SYNTHESIZING ESSAY

Reflecting on Primary Source Analysis

In order to demonstrate critical thinking by analyzing primary sources, placing them in historical context, and synthesizing arguments, I developed exemplars and lessons based on both modern and historical issues, all of which were able to gain students’ attention and challenge their assumptions.  What I determined is the value of student engagement in the material, the impact that personalization can make, and the constant prioritization of source-based argument development. Throughout my graduate certificate experience, I reflected on the ways that I could integrate my learning into world history and government courses that develop habits of mind, which, as Sam Wineburg notes, “demand repetition, stick-to-itiveness, and exposure to multiple examples where the content changes but the core intellectual moves remain constant” (loc 2065).

In Advanced Placement United States Government and Politics, my students voiced clear frustration with their textbook’s Civil Rights chapter; it almost completed neglected discrimination against and the fight for LGBTQ+ rights, so I took every opportunity in Civil Rights of the 20th Century to learn more. My work culminated in a research presentation detailing the parallels between the first decades of the fight and its most significant victory: Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court case that legalized gay marriage. Throughout the process of researching, I combined traditional sources likes historical texts, auto-biographies, and newspaper articles about the key plaintiffs in the case with more modern primary sources like plaintiffs’ podcasts and social media posts. Not only did these sources add dimension to my research, but students found more ease in evaluating them; teenagers are suspect of cultivated images on social media. A Supreme Court opinion can read as didactic and dense, but the humanizing component helped my students connect and inspired a project in which they could find a case to passionately research and present. One of my challenges will be to help each student find something with which they connect; clearly my chosen profession predisposes me to get excited about researching history, so my goal is to kindle that enthusiasm for my students as well.

To further humanize history, in a course on the Modern Middle East I created a document-based essay prompt and series of seven primary and secondary-source documents surrounding modern education issues in the Middle East.  Again, in finding an issue that my students could connect with despite their differing experiences, they critically analyzed information in order to develop clear arguments, following a process espoused by our English department: claim, evidence, warrant.  Both because it is an effective teaching tool and to reinforce that good writing is not bound by department, I use claim-evidence-warrant to help students develop from opinionated teenagers to thoughtful historians. While I agree with Wineburg’s concern that in a DBQ students “Tend to raid documents rather than read them, cherry-picking passages to support their theses rather than forming a thesis based on the sources,” I have also found that if students have a genuine interest in the source and are confident in the process of sourcing, it helps them to evaluate more effectively (loc 2132).  My students utilize an International Baccalaureate method of Origin, Purpose, Value, and Limitation, a scaffold of questioning that helps students not only utilize but criticize the information presented to them. This being said, analyzing seven sources and synthesizing them into a coherent essay in an hour is a daunting task; while we practice this setting in order to replicate the Advanced Placement exam, both students and I (and, one would imagine, Benjamin Bloom) prefer to dissect the sources in a class discussion where individuals challenge one another to reach a more nuanced interpretation of the source.

Through these efforts, students understand what and who built history, and the complexity of information presented so clearly in their textbooks.  It enables them to become critical thinkers who develop strong arguments based on multiple perspectives.

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Wineburg, Samuel S. Why Learn History (When Its Already on Your Phone). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018. Electronic.

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