Primary Source Learning Routines

Big Idea Primary sources are created near the time under study. Investigative Question When is a source a primary source? Actions Read the information to the right and examine the source items. Consider these questions: Why are these primary or secondary sources for this topic? What do the items tell you about Christopher Columbus? What don’t the items tell you about Christopher Columbus? Discuss: When is a source a primary source?	A primary source is something that was created at or near the time under study. A primary source is an original work written by someone who witnessed or wrote close to an event  TITLE: Epistola . . . de Insulis Indie nuper inventis (Letter Concerning the Islands Recently Discovered. . . .) Christopher Columbus Epistola de insulis nuper inventis Printed letter, Rome: 1493 Rare Book & Special Collections Division Purchased, 1946 A secondary source is created using information provided by someone else. Secondary sources are often created with some distance from the event.  TITLE:  Columbus taking possession of the new country. CREATED/PUBLISHED:  Boston, U.S.A. : Published by the Prang Educational Co., 1893. 1 print : chromolithograph, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
What do you think about the following sources?
Is this a primary or secondary source? What does this item tell you about Jackie Robinson? What doesn’t this item tell you about Jackie Robinson?	Title: [Front cover of Jackie Robinson comic book]. Created/Published: c1951. Summary: Shows head-and-shoulders portrait of Jackie Robinson in Brooklyn Dodgers cap; inset image shows Jackie Robinson covering a slide at second base.
Title: Microfilm frame of front page of Pittsburgh Courier (Washington Edition), April 19, 1947]. Created/Published 1972. Summary Shows full-length portrait of Jackie Robinson in Dodgers uniform; headlines read “Jackie Scores Winning Run,” “Robbie’s Bunt Turns Tide,” and “Jackie Romps Home From Second Base as 26,000 Cheer.”	Is this a primary or secondary source? What does this item tell you about Jackie Robinson? What doesn’t this item tell you about Jackie Robinson?

Introduction Routines – use primary sources to help students recognize their current understanding, knowledge, and skills related to the content of the lesson.

Build relationships with the topic under study.

1. spark interest and curiosity.
2. connect topic to personal experiences.
3. recognize prior subject area knowledge to topic.
4. identify questions the primary sources inspire about the topic.
5. use known academic vocabulary to make thinking visible to both student and teacher

Investigations Routines – challenge students to independently read, analyze, and interpret primary source(s) to consider the source’s impact on the subject under study. Investigations include comparisons among primary sources or other resources to consider multiple perspectives and validity.

Make Sense of the primary sources to learn about the topic under study:

1. read: comprehend the message of the primary source by using word attack and vocabulary skills, comprehension strategies, and media literacy skills. (Read could be listen for an audio recording or view for an image).
2. analyze: consider the purpose of the primary source, context,  and point of view.
3. interpret: stretch thinking about the topic under study by checking to see how this information, confirms, challenges, or changes our previous thinking on the topic.
4. question: identify questions for future research based on this investigation.

Performance Task & Assessment Routines – require students to use primary sources as evidence to explain their understanding of the topic under study in purposeful ways. Formal assessments offer an opportunity for students and teachers to see growth through student products, performances, or tests requiring use of primary sources to demonstrate understanding, knowledge, and skills.

Recognize Growth and Use Learning Productively

1. reflect on and synthesize learning from Introduction and Investigations, recognizing how individual thinking has been confirmed, challenged, and sometimes changed.
2. determine a useful product or performance to show thinking to others.
3. use thinking, knowledge, and skills to create the product or performance.
4. consider how well the product or performance makes thinking, knowledge, and skills visible.
5. revise product or performance to increase the thinking, knowledge, and skills shown.
6. wonder, “What questions do I have about the topic under study now?” “What are my questions about the methods used to learn more about the topic?”

We call these learning experiences routines because they require just a few steps and can easily be used in many units and across all subject areas and grades. Often using three verbs to give the students directions such as, Look, Label, Sort. Because the routines are easy to remember students can use them independently to support their own learning.

As students use these routines, take time to name the specific actions that show they are thinking. Use the types of thinking and bullets of possible actions below to get started. The more teachers name and explicitly notice thinking, the better able students will be able to use their thinking skills independently. These thinking actions were developed from Richhart, R., M. Church, P. Palmer, & S. Tishman. (April, 2006). American Educational Research Association Conference. Thinking Routines: Establishing Patterns of Thinking in the Classroom.

Cognition, Thinking & Understanding – Harvard Project Zero

Curious Wonder Ask questions Observe closely Find problems Be playful Intellectually Careful Evaluate Evidence Alert for errors Check for accuracy Corroborate information Justify opinions with evidence Reflective Compare a product to criteria Evaluate a process Seek understanding Gather other opinions Consider relationship between parts and a whole Question results Identify patterns Strategic Set goals Take action Evaluate and revise plans Use knowledge to make decisions Reason through problems

Creative Create novel solutions Make unusual connections Combine ideas Rearrange elements into new patterns Adventurous Explore alternative views Open minded Think with a wide scope Seek understanding Collaborative Share ideas with others Ask clarifying questions Value the opinions of others Build learning through interact