Lesson 2: To be Primary or to be Secondary? - Analyzing Primary Sources

Warm Up

For this warm up, all you need is click on the link, and enjoy... (Hope you like SNL) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t7h2VyEm4M

While watching this clip, hopefully you had a couple of laughs. Mainly because you saw so many inaccuracies. Obviously a comedy clip, and meant to be drastically wrong, but if you were listening at the man's title. "Anthony Crispino, the 2nd Hand News Guy." As humorous as this is, it can be scary how altered information can be.

Before you dive into this lesson, think about that clip, think about discussions you have had and some of the things you have had read about current issues and historical topics.

Discussion/Lecture

The simple fact that none of us were alive in 1776, should probably make us skeptical of almost any information given to us. Yet, teachers left and right will give students textbooks with information on the American Revolution. Take all of it as fact, and then wonder why their students aren't able to develop any critical thinking skills or writing samples with any analysis involved. Also, those students probably feel how you felt while watching the SNL clip. You weren't there, they weren't there, and neither were the editors/authors of the textbook.

Tell a student you can fly, then back it up with "just trust me." That's what we were are doing when we just hand them information from a textbook or a worksheet. These are things that are overlooked when it comes to educating students on the past.

The Library of Congress states that "Primary sources provide a window into the past—unfiltered access to the record of artistic, social, scientific and political thought and achievement during the specific period under study, produced by people who lived during that period" (www.loc.gov. 2016). Instead of Anthony Crispino and some 2nd-Hand news, you are allowing those students to see a real insight into the past. It's no longer, "Trust me on this," it turns into, "See for yourself."

Also it can be broken down into three benefits:

1 - Engages Students . Students can relate to the information in the different formats it is presented in.

2 - Develops Critical Thinking Skills . It can challenge a student's way of thinking or prior assumptions. Also gives students a chance to question history on a personal level. Is it biased information? Hoe credible is it? How Useful can it be to my purpose?

3 - Constructs Knowledge . Overall, it is giving the students an inside look at the information on the topic of study. They are no longer on the outside looking in, but experiencing history like those who lived it in that period of time. It can create a better level of understanding.

Is there anything wrong with Secondary Sources? Not when you need background information, but it should not be the main sources for students.

Guided Practice/Wrap Up

For this wrap up, feel free to try it with one of your classes or just for yourself.

The topic - Causes of the Civil War

Below are Four Primary Sources, all of which show the "causes" of the Civil War.

After each source: . Identify the the person's perspective according to the source/ Who are they? Where are they from? When was this written? Before/After time of study?

. Then identify how this source could be biased in their opinion.

. Discuss if these could impact future teachings of the causes of the Civil War. (Pending each state?)

(This allows students to see different perspectives of the causes of war. Some say Slavery and defend it, while other just want the country to stay united

Quote 1 This is a quote from William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879), a New Englander, and a white middle class man:

“Enslave the liberty of but one human being and the liberties of the world are put in peril.”

Quote 2 This is a quote from Senator Daniel Webster (1782-1852), of Massachusetts, a white rich man. Webster made this statement to the Senate on March 7, 1850, during the debates over the admission of California to the Union (as a free state), popular sovereignty and the Fugitive Slave Act:

“I wish to speak to-day, not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American and a member of the Senate of the United States. I speak to-day for the preservation of the Union. . . . I speak to-day, out of a solicitous and anxious heart, for the restoration to the country of that quiet and that harmony which make the blessings of this Union so rich, and so dear to us all.”

Quote 3 This is a quote from George Fitzhugh (1806-1881), in his book, Sociology for the South, published in 1854. Fitzhugh was a white Virginian middle-class man.

“There is no rivalry, no competition to get employment among slaves, as among free laborers. Nor is there a war between master and slave. The master’s interest prevents his reducing the slave’s allowance or wages in infancy or sickness, for he might lose the slave by doing so. The slaves are all well fed, well clad, have plenty of fuel, and are happy. They have no dread of the future – no fear of want….At the slaveholding South all is peace, quiet, plenty, and contentment. We have no mobs, no trade unions, no strikes for higher wages, no armed resistance to the law, but little jealousy of the rich by the poor….”

Quote 4 This is a quote is from Senator John C. Calhoun (1782-1850) of South Carolina, a rich white man. He wrote this in 1828 while the Senate was debating the Tariff of 1828 and just before the Nullification Crisis:

“Ought not a sovereign State, as a party to the constitutional compact, and as the guardian of her citizens and her peculiar interests to have the power [of vetoing national laws] in question? . . . The disease is that a majority of the States, through the General [federal] Government, by construction, usurp powers not delegated [to the national government in the Constitution], and by their exercise, increase their wealth and authority at the expense of the minority.”