Teaching with Document Lessons

Why Documents Matter

• We want our students to learn to think as critically as mature historians, so we train them to use the same sources historians use—primary sources from artifacts to woodcuts to texts, and secondary sources from the newspaper to the Internet
• Dealing with sources at this level trains students to recognize and appreciate complexity and ambiguity, to understand competing interpretations and contradictory conclusions, and to avoid thinking in strict black/white terms about right/wrong, good/bad, winner/loser, or any other overly simple dichotomy that might otherwise trap and narrow their thinking
• Dealing with sources at this level also trains students to think carefully about different source types, contexts, audiences, motivations, and goals, and to avoid simple readings and really try to get below the surface of what the source means when you read between the lines within its historical context
• Training students to appreciate bias, nuance, complexity, context, ambiguity, self-interest, and a host of other subtle influences on what a source means is part of training them to mature, careful, reflective, and discerning thinkers with good judgment in a host of contexts outside of the artificial confines of the history classroom

Helping Students Get Started

• Each document lesson, especially early on in each course, includes videos of model readings to guide the students as they learn to think in these new and sometimes uncomfortable ways
• Instructors and parents may want to consider working alongside students as they work through the first few document lessons, until it becomes clear that they've understood the central point—that document lessons have different goals than daily sessions, and students will have to slow down and think in new ways to get the most out of them
• Instructors and parents will want to use the provided rubrics to offer explicit feedback throughout the early learning curve into these lessons