Primary+Source+Lesson+Plan

Primmary Sources Lesson Plan
This lesson is presented in three one-hour segments.
 * Session 1** - includes an introduction to what primary sources are and why historians use them. Lots of examples are shown from my personal story of reaching the Life of Bessie Steen Amazon Explorer! [] contains the result of a full year of research into her life. It begins with the discovery of a few newspaper articles about her life, her graduation picture (from high schoo), stories of my uncle's broken engagement to Bessie, and her children's book, Red Jungle Boy, published in 1938, and a postcard she wrote to my mother when she returned from one of her explorations. It ended in my locating her family, and many ARTIFACTS. (These are the things that they see---) [|BessiesLife.ppt] is a link to a powerpoint telling the story of her life. (It takes a long time to load because it is a large file).
 * Session 2** - includes opportunitites for each student to decide if something is a primary or secondary resource (they have white gloves and handle everything at their table as if they are curators in a museum!) Working in teams they must decide what is at their table and explain their conclusions to the entire class when it is time to share their discoveries. We end using a film on youtube -- **[|Down Mobile Way]** -- a CCC film and we stop to talk about the rubric and what information you look for when you are deciding if a source is a) primary and b) a good source --- for your purpose. We look at each item on the rubric and discuss -- kids think the movie is pretty entertaining --- and I move to the specific parts that we use --- be sure to preview it if you decide to veiw the whole thing --because their are racially senstive issues in it. It ends with an odd bit about the man with the biggest feet in the CCC! We move to the higher level of realizing that most everything could be a primary source for something...even the notes that they created during this lesson! Follwing the formal lesson plan.

Session 3 - involves students creating their own PowerPoint to explain to a student who needed to know --exactly what a primary source is.and how to communicate it. Students who have not learned to do PowerPoint can find easy to follow step-by-step that goes with their readers at [] --- look for the lessons at each level with powerpoint.

media type="custom" key="4592478". The following documents complete the items that you need to use with this lesson (minus the artifacts and sources)