After having read the section on primary sources section in Chapter 2 of Choosing & Using Sources and being given an object by the instructor, students will discuss the conditions under which the object could become a primary source.
Other activities in this series: Activity 2A, Primary, Secondary, or Tertiary?
Learning Outcomes
Students will be able to:
- Explain the conditions under which an object could become a primary source.
- Explain what makes a primary source a primary source.
Relevant Threshold Concepts
- Authority is constructed and contextual.
- Information creation as a process.
Suggestions for Use
- This activity should help spark students’ interest in primary sources and perhaps also widen their concept of what such sources can be.
- It should also help cement students’ understanding of what makes primary sources primary sources.
- The activity is somewhat similar to an activity called Under What Circumstances that students will have come across in the section on primary, secondary, and tertiary sources in Choosing & Using, Chapter 2, Types of Sources. But doing it in class, with real objects present, and with a discussion format should be more interesting for students and a chance for you to see whether they have learned the most important concepts.
- If you like, the activity can become longer if you bring more items to class to discuss or ask students to bring in items.
Pre-Class Preparation
- Review In-Class Procedure below.
- Read the section on primary, secondary, and tertiary sources in Choosing & Using Sources, Chapter 2, Types of Sources.
- Assign students to read the section on primary, secondary, and tertiary sources in Choosing & Using Sources, Chapter 2, Types of Sources.
- Choose 2 objects to bring to class that could, under the right circumstances, become primary sources. You’ll probably have time for only 1 but it’s good to have a spare.
- Think about a couple circumstances under which each of these items could become primary sources.
In-Class Procedure
- Introduce the session by reminding students that sources for research projects are not all the same. One important kind is primary sources, which they should have read about in Choosing & Using Sources.
- Tell students that primary sources don’t just hang around being primary sources. Instead, they become primary sources only when a researcher decides that they are relevant to his or her research and uses them as sources.
- If possible, pass around your first object.
- Tell students that today you’d like them to discuss the circumstances under which your object could become a primary source. In other words, what would a researcher have to be studying in order to consider this object a source? Let them know there could be several correct answers. Would the researcher have to be a scholar in order for the object to be a primary source? Or could he/she be an ordinary person trying to learn about something?
- Accept all reasonable answers, as long as students can make a case for using the object as a source.
- If you think it would help students’ thinking, interleave these questions with student responses: When was the object created? Who created it? Why was it created? Who used it? What was happening at the time it was created? What do you think or feel when you look at or hold this object? What could this object tell researchers? What is it that makes this object firsthand information, which is what primary sources are?
- When the discussion of your first object has ended, continue in the same way with your second object if there is still time.
Relevant Choosing & Using Sources Chapters:
Chapter 2, Types of Sources.
Credit: Lisa Iacobellis of Ohio State University Libraries contributed to this activity.
