how do we learn about events if we weren’t there? how do we know what happened in the past?
TRANSCRIPT
How do we learn about events if we
weren’t there?
How do we know what happened in the past?
How do we know what happened in the past? How do we learn about events if we weren’t there?
In your table groups, take the next 4 minutes to discuss these questions and write down your ideas.
Questions: How do we know what happened in the past? How do we learn about events if we weren’t there?
Our answers:
Questions: How do we know what happened in the past? How do we learn about events if we weren’t there?
A historian’s answers:
Primary SourcesSecondary Sources
•Are accounts of the past created by people writing about events after they have happened•Are what historians (and History Day participants) create
Secondary Sources
•Books/Textbooks•Encyclopedias •Articles •Websites
Provide an introduction to a topic
Provide historical/broader context for a topic
Show how has a topic been interpreted by other historians
Provide hints on where to find primary evidence
Provide information which enables historians to make sense of primary sources
Secondary Sources
Primary Sources:Are left behind by participants or observers
Make personal connections to the past
Are evidence used by historians to support their interpretation of the past
Primary Sources:Published materials: Books (including memoirs), magazines, and newspapers contemporary to the event
Primary Sources:Unpublished materials: Diaries, letters, manuscripts
Primary Sources:Records: Government documents, census data, birth certificates, organizational minutes, business reports
Primary Sources:Images: Photographs, film, art and posters, advertisements, maps
Primary Sources:
Audio: • Oral Histories• Interviews• Recordings
Primary Sources:Artifacts: Buildings, Tombstones, Clothing
Think About It - Over the past week, what
evidence have you left behind?
If someone wanted to find out about you from your garbage, what would they learn?
What items would they find in your garbage? What does it say about you? What are the most interesting and/or revealing artifacts that they would find? What are the challenges of someone using just this method to find out about you?