Engaging students with primary sources fosters inquiry, critical thinking, and deductive reasoning skills, all of which are vitally important to success in school and beyond. Simply inserting primary sources into the classroom is not enough. This resource uses the best of emerging Internet applications (Web 2.0) to capture the interest of today's…

Primary sources, as defined by the Library of Congress, are the "raw materials of history--original documents and objects which were created at the time under study" (Library of Congress, 2014, p. 1). Primary sources differ from secondary sources, which interpret events without the benefit of firsthand experience. While often employed in…

Using primary sources to teach students about the past helps them to improve crucial analytical skills and gives them an opportunity to evaluate a variety of sources and to construct evidence-based narratives. These are skills that all students need for success throughout their educational process, career, and civic life (NCSS 2013). Examining the…

The "nadir of race relations" is a term used by historians to describe the time period after Reconstruction, 1890-1920. During this time, African Americans were free; some argue, however, that it was a worse time than when these individuals were enslaved (Brundage 1990; Woodward 2002). There is a debate whether this time period…

The purpose of this study was to partially replicate the "Historical Problem Solving: A Study of the Cognitive Process Using Historical Evidence" study conducted by Sam Wineburg in 1991. The Historical Problem Solving study conducted by Wineburg (1991) sought to compare the ability of historians and top level students, as they analyzed…

As advocates of engaging students in historical inquiry and of the use of primary sources to aid in this inquiry, we support the claims of numerous student benefits, such as learning to detect bias, appreciating the interpretive nature of historical thinking, and the drawing of conclusions based on judgments about evidence (Fehn & Koeppen,…

As social studies continues to be increasingly marginalized, educators find themselves looking for new ways to creatively and effectively bolster social studies content knowledge with less financial support. The author focuses on online auctions--a resource social studies teachers often neglect--and how they can enhance instruction. Many educators…

The author describes a social studies unit designed to help students develop critical thinking skills. The lessons give students opportunities to analyze multiple perspectives, use multiple sources when conducting research, and construct historical narratives through the creation of a digital historical biography.

This article focuses on the use of digital primary sources to teach historical perspective to preservice teachers. Discussed here are the experiences of 90 elementary education majors during their inquiry-based elementary social studies methods course. A variety of digital primary sources were used to teach historical perspective and to model…