Describes three programs offered by the San Diego History Research Center for teaching local history to secondary students. Students tour the Center, use primary sources to write research papers for a contest, and view a slide presentation. (AM)

Describes a project which utilized intensive interview data to help college students understand the sociological concept of ethnicity. A sourcebook of quotations from ethnic persons interviewed is used to help students gain a fuller understanding of the textbook definitions of concepts such as immigration, assimilation, ethnic identity, prejudice,…

Focuses on sources of distortion and other inaccuracies in the work of oral historians and explains that such problems result from efforts of informants and historians to make a narrative more easily understood by the audience. Considers various efforts by oral historians to minimize distortion by using greater care and rigor in conducting,…

Suggests how to incorporate conventional textbooks into innovational teaching in high school social studies courses. Suggestions include: ask students to alter time lines in textbooks according to their own interests, examine bias of textbook author, react to author's language, and focus on daily life during a particular historical period. (DB)

Using primary sources in literature classrooms--getting students to examine authors' manuscripts, notebooks, and letters--helps students to develop critical methods and analytic skills for questioning literature's minute particulars. (RL)

Demonstrates, through careful analysis of primary source materials, that the events leading up to Herbert Putnam's selection as Librarian of Congress in March 1899 were complex and contained no major villains, and that problems encountered by the American Library Association are traceable to misunderstandings rather than political machinations.…

Argues that the surviving funeral orations from the classical Greek period are instances of laudatory discourse designed to fulfill the institutional function of glorifying the Athenian state. Examines changes this discourse underwent as the state changed, and reveals incompleteness in current explanations of funeral orations as essentially…

Provides background information and primary source documents to teach about the issues surrounding Canada's admission of U.S. Vietnam War resisters from 1965 to 1977. Includes primary sources which may serve as points of discussion. (LS)

Identifies four categories of end users, based on their searching ability and knowledge of their subject area. The role of the librarian or information specialist in assisting each category of users to fully benefit from online full text databases (FTDs) discussed. (30 references. (CLB)

Discusses the study of folklore and mythology as primary sources in history instruction. Describes three primary methods of study: (1) the literary method analyzing content, structure, and context; (2) a focus on sociocultural aspects; and (3) an emphasis on behavioral attitudes. Provides a breakdown of sources from folklore and folkways, and…

Discusses the value of student-created artifact kits as a means of visualizing and synthesizing knowledge about another time. Explains steps to be followed in guiding students on the project. Includes a bibliography, list of sources, and suggested ingredients. Suggests that handling artifacts and primary source materials enables students to order…

Draws on the memoirs of Nellie Menard, Lakota archives, and other published materials to describe the traditional puberty ceremonies held for Lakota girls. Discusses the practice of seclusion, during which an elderly woman instructed the girl in appropriate behavior and women's crafts; the initiate's new social status; the ball-throwing ceremony;…

Reviews a sample of award-winning and honor books from both the National Council of Teachers of English and the National Council for the Social Studies. Suggests that by using primary source documents, students are allowed not just to read about the past, but to see how the past is constructed as history through such sources. (SG)

There is a lot of talk these days about thinking historically. Policy makers use the term. So do teachers, curriculum writers, test makers, and administrators. And above all researchers use it--a lot. A number of articles have been published in this very column concerning the topic, many by those who do history-education research. Some might argue…

In this article, the authors discuss how children can learn from runaway slave advertisements. The advertisements for runaway slaves that masters placed in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century newspapers are among the documentary sources available to teachers for studying the lives of African-American slaves. Such advertisements often describe a…