Sorting Primary and Secondary Sources
About this lesson
Children work in pairs to sort eight examples, such as letters, photos and textbooks, into primary and secondary sources, then explain their choices to the class. They practise asking who made a source and when. You only need the board, scrap paper and sticky notes. It takes about 15 minutes.
Objective
Students will classify historical sources as primary or secondary by asking who created them and whether that person was there at the time.
Prep
3 min: write 8 numbered source examples on the board (a soldier's letter written during a war, a textbook chapter about ancient Egypt, a photo taken at a school in 1955, an encyclopedia article about the first moon landing, a ticket stub from a 1980 concert, a documentary made this year about the pyramids, a diary kept by a child during a flood, a website summary of an explorer's travels)
Materials
- Whiteboard and marker
- Scrap paper
- Pencils
- Sticky notes
Steps
- Say: 'A primary source was made at the time by someone who was there. A secondary source was made later by someone who wasn't there and learned about it from other sources.' Give an example: a photo from your birthday party is primary, and a friend's story about it a year later is secondary.
- Put students in pairs and have them fold a sheet of scrap paper into two columns labelled P and S. Give them 4 minutes to write each board number in the correct column.
- Read each example aloud and have students show thumbs up for primary or thumbs down for secondary. Ask one pair per item to explain using 'because the person who made it…'.
- Pose a tricky one for a 2-minute discussion: 'A grandparent writes a book today about their own childhood. Is it primary or secondary?' Accept both answers if students give a good reason, and point out that it depends on whether the writer was there and how much later it was made.
- Hand out sticky notes and have each student write one primary source from their own life, such as a drawing, a text message or a report card, then stick it by the door on the way out.
Quick Check
Read the sticky notes. Each should name something the student made or received at the time an event happened.
Differentiation
Make it easier: Sort only four clear examples together as a class before pairs try the rest.
Make it harder: Have pairs add one new example of each type and say what a historian could and could not learn from it.
Good For
- Before lunch
- End of day
- Supply teacher
- Review
