When Students

Meet the Past

Making Primary Sources
Accessible to all Learners
Please reply to the questions or tasks
in BLUE
 The Push for
Primary Sources
The History Government and
Social Studies Standards state
that effective instruction
includes the use of primary
sources to:

analyze and interpret a

variety of primary sources to
provide the opportunity for
students to recognize the
disciplines subjective nature,
directly touch the lives of
people in the past, and
develop high level analytical
skills.
 What are the
benefits of using
sources in history
classes?
 Why do primary
sources present
challenges in the
classroom?
With text-based
sources
They often use unfamiliar
language.
Vocabulary is complex.
Spelling, punctuation, and
capitalization is sometimes
unordinary.
Students may lack the
necessary schema to
effectively analyze.
 have your
students faced
when working
with primary
source
documents?
Is it ever okay to
tamper with the
past?
NO Yes

Sam Wineburg and

Purists argue that Daisy argue that
modifying Complex language can
documents is squash the confidence
Dishonest, of struggling readers
compromises integrity Teachers must tamper
Eliminates the with documents in
necessary complexity order for students to
Altering history itself move towards
engaging in historical
thinking
 Is it ever okay to
tamper with the
past?
For the next few slides,
I will present the full
text of Frederick
Douglass What to the This particular
Slave is the Fourth of speech is listed as a
July speech (1852). helpful source to
prepare 8th grade
Please make note of: students to the
The language that is Kansas Multi-
used disciplinary
Words and phrases Performance Task
that students may
struggle with
The complex nature of
this document.
In what ways may using
the whole text of
Frederick Douglass
speech pose a challenge
for struggling learners,
as well as all learners?
 How do they
Compare?
Over the next two slides, I will show you an
unmodified excerpt of Frederick Douglass
What to the Slave is the Fourth of July
speech (1852).
Make note of:
Changes
Similarities
How students may interact with both
 Excerpt of Original
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a
day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the
year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the
constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your
boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness,
swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and
heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted
impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow
mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and
thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity,
are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and
hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would
disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the
earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are
the people of the United States, at this very hour.
 Excerpt of Modified
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I
answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all
other days in the year, the gross injustice and
cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him,
your celebration is a sham; your boasted
liberty...your sound of rejoicing are empty and
heartless...your shout of liberty and equality, hollow
mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons
and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade
and solemnity, are to him...hypocrisy...There is
not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more
shocking and bloody than are the people of the
United States, at this very hour.
In what ways were
the two excerpts
alike and
different?
 How can Teachers
Effectively Modify
Primary Source
Documents?
Sam Wineburg
Daisy Martin
and Important note:

developed 3 What you do

criteria for depends on the
teachers to needs of the
consider when students, as well
making as how much
modifications: experience they
Focusing have with
Simplification primary source
Presentation documents!
 Focusing
Focus on what is relevant by:
Excerpting important passages.
The use of ellipses
Limiting the length to 200-300
words
Provide source information and
head notes.

Ultimately, the longer the

document, the less likely
students will be able to focus
on the important portions that
will help them answer their
essential question.
Source
informa
tion
and
head
note to
allow
student
s to
situate
Use of ellipses
the
to focus on the
docume
relevant
nt.
aspects of the
speech
 Simplification
This process deals with
modifying the language,
sentence structure, and
vocabulary:
Conventionalize spelling,
punctuation, and sentence
structure.
Change difficult
vocabulary OR
Make complex words
apparent while defining
them below the
document.
Making
difficult
words
apparent

Providing
definition
s/meanin
gs
 Presentation
Make the
document appear
accessible by:
Using large font
Leave sufficient
white space
around the
document
 h o u gh
Alt lt to e
c u
d i f o m th
fr
tell n shot,
e t
scre ocumen
d
the m a in
e
is th , with
s
focu s p ace
m p le
a
e
in th ins.
g
ma r
 Challenge Time!
Using the providedRequirements:
criteria.. The excerpt you choose
Focusing should help students with
collecting evidence about the
Simplification question on next slide.

Presentation Your modifications must meet

the needs of the students
You are to modify that are described on the
next slide.
Lincoln's
House Divided Complete/paste your
modification on the provided
speech. Google Doc.
 Challenge Time
Question:
What caused the Civil
War? Google Doc:

Class description: https://docs.goog

You are in an 8th grade le.com/document/d
classroom of 23 /1bXI6MuYt8LhaDVs
students with 7 xkd3BD9aGpUIyIp8D
students that read gbad9vof4-Q/edit
below grade-level, as
well as 4 English
Language Learners.
1. What concerns
1. What were
do you have some
about challenges
modifying you faced
primary source while
documents?
making
modificatio
ns?
 Resources
Rewordify.com allows The Stanford Histor
you to paste in text y Educaiton Group
and modify the provides lesson
vocabulary. You can plans and primary
choose from: source documents
Completely changing that are modified.
words. Sam Wineburg and
Placing the original Daisy Martin are
document and the two of the leaders
modified document for SHEG, and the
right next to one modifications you
another
will see follow the
And many more criteria discussed in
options that simplify
this presentation.
the modification
process.
 Works Cited
Douglass, Frederick (1852). What to the Slave is the Fourth of July.
Africans in America. Public Broadcasting Channel.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2927t.html.

Lincoln, A (1858). House Divided. Africans in America. Public

Broadcasting Channel.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2934t.html

Reardon, C. and Freville, B. (2009). DESCRIBE: A Strategy for Making

Text-Based Primary Sources more Accessible. Teaching with
Primary Sources Quarterly 2(4). http
://www.loc.gov/teachers/tps/quarterly/accessibility/
pdf/accessibility.pdf.

Wineburg, S. and Martin, D. (2009). Tampering with History: Adapting

Primary Sources for Struggling Readers. Social Education 73(5), pp
212 216.National Council for the Social Studies, 2009. https://
historytech.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/tampering-with-history.pdf.