Fort Preble

Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse

Liberty Ship Memorial/Bug Light Park

Old Settlers Cemetery

Thomas Knight Park

Hinckley Park

Maine Military Museum

Hoi Duc Temple

First Congregational Church

Mount Pleasant Cemetery

Masonic Building

Mahoney School (old SPHS)

Red’s Dairy Freeze (Tastee Freeze)

Davidson’s Beach

Pope Preserve

Old Vanghan’s Bridge Main Street

Cape Elizabeth Depot (site of Domino’s)

Bayview Cemetery (old Ouaker burial ground in the back)

Skillin Family Cemetery near Target

Campbell’s Market

Dow’s Woods

Mill Creek Park

Clark’s Pond

National Guard Armory

Long Creek Air Tragedy Memorial

Willard Beach

King’s Highway Marker

Rigby Rail Yard

Appendix 2: Research and Questions for Thinking about Your Place

Research:

location (physical spot and physical features)

locale (what is around it/is it part of something larger/the atmosphere)

history (from the beginning to now)

designation (registers, plaques, memorials, etc.)

Questions:

(You have already answered these in your note-books.)

How is identity related to place? What is the place’s identity? What is the identity of the people who go to this place or used to go to this place? Has the place’s identity changed over time?

What are some ways of describing a place? How would you describe the place? Use all five senses.

What sensory details might someone pick up on if standing at that spot?

How does a place hold meaning? How does a place move, inspire, or impact people? What kind of inspiration might this place provide? What kinds of things have happened here that would have impacted people? Why?

How does a place bring people together? Who gathers at this spot now and throughout its history? What kinds of events take place there or have taken place in the past?

What are some ways places can make people feel? What feelings might this place evoke in people? What are some possible reasons behind these feelings?

How do places speak or tell stories? What can a place “tell” us? If someone listens and observes carefully, what might they hear or learn from the place? What kinds of secrets might this place be holding?

How can a place honor someone or something? How do places hold on to people’s history? What is the historical background of the place? What significant events have happened there? Are there people tied to this place, and what is their history?

Appendix 3: Place Podcast Script Framework (500 words)

Intro music (5 seconds):

Setup:

Hello,and welcome to the South Portland Experience podcast. This is _______(name) _______, your host for today’s episode _______(name of your episode) _______. Today I will be talking about the significance of _______(your place) _______, including its location, history, meaning, and_(whatever else you want to include) _______.

This podcast is part of a series, so be sure to check out the other episodes, and remember, this podcast is best when you listen to it in the actual place. So get out and explore South Portland!

<segue> Use a sound effect here to signify you are beginning.

First topic:

Include the description of the place and its surroundings—all senses.

You could begin by saying something like:

• When someone first arrives . . .

• When someone is on location . . .

• As I look around . . .

<segue> Use a sound effect here to signify you are transitioning to a new topic.

Second topic:

Include the full history of the place.

You could begin by saying something like: Did you know that . . .

Points:

Supporting data/information:

Quote:

<segue> Use a sound effect here to signify you are transitioning to a new topic.

Third topic:

Talk about the significance/meaning of the place. You could begin by saying something like: People visit this place because . . .

Points:

Supporting data/information:

Quote:

<segue> Use a sound effect here to signify you are transitioning to a new topic.

Conclusion:

This is the time to mention anything you want to say that wasn’t covered in the first three topics and wrap up the podcast.

Then say something like . . . This is _______(name) _______signing off from _______(your place) _______. Don’t forget to listen to the other episodes in the series and get out and visit South Portland!

Appendix 4: Place Podcast Peer Review

Name of the person reviewing your script:

Reviewer steps:

1. Time yourself reading the script out loud (or to yourself). How long did it take?

2. Find three instances where the writer did a good job using sensory detail. List them.

3. Did the writer give enough detail when describing the physical location of the place? What suggestions do you have for adding more detail?

4. Did the writer provide sufficient information about the history of the place? What suggestions do you have for improving this section?

5. Did the writer capture the significance and importance of the place? Did the script make you feel anything? Describe how you felt when you read it.

6. What was your favorite part of the script? Why?

For the writer:

What is one thing you changed as a result of this feedback?

Public Perceptions of Emancipation Proclamation Primary Source Images

JONNA KUSKEY

Comparing primary source images of various Emancipation Proclamation prints, students analyze how rhetorical choices that creators use can influence viewers’ perceptions and opinions. All these primary sources have the Emancipation Proclamation text; however, the images differ in the design choices and graphics that surround the text. Approximately one out of four individuals were illiterate in the mid-1800s, so did 25 percent of those who saw these images rely on the design and graphics to inform their perceptions of the Emancipation Proclamation rather than the text? Could individuals’ opinions about the Emancipation Proclamation differ depending on which image they encountered? Students who completed this lesson overwhelming said, “Yes.”

Through this lesson, students recognize that designers of visual text have the power to influence public perceptions and opinions. Ultimately, this lesson is using the past to inform the present. In analyzing these primary sources from the past, students begin to recognize that the visual texts they consume today have the same power. Indeed, with our current students living in a digital age where most of their information is visual, it is important that they understand the ways in which visuals can sway our opinions, so they will not fall prey to the manipulation of the messages they consume daily.

Time Required: 4 days

Lesson Preparation

Resources

The following resources can be found at https://www.loc.gov/programs/teachers/getting-start-ed-with-primary-sources/guides;

• Primary Source Analysis Tool

• Teacher’s Guide: Analyzing Primary Sources

• Teacher’s Guide: Analyzing Photographs & Prints

Library of Congress Emancipation Proclamation primary source documents:

• [J. S. Smith & Co. copy of the Emancipation Proclamation.]

• [B. B. Russell & Co. copy of the Emancipation Proclamation.]

• Proclamation of Emancipation.

• [Paine copy of the Emancipation Proclamation. Copy 2.]

• [Rufus Blanchard edition of the emancipation proclamation. Copy 2]

• [A. Kidder copy of the Emancipation proclamation.]

• Abraham Lincoln and his Emancipation Proclamation

• The Emancipation Proclamation

• President Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation, [F. L. Butler & L. Nagel]

• Emancipation Proclamations [graphic]

• Emancipation Proclamation [graphic]

• Emancipation Proclamation [graphic]

• Emancipation Proclamation [graphic]

• Emancipation Proclamation [graphic] / del., lith. and print. by L. Lipman, Milwaukee, Wis.

• Proclamation of Emancipation by the President of the United States of America [graphic] / W. Roberts del., C.A. Alvord, printer.

Project Zero Thinking Routines, Harvard Graduate School of Education:

• Looking: Ten Times Two

• Values, Identities, Action

• Unveiling Stories

Lesson Procedure

Session One

1. Pair students and assign each pair two Emancipation Proclamation primary source images.

2. Provide students with the LOC links to their assigned images and have them closely examine and read the information about their two images.

3. With one of the assigned images, have students complete the Library of Congress Primary Source Analysis Tool (see Figure 20 for an example). You may want to prompt students with the questions found in the Teacher’s Guide: Analyzing Primary Sources as you move through the different sections of this analysis tool.

4. In the Further Investigation section of their Library of Congress Primary Source Analysis Tool, have students complete the Project Zero Thinking Routine Looking: Ten Times Two (see Figure 20). (Assist students in doing a deeper dive into the image.)

5. Ask partners to share their completed LOC Primary Source Analysis Tool documents and encourage students to add their partner’s observations to their own document.

6. Repeat Steps 1-5 with the second assigned image.

Session Two

1. Have students complete the Values, Identities, Action Project Zero Thinking Routine for both of their assigned images. This activity will prompt students to examine what is in the image and what is not (see Figure 21).

• What values are conveyed and whose values are they?

• Who is portrayed in the image and who is not?

• What does the image make people think or do?

2. Have students complete the Unveiling Stories Project Zero Thinking Routine for both of their assigned images. This activity will prompt students to focus on the story the image tells (see Figure 22).

• What is the story the image is telling?

• What is the story the image is not telling?

• Whose story is being told?

• Whose story is not being told?

3. Ask partners to share their completed thinking routine activities and encourage students to add their partner’s observations to their own documents.

Session Three

1. Ask students to choose one of their assigned images along with the information they have collected. Ask students to reflect on the following question: How could the design choices of this image influence a viewer’s perception of the Emancipation Proclamation? (You may choose to set a timer and give them 5-10 minutes to write their answer.)

2. Repeat the above step with the second assigned image.

3. In small groups or as a class, students show their images and discuss how a viewer’s perception of the Emancipation Proclamation could be different depending upon the image they were viewing.

Session Four

1. Students will have the entire session to answer two prompts regarding this lesson. The first prompt focuses on the primary source images. The second prompt askes students to apply what they have Learned in relation to viewing visuals themselves.

Lesson Evaluation

Prompt 1

Based upon your close analyses of two Emancipation Proclamation primary source images and class discussions of your peers’ assigned images, how might public perceptions and opinions about slavery, emancipation, and Lincoln differ depending on which image they viewed?

You are encouraged to use all the notes, annotations, and information you collected as well as discussions throughout this Lesson to help formulate your response. You must use evidence from your assigned images in your written response.

Consider a few of the following questions to help you formulate your response:

• What story does the image tell?

• From what point of view is the story told?

• What identities and symbols are used to tell the story? Why were those selected?

• How might American values-freedom, patriotism, justice-play a role in the story?

• How might religion play a role in the story?

Prompt 2

How can you apply what you have Learned in this Lesson to be a more critical consumer of visual text? Cite evidence from your own experiences to support your response.

Consider a few of the following questions to help you formulate your response:

• Is there merit in searching for the untold stories? Why or why not?

• How can what we follow on social media affect the way we perceive the world?

• How might you Look at visual texts differently?

Reflection

Student responses on the two prompts showed several common themes.

Prompt 1

Students noted:

• Christian religious symbolism, particularly good vs. evil, was on many of the prints.

• Lincoln was viewed as the hero, the savior.

• The slaves’ stories/experiences were minimized

Scoring Guide for Prompts

A (4)

B (3)

C (2)

D (1)

I can include specific claims to thoroughly answer the prompt and make my argument clear and persuasive.

I can include specific claims to make my argument and answer the prompt.

I can include claims, but they could be more focused to answer the prompt.

I am having difficulty making a claim and tend to write facts in place of my claims.

I can support each of my claims using the most relevant evidence.

I can support each of my claims using some relevant evidence.

I can include evidence that somewhat supports my claims.

I am having difficulty supplying evidence to support my claims.

I can provide thorough, strong, valid reasoning to explain how my evidence supports the claim.

I can provide valid reasoning to explain how my evidence supports the claims, but I could be more thorough.

I can include some reasoning to explain how my evidence supports the claim.

I have difficulty providing reasoning and tend to merely summarize the evidence and/or the claim.

Prompt 2

Students learned to be more critical consumers by:

• Seeking the untold story, as well as multiple perspectives, prior to making an informed decision.

• Searching for, recognizing, and questioning an argument within a text to reduce the chances of being duped, misled, misinformed, or manipulated.

• Engaging in multiple, credible sources to make informed decisions rather than remaining inside their “friend” groups on social media platforms that curate content generated by algorithms.

This book was typeset in PT Sans, PT Sans Narrow, and Alternate Gothic No3 by Cynthia Gomez.

The typefaces used on the cover include Bebas Neue Middle and Lato Medium.