how to read primary sources-- a teacher-developed lesson

Here's a solid lesson on How to Analyze Primary Sources developed by Lisa Jaffe and Suzanne Tallarico with help from Thea Krumm, Terri Ruyter, Rachel Mattson, and Nikki Newton at our Teaching American History workshop yesterday. They used a backwards planning "understanding by design" template.

for the 5th grade, adaptable for other grades.
10 Days of 45 minute lessons

Goals/Standards: Reading & WritingReading & Writing Standards:
Standard 1: Language for Information and Understanding
1. Listening and reading to acquire information and understanding involves collecting data, facts, and ideas; discovering relationships, concepts, and generalizations, and using knowledge from oral, written and electronic sources
2. Speaking and writing to acquire and transmit information requires asking probing and clarifying questions, interpreting information in one’s own words, applying information from one context to another, and presenting the information and interpretation clearly, concisely, and comprehensibly. Social Studies

Historical Content:
Understandings
Historians study documents and artifacts to present their version of a particular story. Essential Questions
How do historians know about the past?
How do primary source documents tell a story?


Knowledge
A primary source document is…
Differentiating between fact and opinion Skills
Analyzing a document
• Describe (through words, drawing, etc.)
• Analyze documents by asking the following questions:
S--- What kind of source is this?
O—What’s the occasion?
A--- Who is the audience?
P--- What is the purpose of the document?
• Using information around the text (caption, author, date, etc.)
• Comparing different topics on the same topic.

Assessments
Writing a Small Moment Story about a primary source
Document Analysis Sheet
Test on analyzing a variety of primary sources
Unit Plan
See below
Still need to create graphic organizer students will use to analyze primary sources. Organizers should be differentiated.

Resources
Field Trip: “New York Unearthed” through South Street Seaport Museum, Museum of City of New York (from Dutch to New Amsterdam workshop)
Primary document analysis sheet
Primary document “mind walk” activity (based on resources from the library of congress website)
www.politicalcartoons.com

Strategy Charts: Social Studies
How to Be a Historian
How to Analyze a Document
Strategy Charts: Writing
How to Write a DBQ
Phrases I use to explain a document
(i.e. according to, in Document A it states, etc., I think X because…)

Unit Plan
Day 1
Aim: How do we know about things that happened a long time ago?
Mind Walk:
Write down everything you’ve done in the last 24 hours.
What kinds of evidence did you leave behind? (wrappers, schoolwork, etc.)
If 100 years now, someone was trying to learn about you, what could they find out from this evidence?
What couldn’t they find out? (who bought it for you, how important that person is to you)

Day 2
Aim: How do we look at a primary source?
Bring in class picture and have students describe what they see.
Give each group a primary source from teacher’s life and have students list what they see, and what they know about the teacher from looking at the source.
Homework: Students will bring in a primary source from their own life (photo, letter, receipt, religious object, flag, article of clothing)

Day 3
Aim: What do we learn about people from looking at their sources?
Students will swap primary sources with each other and answer the following questions:
What is it?
Where did he/she get it or find it?
Why is it important to him/her?
What do you learn from the object?

Day 4
Aim: How do we look at a print primary source (i.e. photo, article, etc.)
Teacher will show photo of a child from long ago. Teacher will guide students through process of analyzing a document:
S--- What kind of source is this?
O- What’s the occasion?
A- Who is the audience?
P--- What is the purpose of the document?
Students will analyze similar type sources independently.
Day 5 Aim: How do we look at a print primary source (i.e. photo, article, etc.)
Teacher will show an advertisement (broadside) from long ago. Teacher will guide students through process of analyzing a document:
S--- What kind of source is this?
O- What’s the occasion?
A- Who is the audience?
P--- What is the purpose of the document?
Students will analyze similar type sources independently.

Day 6
Aim: How do we look at a print primary source (i.e. photo, article, etc.)
Teacher will show a political cartoon. Teacher will guide students through process of analyzing a document:
S--- What kind of source is this?
O- What’s the occasion?
A- Who is the audience?
P--- What is the purpose of the document?
Students will analyze similar type sources independently.

Day 7
Aim: How do we look at a print primary source (i.e. photo, article, etc.)
Teacher will show a different political cartoon. Teacher will guide students through process of analyzing a document:
S--- What kind of source is this?
O- What’s the occasion?
A- Who is the audience?
P--- What is the purpose of the document?
Students will analyze similar type sources independently.

Day 8
Aim: How do we look at a print primary source (i.e. photo, article, etc.)
Teacher will show a map (natural resources). Teacher will guide students through process of analyzing a document:
S--- What kind of source is this?
O- What’s the occasion?
A- Who is the audience?
P--- What is the purpose of the document?
Students will analyze similar type sources independently.
Day 9 Aim: How do we look at a print primary source (i.e. photo, article, etc.)
Teacher will show an excerpt from a newspaper article. Teacher will guide students through process of analyzing a document:
S--- What kind of source is this?
O- What’s the occasion?
A- Who is the audience?
P--- What is the purpose of the document?
Students will analyze similar type sources independently.

Day 10
Assessment Piece
Students will demonstrate their ability to analyze different types of primary sources: photograph, advertisement, map, newspaper excerpt, and map by answering a series of questions about 5 different sources.

yesterday, i felt a lot of hopeless

the changes that the NYC Department of Ed is putting into effect for next year are starting to really get me down. a person needs to fight against it, but a person also wants to run very far away. yesterday i listened to a middle school teacher spiral out in fear, going on and on about how little information the DOE was providing her and the other teachers in her school about the ways that these changes are going to affect her work and her classroom. for about 35 minutes she went on and on about how she and her colleagues and the parents of her students have all been kept in the dark. only her principal seems to know anything; only her principal is empowered to make any decisions and purchase the required "assessments" and "curricula" that they'll have to use next year. meanwhile, my colleagues, the ones with whom i work to coordinate the teaching american history workshops with elementary teachers in region 9, they know virtually NOTHING about what will happen to their jobs post-june 30th. if they are fired, who will i work with? who will be my liason to the public schools? how will i continue to do this work?

when i got home last night i was feeling eroded. just, you know? like, how in hell are we ever going to make the change in this world, how will public education ever come anywhere near to meeting its mandate, if the capitalist bureaucrats continually eviscerate the thing and mandate testing and require schools to purchase services from small companies, over and over and over, changing the rules and handing more power over to the crap marketing departments of kaplan and princeton review?

oh, that's the other thing: students will now, as of next year, be tested EVERY 60 days. woo hoo! lets go hog testing wild.

i am having a hard time remembering the long view.