Visualizing History

In this vlog I discuss strategies to implement primary source documents into your curriculum. Using primary source documents requires students to think at higher levels using skills such as analysis and interpretation, I find this to be much more engaging than the old way of teaching history through wrote memorization. In addition to documents primary sources can also be photographs, paintings and other images and there use can be a great way to engage learners of all levels. A great place on the web for lesson plans based on primary sources is the National Archives . I also like to use historical documents printed on parchmnet paper as they have that “authentic” look, I get a lot of my reproduction at the Liberty Bell Museum gift shop. If you would like to read more about the research behind primary source document analysis read Sam Wineburg’s Historical Thinking and Other Unnatiral Acts . Here is a list of sites I found useful for primary source document analysis as well as products discussed in my vlog.

• Analyzing Primary Source Documents Student Handout
• Building Literacy in Social Studies
• Gilder Lehrman Institutite of American History
• Library of Congress American Memory
• Our Documents
• Avalon Project
• Primary Sources at Yale
• Hip Hop History