Primary sources are the raw materials of history — original documents and objects that were created at the time under study. They are different from secondary sources, accounts that retell, analyze, or interpret events, usually at a distance of time or place. Bringing young people into close contact with these unique, often profoundly personal, documents and objects can give them
a sense of what it was like to be alive during a long-past era. Helping students analyze primary sources can also prompt curiosity and improve critical thinking and analysis skills. Primary sources expose students to multiple perspectives on significant issues of the past and present. In analyzing primary sources, students move from concrete observations and facts to questioning and making inferences about the materials. Interacting with primary sources engages students in asking
questions, evaluating information, making inferences, and developing reasoned explanations and interpretations of events and issues. Successful student interactions with primary sources require careful primary source selections and lesson planning. Primary sources help students relate in a personal way to events of the past and promote a deeper understanding of history as a series of human events. Because primary sources are incomplete snippets of history, each one represents a mystery that students can only explore further by finding new pieces of evidence. Ask students to observe each primary source. Encourage students to think about their response to the source. Inquiry into primary sources encourages students to wrestle with contradictions and compare multiple sources that represent differing points of view, confronting the complexity of the past. Encourage students to
speculate about each source, its creator, and its context. Ask if this source agrees with other primary sources, or with what the students already know. What are primary sources?
Why teach with primary sources?
Before you begin
Engage students with primary
sources
Promote student inquiry
Assess how students apply critical thinking and analysis skills to primary sources
Primary sources are often incomplete and have little context. Students must use prior knowledge and work with multiple resources to find patterns and construct knowledge.
Questions of creator bias, purpose, and point of view may challenge students’ assumptions.
- Ask students to test their assumptions about the past.
- Ask students to find other primary or secondary sources that offer support or contradiction.
- Ask for reasons and specific evidence to support their conclusions.
- Help students identify questions for further investigation and develop strategies for how they might answer them.
Offer students opportunities to demonstrate their learning by writing an essay, delivering a speech taking a stand on an issue in the primary sources, or creating a museum display about a historical topic. For more follow-up activity ideas, take a look at the general or format-specific teacher's guides.
Primary Sources are immediate, first-hand accounts of a topic, from people who had a direct connection with it. Primary sources can include:
Texts of laws and other original documents.
Newspaper reports, by reporters who witnessed an event or who quote people who did.
Speeches, diaries, letters and interviews - what the people involved said or wrote.
Original research.
Datasets, survey data, such as census or economic statistics.
Photographs, video, or audio that capture an event.
Secondary Sources
Secondary Sources are one step removed from primary sources, though they often quote or otherwise use primary sources. They can cover the same topic, but add a layer of interpretation and analysis. Secondary sources can include:
Most books about a topic.
Analysis or interpretation of data.
Scholarly or other articles about a topic, especially by people not directly involved.
Documentaries (though they often include photos or video portions that can be considered primary sources).
When is a Primary Source a Secondary Source?
Whether something is a primary or secondary source often depends upon the topic and its use.
A biology textbook would be considered a secondary source if in the field of biology, since it describes and interprets the science but makes no original contribution to it.
On the other hand, if the topic is science education and the history of textbooks, textbooks could be used a primary sources to look at how they have changed over time.
Examples of Primary and Secondary Sources
Primary Sources | Secondary Sources | |
Artwork | Article critiquing the piece of art | |
Diary | Book about a specific subject | |
Interview | Biography | |
Letters | Dissertation | |
Performance | Review of play | |
Poem | Treatise on a particular genre of poetry | |
Treaty | Essay on a treaty |
Adapted from Bowling Green State University, Library User Education, Primary vs. Secondary Sources.