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Building Historical Skills: Sources

Victoria Pang, Why Europe? 2014-15


Agenda:
1) What do historians do?

2) Primary & Secondary Sources
Presentation with Interactive Quiz

3) Historical Inquiry Assignment
Notes: Historical Sources
Sources

Historians use primary and secondary
sources to create a narrative (story) of the
past.
Type 1: Primary Sources
A primary source is an original record
produced by the people who participated in or
witnessed a historical event.

They do not have to be written. They can also
be objects, living people, or images.
Primary Source Examples
1) Audio (oral histories, music)
2) Images (photographs)
3) Objects (tools, pottery)
4) Texts (diaries, letters, a constitution)
Type II: Secondary Sources
A secondary source is created by someone
who did not witness or participate in the event.
They are often produced by using primary
sources.
More likely than primary sources to make an
argument.
Secondary Source Examples
1) Textbooks
2) Encyclopedias/Wikipedia
3) Biographies (not written by the person)
4) Gossip
Quiz! Primary or Secondary?
1) I was watching The Today Show before
school and the reporter said The Hunger
Games 2 got really good reviews.

ANSWER:
1) Secondary!
Quiz! Primary or Secondary?
2) I was at my friends house over the weekend.
When she went to the bathroom, I saw that she
got a new text message. It was from her
older sister saying she got was going into labor!
ANSWER:
2) Primary!
Quiz! Primary or Secondary?
3) I was in the attic when I found my dads old
baseball jerseys. He was number 25.


ANSWER:
3) Primary!
Quiz! Primary or Secondary?
4) The textbook says that Christopher
Columbus discovered America.

ANSWER:
4) Secondary!
Quiz! Primary or Secondary?
On Martin Luther King day, I watched a video-
recording of the I Have a Dream Speech.


ANSWER?
5. Secondary!
Writing Assignment (6-8 sentences)
1. Was the Juan Alvarez assignment difficult?
Why or why not?
2. Restate what your groups response was.
3. Were you confident it was correct? Why or
why not?
4. How can you relate this assignment to what
historians do to write history?

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