Using Primary Source Documents in the Classroom

A primary source is one created by people who actually saw or participated in an event and recorded that event or their reactions to it immediately after the event. A secondary source is one created by someone either not present when the event took place or removed by time from the event. A primary source document could be a letter, a picture, a diary, etc. On this website, you will find a selection of primary source documents from our collections on South L.A., the Coalition Against Police Abuse, L.A. subject files, and more.

Primary source documents provide a way to explore history that allows students to get a richer and fuller "eyewitness account" of things that happened. By using primary sources, students can begin to see that history is created by people like them--and is not just dates and names to be memorized. They can begin to realize that they are historymakers themselves.

Primary sources also help students develop knowledge, skills, and analytical abilities. By dealing directly with primary sources, students have to ask questions, think critically, make intelligent inferences, and develop reasoned explanations and interpretations of events and issues in the past and present.

More information about using primary source documents in the classroom is available on the Library of Congress Learning Page, including a Lesson Framework.

How can primary source documents be incorporated into the classroom?

Teachers can have their students examine primary source documents and ask some preliminary questions. What type of document is it? What is its date? Who created it? Why did they create it?

Then the students can begin to analyze the document. What does this document say about the person who created it? What does this document say about life at the time the person created it? Do the students believe the document is an accurate representation of what was happening; why? What questions are left unanswered by the document? If they could ask the author of the document a question, what would they ask?