Pre-LibraryQuest Skills Strategies for Effective Primary Source Use

Primary Source Reading Strategies:

• Pre-Reading Techniques: Pose teacher or student generated questions, make predictions, identify and decode titles, captions, dates, key vocabulary, and format of primary source - is it a diary, photograph, map, etc.?
• During-Reading Techniques: Focus on context clues such as identifying author or creator of primary source, identify its origin, chronology – where it fits in the larger time period, the purpose of the primary source, its tone (formal vs. informal through language usage), and perspective – what other perspectives might be missing? Teacher could also chunk reading passages and set goals for content acquisition.
• Post-Reading Techniques: Answer original teacher or student generated questions, check predictions, draw conclusions from information and perspectives presented, and pose new questions.

  See: http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/go/readquest/strat/ for additional reading strategies.

Media Analysis Strategies & Activities:

• Zoom-In PowerPoints for analyzing primary source images.

  See: http://www.primarysourcelearning.org/tps/step1/workshop/four/index.html

• Image Detective (4 step visual analysis process) *

  See: http://www.edc.org/CCT/PMA/image_detective/

• Interactive Slide Shows with key images. A History Alive! Strategy. Interactive slide shows focus on the use of student observations, student interaction, and key questions.
• Motion Picture and Sound Recording Analysis See: LOC Learning Page

Social Study Critical Thinking Strategies and Activities:

• DBQ Toolkit from the DBQ Project. The teacher provides the hook and background essay, and students make hypotheses, organize primary sources, do close reading, make generalizations, and support thesis statements with primary and secondary source materials.

  See: http://school.newsweek.com/extras/era.php for an example.

• SCIM –C Strategy (Hicks, Doolittle, and Ewing) This strategy asks students to do historical inquiry using a frames or stages approach. Students examine primary sources through Summary, Contextualizing, Inferring, Monitoring, and Corroborating stages, and can move back and forth and across stages. See SCIM-C diagrams at: http://dhip.org/scimc.shtml *
• Recognizing validity, reliability, and bias in primary sources (Mini-lessons to come.)

Most strategies and activities can be adapted and appropriately scaffolded, across grade levels.