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Take An Archivist to Class
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The Library of Virginia’s primary source lesson plans bring archives into the classroom. Originally developed by archivists visiting schools across Virginia, our lessons use records from the Library’s archival collections to encourage student engagement with primary source materials. These lessons employ proven methods for using primary sources to promote critical thinking, research skills, and understanding of historical context as per the Virginia Department of Education’s Standards of Learning for History & Social Science.
Although our lessons were designed with Library collections and students in grades 4-12 in mind, the activities can be adapted by anyone interested in using primary sources to promote engagement with Virginia history. Check out our lesson plan template and guide for creating analysis tools to find tips and strategies for making unique lessons with your own primary source materials!
Lesson Plans
Each lesson includes downloadable lesson plans for hands-on document analysis activities for grades 4-12, facsimiles of original documents with transcriptions, presentation materials, and analysis tools for students. Lesson plans feature links to additional Library resources for further research. They also provide strategies for altering the activities to suit different class sizes, grade levels, topics, and more. Continue to check back as new lesson plans will be added!
Resources for Archivists
The lesson plans available through this page were created by archivists! We'd like to encourage and empower other archivists to make their own. Below are tips and resources for how to make lesson plans and classroom activities using archival material.
Lesson Plan Template
This template is available for free as a template through Canva. It only requires a login to edit and utilize the template.
You can also download an accessible version of the template as a pdf.
Creating Tools for Evaluating Learning: Questions to consider when creating a Primary Source Worksheet
When creating tools for evaluating learning for archival lessons and activities, such as primary source worksheets, focus on two major skills: Observation and Analysis.
OBSERVATION
An activity should encourage students to engage closely with the documents that they have been presented with and the information that they are given about those documents. A primary source worksheet should ask questions that require students to participate in close reading and/or close listening to identify specific information.
Questions that encourage observation may include:
- What is the document?
- Who created the document?
- Who or what is the subject of the document?
- When was the document created?
- Where was the document created?
ANALYSIS
Introduce at least one question that asks students to think critically about the document beyond identifying straightforward facts. You may include these questions in your primary source worksheet, incorporate them into class discussion, or use a mixture of both approaches. Analysis questions may ask students to summarize information from the document in their own words, evaluate the content of the document, predict the outcome of the document, and make connections between the document and wider contexts.
Questions that encourage document analysis may include:
- Why was the document created? How well did it achieve its goals?
- What important information is missing from the document?
- Does the creator of the document have a reason to be biased? How does that affect the potential accuracy of the document?
- What were the possible effects of the document?
- How does the document relate to other topics that you’ve studied in class? What about experiences in your own life?