Primary Sources

Many of us look at primary sources as the truth of the past. Did you realizes that this is not always the case, that there can be primary sources that don't offer a general impression of the past? Well sometimes this can occur and when it does this should be embraced and discussed. A few times you may have students who find the primary evidence that doesn't support general opinion. Discuss why this differs to what the textbook might say, and how we should take this information. (It should be also said that the textbooks might lie too!) We need to teach students that history is not set in stone, and that it too can change. For example, many times students will research monuments, believing that it is created in memory of an event that occurred, to find out that this monument was really created for another purpose and re-created/re-named in terms of something else. (You will find this especially common for war monuments.)

Primary sources can also be difficult to find too, if you wish to have students use them in your lessons. But did you realize that many provinces have archives that create and post lessons for teacher to use that contain lots of helpful and wonderful resources. For example the Ontario Archives just published a large collection of lessons with primary source evidence for students to use in the past year or two. This is a great way of introducing your students to primary source evidence and getting them use to using and analyzing the evidence they can view. So, don't be fearful of using primary source evidence, that are many places to go to find primary evidence to use in your lessons.