Download The Use of Digitized Archives and Primary Source Documents in

USING DIGITIZED ARCHIVES AND
PRIMARY SOURCE DOCUMENTS IN
SOCIAL STUDIES CLASSES
Harley Walden & Dr. Lisa Heaton
WHY DIGITZED ARCHIVES WITH PRIMARY
SOURCES?
 First-hand accounts of: peoples,
places, events, & ideas.
 Wide array of historical
periods.
 Required by Common Core
 Inter-disciplinary Possibilities
 Most are Free of cost!
IMPLICATIONS FOR COLLEGE TEACHING
& LEARNING
 Benefits higher education faculty of Social
Studies & pre-service teacher education
faculty who prepare P-12 social studies
teachers.
 Students’ perceptions of the discipline must
change “from a noun (notes, books, tests) to a
verb (sculpting, acting, dissecting, playing)”
(Cantu, 2009, p. 291).
 There is a need for teachers and professors
to shed the isolationist stereotypes of the
“ivory tower” in creating an environment
where “digital technologies offer us the
opportunity to change this perception,
proposing instead a vision of the scholar as
part of an engaged community of learners
occupying the nexus between the
preservation of archival texts and the
production of knowledge about those texts”
(Norcia, 2008, p. 91).
✔
UNLOCKING THE DIGITIZED ARCHIVES
 “The Making of America”
Project (Hanlon, 2005)
 The Avalon Project (Cantu,
2003)
 The Elizabeth Murray Project
(Cleary & Neumann, 2009)
 I Remain: A Digital Archive of
Letters, Manuscripts, and
Ephemera (Norcia, 2008)
THE MAKING OF AMERICA PROJECT
Digital library of primary sources
in American social history from
the Antebellum period through
Reconstruction.
THE AVALON PROJECT
The Avalon Project contains digital
documents relevant to the fields
of Law, History, Economics, Politics,
Diplomacy and Government.
THE ELIZABETH MURRAY PROJECT
Named after Elizabeth Murray,
who lived during the American
Revolution and left behind
numerous records regarding
politics, war, music, fashion, and
popular scientific beliefs (Cleary &
Neumann, 2009).
I REMAIN: A DIGITAL ARCHIVE OF
LETTERS, MANUSCRIPTS, AND EPHEMERA
Contains information spanning five
centuries, including seventeenthcentury letters from scientists and
philosophers, eighteenth-century
letters from figures in the
American Revolution, nineteenth
century letters from writers
around the world. It also contains
correspondence from all the
Presidents through Richard Nixon.
FINAL REFLECTIONS
 Readily accessible for teachers
and students alike.
 Most are free to the public,
although some do take financial
donations.
 Work well in conjunction with
the new Common Core set of
standards.
 Bring the past to life for students
in the modern classroom, as they
can read journals, diaries, and see
paintings from people who lived
long ago.
QUESTIONS?
REFERENCES
 Cantu, D. (2003). Using Web-Based Resources to confront pre-service
social studies teachers' disinclination to primary source document
integration. International Social Studies Forum, 3(1), 291-296.
 Cleary, P., & Neumann, D. (2009). The challenges of primary sources,
collaboration, and the K-16 Elizabeth Murray Project. History
Teacher, 43(1), 67-86.
 Hanlon, C. (2005). History on the cheap: Using the online archive to
make historicists out of undergrads. Pedagogy, 5(1), 97-115.
 Norcia, M. A. (2008). Out of the ivory tower endlessly rocking:
Collaborating across disciplines and professions to promote
student learning in the digital archive. Pedagogy, 8(1), 91-114. doi:
10.1215/15314200-2007-026