The Experiment
Analyzing primary sources becomes second nature as historians, and we often forget how difficult it was to learn how to do so in our early education. I found this to be particularly the case when teaching Early College classes at Central Virginia Community College. I would ask a student to analyze a source, and they would look at me like I had grown a second head.
I wanted to find a way to guide their thinking as they approached the documents I selected for discussion each week, so after some Googling, I found the “6 C’s of Primary Source Analysis” worksheet from The History Project at the University of California, Irvine.
What Happened
For the Fall 2019 semester, I chose one or two primary sources, typically under five pages each, to read each week. I asked students to complete the worksheet before class. This would account for fourteen points per week, and I graded it based on effort rather than correctness. If they made a good faith effort to complete the worksheet, I gave them full credit.
What Worked
This was an easy way to get the students to do the reading ahead of class, and they learned how to dissect a primary source in the way most historians do as second nature.
The Limits
- Some students still chose not to do the work, but this only hurt themselves.
- Students struggled at times with the “Context” as they did not have sufficient background knowledge to make these types of connections.
- I stopped using this worksheet after COVID-19 forced classes online, where the format did not translate as well. Once I moved to VMI, my first few semesters focused on adapting to a new teaching environment, and the course did not emphasize the same type of weekly deep primary source analysis.