• Printer Friendly Version

Subject

English Language Arts (2005), Social Studies

Assessment

Collecting Primary Source Materials

Peer Review Assessment

1. Students determine criteria for assessment checklists of the archive based on the questions in the "Analyzing the Collection" section of the student handout "Collecting Primary Source Materials."
2. As students continue to collect, analyze, and research related materials, the progress of their project is monitored by their peers. Classroom teams meet for a monthly roundtable discussion and evaluation of their projects, using their criteria for assessment.
3. The peer review process may be used in evaluating the final project, the written analysis, and the oral presentation.

 

Teacher Assessment

1. By the end of the ninth week of class, each student produces a written statement describing his or her topic and outlining a plan for collecting materials.
2. Students turn in peer review after each monthly roundtable.
3. Teachers may choose to culminate this unit with a written analysis of the archival collection and/or other demonstrations of mastery of the concepts of archival collection and analysis.
4. Teachers evaluate oral presentations of final projects.

 

Learning Context/ Introduction

The collection of an archive of primary source materials constitutes the principal activity of a year-long American Studies class focusing on historiography and the use of primary sources. Students collect primary source materials from their families or local communities. In analyzing these primary sources, students examine the interplay between national, state, local, and personal history. Over a period of several weeks, students produce a digital collection modeled on the Library of Congress' American Memory.

In the culminating unit of the Arkansas Memory Project described here, students built a webpage based on the analyzed archival collection, and made their own projects available online to other Arkansas schools. Many students provided a lesson plan linked to their webpage. The Arkansas Memory digital collections produced by members of the class may be viewed at the website of the Arkansas School for Mathematics and Sciences.

Teachers and students from other states and localities may easily follow this model to create local history Memory Projects of their own. Teachers may choose to limit the lesson to a single unit in which students build the archive of primary source materials, or may extend the lesson to a year-long project by including units in which students create webpages and lesson plans based on their archives.

Note: The activities that follow have been adapted for use in New York State. All references to Arkansas have been changed to New York. These substitutions are the only modifications that have been made to the original document.

Part III

Formulating Individual Student Projects(2-3 class periods)

1. Students propose possible topics for collections and relate these topics to themes in U.S. and New York State History.
2. Provide students with information about where and how to search for primary source materials in their own localities.
3. Provide students with information about where and how to search for secondary source materials in support of their projects.
4. Students determine criteria for assessment checklists based on the questions in the "Analyzing the Collection" section of the student handout "Collecting Primary Source Materials."
5. Students choose their topics. Students produce written statements describing their topics and outlining their plans for collecting materials (by end of ninth week of class).

Objectives

Students will:

 

• Identify and collect artifacts related to key themes or events in American history.
• Describe and analyze these primary sources.
• Locate related primary and secondary source materials to aid in interpretation.
• Compare/contrast the materials to articulate the relationships between the artifact and events or themes in national, state, and local history.
• Archive and digitize the selected documents, along with related materials and student analysis, for presentation on the World Wide Web.

 

Procedure

This learning experience consists of the following parts:
Part I- Introduction to Assignment (1 class period)
Part II- Introduction to Digital Archives (1 class period)
Part III- Formulating Individual Student Projects (2-3 class periods)
Part IV- Collecting the Archive (approximately 16-18 weeks, time outside of class, and 6 class periods for peer review)
Part V- Written Analysis of Archival Collection (1 - 2 class periods)
Part IV- Oral Presentations of Memory Projects (2 class periods)

Part I

Introduction to Assignment (1 class period)

1. Explain or review the concept of a primary source.
2. Discuss the different types of primary source materials that may be collected in an archive.
3. Discuss the concept of field work in collecting primary source materials, referring to Explore Your Community: A Community Heritage Poster for the Classroom as needed.

Part II

Introduction to Digital Collections (1 class period)

1. Introduce students to American Memory, showing examples of the different types of materials collected and digitized (see More browse options).
2. Introduce students to concepts of online searching. Use different approaches to searching the collections, such as keyword and title browsing, and searching by region, time period, or materials format (see Search Help for more information on effective ways to search the collections).
3. Provide ample classroom time and guidance so that students may explore American Memory collections as a model for their own archival projects.
4. Show the students ideas for project topics on Explore Your Community.

Part IV

Collecting the Archive(approximately 16-18 weeks, time outside of class, and 6 class periods for peer review)

1. Students collect primary source materials, research related materials, and analyze their findings, using "25 Questions to Ask Your Primary Source."
2. Referring to the criteria for assessment checklists that they have created, students monitor each others' progress through monthly roundtable discussions during the period of researching, collecting, and analyzing materials.

• 25 Questions to Ask Your Primary Source

Part V

Written Analysis of Archival Collection(1-2 class periods and/or time outside of class)

1. Teachers may choose to culminate this unit with a written analysis of the archival collection and/or other demonstrations of mastery of the concepts of archival collection and analysis.
2. Teachers may also choose to extend the unit with activities outlined in the Extension section below.

Part IV

Oral Presentations of Memory Projects (2 class periods)
Students present their final New York Memory Projects in class. Their formal oral presentations are illustrated by the artifacts themselves.

• 25 Questions to Ask Your Primary Source

Resources/Materials

American Memory

• American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940

 

• Selected Civil War Photographs, 1861-1865

 

 

• America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935-1945

 

 

• Map Collections: 1500-1999

 

 

• Panoramic Photographs: Taking the Long View, 1851-1991

 

 

• Touring Turn-of-the-Century America: Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company, 1880-1920

 

 

• Voices From the Dust Bowl: The Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection, 1940-1941

 

Learning Page

• How to Cite Electronic Sources

 

 

• How to Understand Copyright Restrictions

 

 

• Getting Started (searching American Memory)

 

 

• Historian's Sources (identifying and analyzing primary sources.)

 

 

• How to Link and Bookmark in American Memory

 

 

• How to Print and Save

 

 

• Using Primary Sources in the Classroom

 

 

• Bibliography

 

Extension Assessment

Peer Review Assessment

1. Students assess each others' Web pages.
2. The peer review process may be used to evaluate the final archival collection and the oral presentation.

Teacher Assessment

1. Class Work:
1. Classroom teams make printouts of at least three sample history Web pages, including two student-produced pages and one Web page introducing a related American Memory collection.
2. Classroom teams complete a "Web Evaluation Worksheet" for each of these three Web pages (one set per team)
3. Each student creates an Internet Search Log.
4. Each student does a "Web Evaluation Worksheet" on one of the team's selected Web pages.
2. Homework:
1. Students complete a rough draft of their Web page. Each student submits a printout of the draft, an index of the Web page, and Web Page Evaluations by two (2) peer reviewers.
2. Students complete a final draft of their Web page. Each student submits the final draft and a self-evaluation using the "Web Evaluation Worksheet."
3. Students may earn bonus points by submitting a critique of their Arkansas Memory Project Web Page written by a junior high school student or teacher
4. Students may earn bonus points by creating a lesson plan for use with the Web page.
3. Oral Presentation of Project to Class.

Duration

Approximately 12-15 class periods, plus several weeks of research time outside class.

Author

Neal Gibson and George West

Source

Reproduced from the Library of Congress web site for teachers. Original lesson plan created as part of the Library of Congress American Memory Fellows Program.

Related Academic Standards

New York State

RI.11-12.8 Delineate and evaluate the reasoning in seminal U.S. texts, including the application of constitutional principles and use of legal reasoning (e.g., in U.S. Supreme Court majority opinions and dissents) and the premises, purposes, and arguments in works of public advocacy (e.g., The Federalist, presidential addresses).

RI.11-12.9 Analyze seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century foundational U.S. documents of historical and literary significance (including The Declaration of Independence, the Preamble to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address) for their themes, purposes, and rhetorical features.

RH.9-10.1 Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, attending to such features as the date and origin of the information.

RH.9-10.2 Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text.

RH.9-10.3 Analyze in detail a series of events described in a text; determine whether earlier events caused later ones or simply preceded them.

View All