1. Thinking Like a Historian Memorizing Dates vs. Investigating Evidence
Primary Sources
Thinking Like a Historian
Memorizing Dates vs. Investigating Evidence

2. Historians As Detectives
Searching for evidence, among primary sources, to a mystery that can never be completely solved.

3. Do Historians Know Everything?
No – They do know how to approach primary sources as evidence.
You can do this as well!

4. Sourcing Think about the document’s author and it’s creation
Who created it?
When?
For what purpose?
How trustworthy might the
source be?
Why?

5. Contextualizing Situate the document and its events in time and place
Piece together major events, themes, people in the era it was created

6. How do these items help? Context from the time period

7. Close Reading
Carefully consider what the document says and the language used to say it.
Think out loud:
“I’ve never heard that expression
before…Hmm, that may be a
reference to…I wonder if that’s
what really happened…)

8. Using Background Knowledge
Use historical information and knowledge to read and understand the document.
“What else do I know about this topic?”

9. Reading the Silences
Identify what has been left out or is missing from the document by asking questions of its account.
“What is the author not
mentioning?”
“Whose voices are we not
hearing?”
“Which perspectives are missing?”

10. Corroborating
Ask Questions about important details across multiple sources to determine points of agreement and disagreement.
“What other primary sources might corroborate or dispute this interpretation?”

11. Think Like A Historian Question the Source
Evaluate the evidence it offers for its assertions
Read and consider the source more carefully than any historical account read before

12. Analyzing Photographs

16. Analyzing Primary Sources Observe – Identify and note details
What do you notice first? Find something small but interesting
What do you notice that you didn’t expect?
What do you notice that you can’t explain?
What do you notice now that you didn’t earlier?

17. Analyzing Primary Sources Reflect-generate and test hypothesis about the source
Where do you think this came from?
Who do you think somebody made this?
What do you think was happening when this was made?
Who do you think was the audience?
Why do you think this was important?
If made today, would it be different?
What can you learn from examining this?

18. Analyzing Primary Sources Question- to lead to more observations and reflections
What do you wonder about…
Who?
What?
When?
Where?
How?

19. What’s in Lincoln’s Pockets?

20. Drawings
Newe Welt und Americanische Historien – Johan Ludwig Gottfried, 1655
Source: Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, General History of the Things New Spain, Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble, trans, book 12, "The Conquest of Mexico" (Santa Fe: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1975), XXXX.

21. The Basle 1494 Columbus Letter
Christopher Columbus's letter announcing the success of his voyage to the "islands of the Indian sea" ...