What is a Primary Source?Primary sources that are thoughtfully selected can help bring ideas to life by connecting students with real people who lived in an earlier time and/or another part of the world, and presenting their particular perspectives or points of view. They serve as evidence for those who seek answers to questions about the past, forming the raw material from which accounts are created. The following are examples of primary sources, when they are used to answer questions about the time or place in which they were written. They may serve as secondary sources for examining other questions, for instance about topics they address that happened at an earlier time or in another place (in this sense they are already second-hand interpretations of the past).
These can also be primary sources, again depending on the purpose for which they are used:
As an organization, Primary Source believes that teachers help students to connect deeply with a subject and develop a passion for it. This often happens when students are given the time and opportunity to encounter the "real stuff," the encouragement to form questions and research answers, and assignments that provide for student initiative and genuine discovery. However, our organization's name should not be taken to imply that we advocate the use of primary sources alone. The craft of teaching relies on teachers' judgments about how to combine the use of primary and secondary sources, and how and when to introduce them for student discovery.
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Educating for Global Understanding
