Center for History EducationHistory Labs
A Guided Approach to Historical Inquiry in the K-12 Classroom
Conducting Source Work
In this video students engage in source work, with the teacher assisting the process.
Selected from the surviving traces of the past, sources lie at the heart of historians’ efforts to reconstruct that past. Historical evidence can be in the form of written materials, such as newspaper articles, death certificates, love letters, and political speeches. Artistic or visual artifacts, like paintings and other works of art, photographs or political cartoons can also be historical evidence. To gain an understanding of historical events, actors, and ideas, students must become comfortable working with historical evidence. In History Labs, students conduct source work in much the same way as historians.
Historical sources used in History Labs are not limited to “primary” sources. In addition to the direct remnants of the past, students should also learn to utilize historians’ interpretations and traditional history textbooks. No matter the type of source, students should apply the same process to their examination of the materials.
Each form of evidence requires students to employ a specific set of historical literacy skills. History education specialists like Sam Weinberg, Bruce VanSledright, and Bruce Lesh, whose research informs the History Lab model, have sought to define and order these disciplinary skills.
Skills for conducting source work include:
- Sourcing the document — Who wrote the document, when, and why? How might the author’s purpose and perspective help us understand the information provided or viewpoint expressed in the document?
- Corroborating between sources — How does the document fit with the other sources? Identify sources that either support or challenge the claims made by the document.
- Close-reading the document — Identify the arguments being presented and how the author makes his or her claims.
- Contextualizing — What else was going on when the document was created? How may that context have affected the information or argument presented in the source?
- Identifying the subtext of the document — What event or viewpoint is the author responding to or debating with? How might these factors have shaped the author’s purpose, and how is this intention reflected in the document itself?
To be successful in thinking historically, students should be introduced to each analytical skill in an age-appropriate manner and given opportunities to practice these skills as part of their everyday classroom experience. By scaffolding the teaching of skills, the teacher can develop and then reinforce those that prove challenging for students. The teacher may model an analysis of a single source, then work up to sourcing, close reading, and corroborating between two or three sources for a topic. Students can then begin contextualizing the sources. In weaving source work into regular instruction, students acquire the tools and confidence to analyze historical evidence.
Weaving source work into regular instruction will give students the tools and confidence to analyze historical sources. In a History Lab, the teacher may model an analysis of a single source that is essential to the topic being taught, then work up to sourcing, close reading, and corroborating two or three sources for a topic. Students can then begin contextualizing the sources. Based on students’ first experience, teachers can go back and reinforce certain historical thinking skills that presented challenges.
Source work introduces students to the complex decisions that historians make when they analyze sources. A particularly challenging skill for students to master is the making of connections between the context and subtext of a document and the information it provides. How might an author’s occupation or relationship to others in the event under examination shed light on the viewpoint or information offered by that source (context)? What prompted the writing of the document, and what was the author’s intention in making their contribution (subtext)? What considerations should be made for a source produced in the midst of an event in contrast to one produced well afterwards? Why are sources of value to historical understanding even when they show manifest bias or partisanship? One way to help students begin to answer these questions is to show them how historians have handled such issues.
Ultimately, it is students’ ability to work with sources that determines the effectiveness of the History Lab experience. Employ source work skills early and often!