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Primary Source Analysis

Decent Essays

This particular journal article is centered on the idea of integrating primary sources into middle grades social studies classes, in particular digital primary sources. The authors begins with explaining how many students find history to be boring, and how it has been surveyed as one of the least liked subjects being taught. The article explains that one way to add meaning to social studies classes is to incorporate studying famous historical figures. Studying historical people helps students understand that history lessons that are implemented are actually relevant and pertinent to their real lives. The author makes the case that text books are not working, and are actually harming to social studies classrooms. The author states his main …show more content…

Firstly the teacher will introduce student’s to one primary source selected by the teacher that is fundamentally important to the learning of the topic being taught. Second students organize their thoughts and questions about the primary source. Thirdly the teacher needs to check for student’s comprehension of the context and the source that the class is analyzing. Fourthly the teacher most model and scaffold how to infer and read between the lines of this source to consider multiple perspectives regarding this source. Fifth the teacher finds an additional source that will corroborate or refute what is being presented by the first primary source. Sixth and lastly students will construct plausible narratives from the information and data that has been collected and analyzed from the primary source documents. The acronym SOURCE stands for: scrutinize the fundamental source, organize thoughts, understand the context, read between the lines, corroborate and refute, establish a plausible narrative, and summarize final …show more content…

The author really presents a strong case for why social studies teachers in middle grades must begin incorporating primary sources into their classrooms and lessons. The author provides references from multiple different experts and studies to support his claim. The article also makes a really strong argument for why digital historical resources are much more efficient and easy to use in the classroom, and also why these digital sources are more appealing to students. I really liked how the article presented the basics on the SOURCE technique, and then went into a very in depth analysis on each step. The article makes implementing a primary source into a social studies class much more accessible for teachers, and even provides examples of where to access these digital resources and sources the author refers to in the article. This article presents a extremely convincing case on the benefits of incorporating these digital primary sources into middle grades social studies classrooms as much as

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