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South Carolina ETV
1101 George Rogers Boulevard
Columbia, SC 29201-4761
Phone: 803-737-3545

The Real World Revisited (Grade 9)

Master Teacher

Christy L. Berry

Time Allotment

Two 45-minute class periods

Overview

When students begin the process of writing a research paper, one of the first things that they have to know is how to conduct research. Conducting research includes knowing what type of sources to use and how reputable they are. In this lesson, students will participate in a series of hands-on, online, and multimedia activities to learn the difference between primary and secondary sources and to consider the concepts of bias and inaccuracy in those sources. After discussing the difference in reliability and accuracy of primary sources and secondary sources, students will be explore the difference in reaction to both types of sources. Following the video portion of the lesson, students will visit a variety of Web sites to look at primary and secondary sources available on the Web.

Subject Matter

English

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to:

• Distinguish between primary and secondary sources.
• Categorize sources as either primary or secondary sources.
• Evaluate the credibility of a source with consideration for bias and accuracy.

South Carolina Standards

(From the South Carolina Curriculum Standards available online at http://www.myscschools.com/offices/cso/)

• E1-RS2.1
• Demonstrate the ability to distinguish between primary and secondary sources.
• E1-RS2.2
• Demonstrate the ability to evaluate the credibility of sources, including consideration of accuracy and bias.

Media Components

Video

Witness: Voices from the Holocaust: “Life in the Concentration Camps.” To access this video, log on to your account at ETV’s StreamlineSC Web page (http://etv.streamlinesc.org). In the search by keyword box, type in Witness: Voices from the Holocaust and hit go. Click the title of the program and that will take to a list of the segments making up Witness. Scroll down and download “Life in the Concentration Camps” to your computer desktop and preview it. The segment lasts four minutes and 52 seconds.

(Note to Teacher: If you don’t have an account with ETV’s StreamlineSC, check with your media specialist or Instructional Technologist about signing up for your own account.)

Web Sites

I Hear America Singing at http://www.loc.gov/rr/perform/ihas/ihashome.html

This site is provided by the Library of Congress and provides access to their extensive collection of scores, sheet music, and audio performances.

Library of Congress at http://www.loc.gov

The home page of the Library of Congress is the gateway to a multimedia rich environment that provides access to its many collections. Users can search the catalog or take virtual tours. This is a rich resource for all teachers.

Research 101 at http://www.lib.uconn.edu/using/tutorials/research/HTML/Basics/basic03.htm

This site contains an interactive tutorial that explains the difference between primary and secondary sources before allowing users to practice their new skills.

Walt Whitman Notebooks at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wwhtml/wwhome.html

You will reach this hyperlink through links in the lesson. This site is digital photos of Walt Whitman’s actual journals. You may read through them by digitally turning the pages.

Materials

Per student:

Two pieces of parchment paper

Pack of colored pencils

Prep for Teachers

• Prior to teaching this lesson, bookmark all of the Web sites used in the lesson on each computer in your classroom. Load the Flash and Shockwave plug-ins, available at http://www.macromedia.com, onto each computer in your classroom. Download the video clip “Life in the Concentration Camps” to your computer’s desktop.

• Check with your school media center for Jozef Buszko’s article on Auschwitz in Gutman’s Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. (Buszko, Jozef. “Auschwitz.” Encyclopedia ofthe Holocaust. Ed. Israel Gutman. 4 vols. New York: MacMillan, 1990.)

• When using media, provide students with a Focus for Media Interaction, a specific responsibility to complete during or after viewing of video, Web sites, or other multimedia elements.

Introductory Activity

Step 1: Distribute a piece of parchment paper and a pack of colored pencils to each student. Ask your students not to write on the paper. They will have a chance to write on it soon.

Step 2: Ask your students to think about a favorite spot that they like to go. (Note toTeacher: This should be a specific place.) Now ask them to imagine that they have found a treasure chest, and they want to bury it in that special spot so that it will be safe. Request that they draw a map to the spot where they would bury the treasure. They may use the parchment paper and pencils provided.

Step 3: When the maps are completed, have the students put them away. Have the class pair up. Then say, “You have been mortally wounded. A friend is beside you. Tell that person how to find your treasure.” Give them 30 seconds each (1 minute total) to tell their partner how to find their treasure. Then both partners must draw a map to their partners’ treasures. They must not ask for any more details or clarification during this part of the exercise.

Step 4: Have everyone bring out their original maps. Have them compare the original map (the primary source) to the second map (the secondary source).

Step 5: Write a tally on the board. How many of the students feel that the first map is more accurate? (Most of them will agree with this. You can then point out that people who experience something first hand can often relate details better than those who have only heard others’ descriptions.)

Step 6: Ask your students, “Is the second map a credible source? Can you trust it?” (Most of them will say yes, but you want to bring up the point that the dying partner may not have wanted the partner left behind to find the treasure. What if that person left the real map with his or her family, and the dying partner wants a loved one to find it instead. Would the live partner still say that the map is an absolutely credible source?)

Step 7: Explain to your students that in this lesson you will be examining the difference between primary and secondary sources and their credibility in the research process.

Learning Activities

Step 1: Explain to your students the concept of a secondary source. A brief definition of a secondary source is a work that interprets, analyzes, and organizes information from or about an earlier period or event in history. Secondary sources have the benefit of hindsight and often present a more balanced picture of events that occurred.

Step 2: Have your students name some types of secondary sources. (Students may respond with encyclopedias, textbooks, research papers, and popular magazines.)

Step 3: Read paragraphs one and three from Buszko’s “Auschwitz” article. Ask your students to note how they feel about what you are reading to them. You may point out to the students that the author of this article has drawn from primary sources to write his article. He included pictures as primary sources in his article. Explain that the article gives detail; however, the information is not eyewitness information but rather information that has been gathered from many sources and organized to form a complete picture of the concentration camp. Ask the students how they felt about the information. (This description of Auschwitz contains basic information about the size, location, and conditions of the concentration camp. They probably will not have any strong feelings about the information.)

Step 4: Tell your students that you are now going to look at primary sources. A brief definition of a primary source is information that is created or recorded at the time of an event or period of history. Primary sources do not have the benefit of hindsight so they may be very biased or even inaccurate. However, they often give the viewer an immediate grasp of the feelings or reactions of the people at that time.

Step 5: Have your students name some types of primary sources. (Students may respond with live news television, pamphlets, maps, posters, diaries, census records, or speeches.)

Step 6: Provide your students with a Focus for Media Interaction, asking your students to listen for the distortion of natural events. CUE the tape to the end of the concentration camp footage. A woman will appear and say, “Auschwitz…” Play the video until she says, “…inexperienced of such horror. Who is,” and she drops her head. Pause the video. (Time will be from 0:30 to 2:16.) Ask: “Why do you think that natural occurrences like the silence, the sunrise, the nights which we know did not really change appear different to this woman?” (Students may answer that she was under stress due to her captivity.)

Step 7: Provide your students with a Focus for Media Interaction, asking your students to listen for the distortion of natural instincts. Play the next segment until the man says, “…cause I didn’t care about anybody else” as he shakes his head. Pause the video. (Time will be from 2:17 to 3:32.) Ask the students to name the behaviors that this man exhibited that are distortions from normal behavior that were due to his environment. (Students may say his refusal to think about being split from his mother or his admitted indifference to others’ situations.)

Step 8: Provide your students with a Focus for Media Interaction, asking your students to note this man’s nationality and to listen for examples of cruelty. Play the last segment until the man says, “Nobody helped him. He just bled to death.” The video ends. (Time will be from 3:38 to 4:51.) Ask the students where the man was from. (Maine, USA). Ask the students to list some examples of cruelty from his account. (Students may cite the example of the Nazi cutting off a man’s hand or allowing the man to bleed to death.)

Step 9: Ask the students to remember that the “Auschwitz” article did not really make them feel much. Contrast that to the way that it makes them feel to hear eyewitnesses talk about the events. (Feelings of sorrow, revulsion, and dislike may be stronger while watching the eyewitness accounts about the Holocaust, the concentration camps, or the Nazis than from the reading of the article.)

Step 10: Tell your students that there are times where it is more appropriate to use primary sources and other times when secondary sources may be better. Primary sources often help us grab the emotion of an event or the essence of a culture. Secondary sources help us analyze and put into a proper context events or history that may be far removed from us.

Step 11: Tell your students that just as in the example of the treasure map, authors can use primary sources to mislead their readers. Arthur R. Butz, a Northwestern engineering professor, wrote a book called The Hoax of the 20 th Century: The Case Against the Presumed Extermination of European Jewry. In this book, Mr. Butz argues that the Holocaust never happened. He also uses primary sources, but his conclusions are very different from the majority of scholars. Remind students that we must always judge both primary and secondary sources for biases and inaccuracies.

Culminating Activity

Step 1: Tell your students that they will now have a chance to distinguish between primary and secondary sources. Have your students log on to the Research 101 Web site at http://www.lib.uconn.edu/using/tutorials/research/HTML/Basics/basic03.htm. Provide your students with a Focus for Media Interaction, asking them to complete the Info, Model, and Practice lessons. Tell them to click on the graphic found on the right-hand side of the page. Have them keep track of their hits and misses for the Practice activity. (There are three questions for students to answer. After they answer each question, the site responds with information. A black timing bar shows a decreasing amount of time which is the amount of time that they have to read the information before the game moves on to the next question.)

Step 2: Tell your students that now you are going to use the Internet to explore primary sources. Have them log on to the I Hear America Singing Web site at http://www.loc.gov/rr/perform/ihas/ihashome.html. Let them have a minute to click on some of the special presentations and see what types of songs are available. Provide your students with a Focus for Media Interaction, asking them to each find a song that they would like to hear. Choose one song and let the entire class listen to it.

Step 3: Ask your students to return to the home page of the I Hear America Singing Web site. Have them click on the link at the bottom of the page, “About the Poem, ‘I Hear America Singing’ by Walt Whitman.” Note that this site has led to primary and secondary sources regarding Walt Whitman. A primary source would be a reading of his poem, “I Hear America Singing.” A secondary source would be David Kresh’s comments, “About the Poem.” Have your students click on the link, “Learn More about Whitman.” Note the many Web sites where students can find more information on Walt Whitman.

Step 4: Choose the first link, Whitman notebooks at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wwhtml/wwhome.html. Have your students click on the link Notebooks and Butterfly. These links lead directly to Whitman’s personal notebooks, an excellent example of a primary source. Have your students pick the Hospital Notebook and read through the first few pages. Provide your students with a Focus for Media Interaction, asking them to note what is occurring in the first pages of the diary. (A battle has occurred. The soldiers have left it and have come upon a church that has been converted to a hospital.) Discuss with your students the difficulties in using some primary sources due to poor penmanship and deterioration of documents due to age, wear, or volatility of the medium, especially true of film.

Step 5: We are going to wrap up these activities with a virtual tour. Have the students log on to the Library of Congress’ Web site at http://www.loc.gov. Have them click on the Exhibitions link. Choose the “Rivers, Edens, Empires” link from the list of exhibits. A Flash Introduction will play. When you get to the main page, have your students choose the Virtual Tour and Animations link. Click on the Virtual Tour link. Let your students go through parts of the virtual tour. They may click on any features to see them close up. Provide your students with a Focus for Media Interaction, asking them to find the name of the man who created the map that disproved that California was an island. (The map will be found in the section, “The Spanish Entrada into the Southwest.” It is one of the maps in the right-most column. His name was Father Eusebio Francisco Kino.) Note that primary sources can often reveal facts that we did not know were ever disputed such as whether or not California was an island.

Step 6: Review with your students the difference between primary and secondary sources. What ways are primary sources better than secondary sources? What ways are secondary sources better? Brainstorm a list of sources. Discuss whether they would be primary or secondary, or could they be both? As an assessment, ask each student to find an example of a primary source and an example of a secondary source on the Internet and e-mail you the Web addresses along with an explanation of why they chose the sources that they did.

Cross-Curricular Extensions

Social Studies: Since we are in an election year, ask the students to use the Web sites that we visited today along with American Memory at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ to find paraphernalia from a previous election.

If it is not an election year, you could pick a current event and have them find documents that related to something similar during an earlier historical period.

Science: There are primary and secondary sources available everywhere. If you are studying nuclear reactions and the atomic bomb, you might have your students view video of the A-bomb survivors, look at primary documents describing the building of the bomb, or at a scientist’s personal journals. There are primary source sites for the history of medicine, the Galileo project, the history of computing, and many more.

Community Connections

• Ask students to bring primary documents from their own life. It might be childhood pictures, a diary, or a baby book.

• Ask a senior citizen from the community to come in and share with the students about an era that they lived through. Those who lived through WWII, Vietnam, or the Civil Rights movement would have memories to share regarding what those times were like in the community.

• Ask the students to write an essay about September 11, 2001. They should include information about where they were, who told them what was happening, how they felt, and how they feel now. Use their papers to create a primary source document about September 11th.