Primary & Secondary Source Documents Making History Come Alive Adapted from: Better Lessons, and from Learning NC 1
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1Adapted from: Better Lessons, and from Learning NC
Primary & Secondary Source Documents
Making History Come Alive
Adapted from: Better Lessons, and from Learning NC
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Learning goals The learning goals for this unit are:
Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources.
Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.
In order to reach your goals you first need to know what a primary source document and a secondary source document are.
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Your focus questions1. What are primary source
and secondary source documents?
2. Why do I need to know the difference between primary and secondary sources?
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What is a primary source document?
Primary sources provide first hand evidence of historical events. The authors of primary sources were actually present during the event.
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For instance… The information your friend
provides to the principal would be considered a primary source because she was present during an argument on the playground.
However, if you went to the principal to explain what you learned about the fight from other people, your explanation would be considered a secondary source.
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Why is this important to my learning?
Because they are first-hand accounts of life in the past, primary sources provide you with windows into the past — a chance to catch a glimpse at the world you’re trying to understand through the words, pictures, artwork, and objects of the people who lived in it.
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What is a secondary source document?
A secondary source is a source that relates or discusses information originally presented elsewhere.
Secondary sources involve generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of the original information.
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Still confused? Secondary sources in
history and humanities are usually books or journals, from the perspective of a later interpreter.
Secondary sources are at least one step removed from original events or topics. Examples include textbooks, encyclopedias, reviews of research, book reviews, critiques of art, and biographies.
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What about my textbook?
Textbooks are examples of secondary sources because the textbook writers were not present during the events in the book.
They can sometimes add their own opinions and interpretations of the events into the textbooks.
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What are some examples?
What are some examples of primary sources? A diary entry from Anne
Frank about the Holocaust.
A fossil found in the desert from the Ice Age.
What are some examples of secondary sources? A biography of Harriet
Tubman written by a current author.
A textbook chapter about the Great Depression.
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It is important to understand the difference between these two types of sources because we want to be critical readers of a text.
We need to read secondary sources more critically because they may contain opinions or ideas of the author instead of the person the event revolves around.
So what? Why is this important?
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Still not sure? Answering some questions will help you determine
whether it is a primary or a secondary source.
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What kind of source is it?
You’ll want to know what kind of source it is — a newspaper, an oral history account, a diary entry, a government document, etc. — because different kinds of sources must be considered differently.
Knowing that type of source you’re dealing with can help you start to think about appropriate questions.
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Where did it come from?
If you found an editorial in a newspaper discussing the Montgomery Bus Boycott, for example, you would want to know where the newspaper was published — a newspaper from Montgomery might be considered very differently from one published in Boston, Massachusetts, Mobile, Alabama, or Washington, D.C.
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Who created it? Knowing something about
who created the source you’re using can help you determine what biases they might have had, what their relationship to the things they described in the source might have been, and whether or not this source should be considered credible.
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Who created it? Keep in mind that someone
doesn’t have to be famous or need to have played a dramatic role in history to be a credible source — in terms of understanding the experience of World War I, the writings of a regular soldier in the trenches may be as valuable or even much more so than the recollections of President Wilson.
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When was it produced?
Knowing when the source was produced can help you start to put it into historical perspective.
If you don’t know when a source was written, you can’t start to put it into its historical context and understand how it connects to historical events.
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Some things to consider
Historians have special ways of reading primary sources, a “toolbox” of questions they ask about each type of source and methods they use to answer them. The way we read a source from the past is different from the way we’d read a similar source in the present.
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Other things to consider… When you read historical
primary sources, then, you have to think about the assumptions, background, and context of the people who created them, and about how they differed from yours. You have to read and think about them, but you also have to think carefully about how you’re reading and thinking about them.
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Let’s review…Now test your learning. This video will help you
understand the difference between primary sources and secondary sources. Can you answer their questions correctly?
Primary and Secondary Sources
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You’ve got it! The more you practice, the
more you’ll learn to think like a historian!
Try this quick quiz on primary and secondary sources. See how well you know the difference between the two. Good luck!
Quiz
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