Primary Source Texts: Reading for Enhanced Performance and Engagement

Julia Khader

Department of Education, Manhattan College

EDUC 403 – Reading in the Content Area

Sister MaryAnn Jacobs

22 April 2022
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Abstract

In this research, I propose that targeted primary source incorporation into lesson plans

will have two benefits, an increase in content comprehension and in classroom engagement.

Textbooks in the classroom have become a contested debate with increasing retaliation against

their heavy usage within social studies. I have experienced in my own time in high school, and

have witnessed in interviews with others, that textbooks have contributed to the popular

perception of social studies as “boring.” In trying to address and remedy the student engagement

crisis, primary source texts offer to teach the content of textbooks with added emphasis on

reading comprehension. The purpose of this study is to explore how can students be made to

engage with primary source texts that positively correlate their interest and performance in social

studies.

Keywords: action research, Social Studies, primary sources, textbooks, reading comprehension,

student engagement
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The Problem Identified

A popular misconception of the content area of social studies is that it is a subject about

reading for fact memorization and recall. For this, many cite their dislike of social studies to be

because it is “boring.” The reading that is done in social studies is usually reserved for the state-

mandated textbooks that summarize and present knowledge in a way for students to regurgitate

on the end-of-year exams. Based on my conversations with students and with my peers, reading

from the textbook is what destroys their ability to engage with history.

Another recent development in the textbook debate within the United States is increased

awareness of the nationalistic and politicized nuances that dominate textbooks and a desire to

supplant them. It has become a common practice for textbooks to be riddled with subliminal

political messages agreed upon by the status quo of society (Fuchs, 2011). However, an explicit

removal of textbooks from the social studies curriculum would leave a large vacuum of reading

exercises. Ergo, primary source texts propose an obvious alternative to textbooks. If students are

exposed, not to these controversal messages, but to the core source documents they will be

allowed to critically consume and analyze original opinions and thus be able to form their own

evidence-based interpretations.

Despite the potential benefits of primary sources, in my field experience, I have observed

a tangible lack of their utilization within classrooms. In my experience, high school teachers used

primary sources rarely and middle school teachers even less. However, some surface-level

research has been done that suggests students appreciate primary sources for their value of being

“first-hand” (Tally & Goldenberg, 2005). Every teacher is responsible for presenting their

subject in a way that encourages students to appreciate the value of what they are learning and

find long-term benefits for it. As a future social studies teacher, this will be doubly important as
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the practice standards of the content area promote the creation of better citizens. Thus, the

purpose of this study is to explore how can students interact with primary source texts that

increase both their engagement and understanding in social studies.

Primary Sources for Content Comprehension

Primary sources are often misconstrued to be “impossible to read.” There are obvious

differences between the linguistics of the past and the modern languages of the present that leave

many middle and high schoolers feeling as if they are reading a different language entirely. This

presents a conflict for most educators who then elect to spoon-feed the meanings of a given text

to their students. However, primary sources should not be completely broken down for the

students, as Massey and Heafner point out, “… some middle and secondary teachers may spoon-

feed texts to their students, reading a text aloud or summarizing an entire text for them” (Massey

& Heafner, 2004, p. 26). This does nothing to teach students comprehension because students are

not the ones engaging with the texts and dissecting their many meanings. Conversely, the authors

also point out that providing the students with no support may be just as harmful. Rather, they

outline a Scaffolded Reading Experience (SRE) framework that makes independent reading the

end goal for students with the teacher providing the scaffolds to get them to that point.

The first step of the SRE framework is to implement structure within the lesson that

divides reading activities into chunks. Within these individual sections, Massey and Heafner

propose several strategies. Pre-Reading strategies include establishing the purpose for reading

and making connections to background knowledge. These strategies can be further broken down

into inquiry, listing, grouping, or labeling techniques (Massey & Heafner). During Reading

strategies focus student efforts on navigating the text they are actively reading. This is achieved

by understanding the arrangement of texts, their structure, and external and internal features.
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Also, primary sources are rarely read in isolation from other documents, therefore, making

connections between texts is another positive strategy (Massey & Heafner). Lastly, the post-

reading stage is the point at which students conduct their analyses, search for specific evidence,

and extract their overarching takeaways from a given primary source document. A few ways to

achieve this as the teacher surveying their classroom is by monitoring comprehension through

questioning and by synthesizing information across texts (Massey & Heafner).

Overall, the SRE framework serves as a guide for implementing targeted primary source

education within social studies curriculums. The traditional course textbooks that have begun to

fall out of style among both teachers and students are notorious for their ability to streamline

information in a strict, perfunctory manner. This selective process has robbed students of the

opportunity to engage with the source material and practice introspective reading and

interpretative skills to come to their own conclusions about the past, “… the fragmentary,

idiosyncratic, and often contradictory nature of primary documents can help students understand

the problematic nature of historical evidence and the need for critical thinking about sources and

bias” (Tally & Goldenberg, 2005, p. 3). Among many examples, instead of telling students about

the influx of immigration during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to American urban centers,

conduct a unit that features “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus. If incorporated successfully,

primary sources are the ideal reading instruction tool for most classrooms due to their ability to

increase student comprehension of overall reading and course content.

Benefits of Primary Source Texts on Engagement

Engagement has long been understood as a multidimensional concept with emotional,

behavioral, and cognitive layers. It has been long established that engagement in the classroom

correlates with positive effects on, “…attention, interest, investment, and effort students expend
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in the work of learning” (Marks, 2000, p. 200). With engagement in the notable decline in the

21st-century classroom, cultivating new ways to produce productive and interesting curriculums

has been a primary goal among this generation of educators. In 2015, Jason L. Endacott and

Christina Pelekanos chronicled the experiences of a middle school world history teacher, Sophia

Ardactos, as she endeavored to foster historical empathy in the classroom. Ardactos found that

her students could not relate to or engage with the history she was teaching. Teaching citizenship

is a key tenant of the social studies content area, for which empathy is essential. When students

are not engaged in the social studies classroom they are not just missing content but significant

life skills and personal lessons. Among other strategies, Ardactos found primary sources to be

accepted by her students and observed a tangible behavioral and academic interest that was

previously lacking amidst them.

The findings of Endacott and Pelekanos are significant because of how primary sources

were included in the classroom. Aiming to specifically foster historical empathy, primary

sources, “…helps students understand, ‘how people from the past thought, felt, made decisions,

acted, and faced consequences within a specific historical and social context’” (Endacott &

Pelekanos, 2015, p.1) One reason for which students struggle to engage with social studies is

because of its perceived unrelatability. Primary sources are objects students can relate to if time

is spent discussing how these documents were created by real people who were reacting to

events of their lives. Ultimately, primary sources are the creations of humanity— as creators and

consumers of the modern eras primary sources students are naturally attracted by, “…a sense of

the reality and complexity of the past; the archives thus represent an opportunity to go beyond

the sterile, seamless quality of most textbook presentations to engage with real people and

authentic problems.” (Tally & Goldenberg, 2005, p. 3) Primary sources correlate with increased
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student engagement, and if students are more interested in what they are learning, then the

already proven increase in content and reading comprehension will be enhanced.

Classroom Applications

Outlined in this section is a plan to incorporate primary source texts within curriculums.

Notably, the primary sources are not included immediately nor in bulk right away, they are

gradually woven into the plan. After all, Massey and Heafner emphasize that scaffolded

instruction works best in environments structured to differentiate before, during, and after

reading moments in class, “This division helps students recognize that reading is an active

procedure throughout” (Massey and Heafner, 2004, p. 27). This idea is supported by my own

learning from the Education Department at Manhattan College where an emphasis is placed on

build-up and debriefing activities to cement student learning. The framework provided below

spans a timeline of five weeks, however, this process is constantly evolving, and the plan below

can easily be modified over a longer or shorter research period to best suit the needs of the

instructor and the students.

Outline for Incorporating Primary Sources into a Social Studies Curriculum

Week 1 Foster class climate to create an appreciation for “firsthand” perspectives about

historical events. Ensure that students understand the difference between

primary and secondary sources. Create a list of potential primary sources that

correlate to the Instructional Unit being taught at the time of year that this

action research will be conducted.

Week 2 Measure level of student’s willingness to receive primary source texts. Are

they intimidated by them? Do they see the value? Do this based on the

previous week’s findings and through class discussion. Potentially use short
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and easy-to-read primary source texts in a controlled environment.

Week 3 Create a list of pre-reading, during reading, and post-reading strategies that

students find useful and further comprehension and reattainment of written

text. Examples of such strategies can be those specified in the SRE framework.

Conduct whole-class primary source reading exercises, determining which

strategies work best with the students. Identify students who are struggling

with primary sources and come up with targeted intervention ideas.

Week 4 Apply primary source texts directly in the classroom. Assign individual

reading and small-group reading assignments. Utilize frequent reflection

assignments such as exit tickets, topic discussions, specific questions, and

homework based on selected primary sources.

Week 5 Assign students a summative assessment that will prompt students to

demonstrate their textual comprehension of a selected primary source.

Conduct an informal class survey that asks students to share their experience

reading primary sources. Reflect on the findings and results of this action

research. Spend time, composing quantitative and qualitative results into a

formal written composition.

The acquired literature draws on established educational researchers such as Vygotsky,

Skinner, and Bruner. Their conclusions manifest in this plan, a conglomeration of the tips,

strategies, and methods practiced and proven successful throughout the research. At the close of

the fifth week, it is anticipated that students will have demonstrated an enhanced comprehension

of the content and an overall deeper engagement in the classroom through their experiences with

primary source texts. Upon such a conclusion, further primary sources can be compiled and
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continually used over the course of the annual school year to reinforce these student takeaways

and increase the benefits of such outcomes.

Conclusion

In assigning primary sources, there is always the fear that students will find it “difficult to

read.” Historical primary sources are written using period-specific elements of the English

language including different vocabulary and unique sentence structures that can intimidate

students. This inevitable element of primary sources presents a valuable opportunity to teach

more than history in the social studies classroom, specifically, SYNTAX, sentence structure,

grammar, and vocabulary. However, I anticipate that once this potential intimidation is addressed

and strategies utilized as the research suggests, teaching primary sources will increase student

content comprehension and their outcome performance. Further, students will become engaged

with Social Studies in a way that will positively increase their overall ability to read and be

interested in the content area.

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References

Endacott, J. L., & Pelekanos, C. (2015). Slaves, Women, and War! Engaging Middle School

Students in Historical Empathy for Enduring Understanding. The Social Studies, 106(1),

1-7. https://doi.org/10.1080/00377996.2014.957378

Fuchs, E. (2011). Current Trends in History and Social Studies Textbook Research. Journal of

International Cooperation in Education, 14(2), 17-34.

https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:141998419

Marks, H. (2000). Student Engagement in Instructional Activity: Patterns in the Elementary,

Middle, and High School Years. American Educational Research Journal, 37(1), 153-

184.

Massey, D., & Heafner, T. (2004). Promoting reading comprehension in social studies. Journal

of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 48(1), 28-40. https://doi.org/10.1598/JAAL.48.1.3

Talley, B., & Goldenberg, L. B. (2005). Fostering Historical Thinking With Digitized Primary

Sources. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 38(1), 1-21.

https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2005.10782447