Some of my high school history students often took a while to understand the idea that just because a document is an old primary source it doesn’t automatically mean that source is infallible or even an accurate representation of events. They still needed to account for context and the potential for an author’s bias among other factors that could impact the value of a primary source. Tomorrow at 4pm ET Smithsonian Education is hosting a free webinar for teachers who want to help their students become better at evaluating primary sources.
The webinar is titled Critical Questions to Build Primary Source Literacy. It will be streamed live on YouTube and recorded for those who cannot attend the live broadcast. The collection of primary sources to be featured during the webinar can be seen here.
On a related note, here’s a collection of Smithsonian Learning Lab tutorials.
You may also be interested a National Archives resource called Understanding Perspectives in Primary Sources.
