This document provides guidance for selecting primary sources for classroom use. It outlines key considerations to evaluate before and during the selection process, including instructional goals, student knowledge and interests, contextual details, multiple perspectives, and logistical factors. The checklist addresses whether a source is appropriate for the intended audience and lesson, can be placed in historical context, presents discernible points of view, and can be successfully utilized given classroom settings and rights restrictions. Primary sources are defined as original materials created during the period being studied.

1. Considerations
for Selecting
Primary Sources
Educational Outreach Staff Summer 2014

2. Participants will be able to:
• Practice the selection process by applying
considerations to a set of primary sources
• Identify key considerations that apply in
their own instructional settings
Learning Objectives

3. What factors do you consider when you select
primary sources for use in your classroom?
Who do you go to for help?
Considerations

4. Considerations for Selecting Primary Sources: Checklist
Before Selecting – Instructional Use
What learning standards or essential questions are being addressed?
What do my students already know?
When will the item be used? (e.g., to introduce a topic? build understanding? assess learning?)
While Selecting – Characteristics
Audience Will this primary source meet the needs and interests of my students?
 Invites close examination, questioning, and further investigation
 Of interest
 Age-appropriate content
 Appropriate reading level
 Appropriate length (if excerpted, original meaning is preserved)
Context Will my students will be able to place this primary source in historical context?
 Creator name and/or publication date are available
 Useful bibliographic information is available
 Contextual clues in the item itself
 Absence of confusing extraneous markings or annotations
 Item was created around the time or topic under study in my classroom
Point of view Will my students will be able to identify point of view?
 Item’s purpose and/or target audience is discernable
 Students can learn more about the creator or circumstances of creation
 Other items with differing perspectives are available for use with this item
Logistics Will I be able to use this item successfully in my own classroom setting?
 Clarity, resolution (images, films)
 Readability/legibility of text/handwriting
 Clarity of sound/background noise (sound recordings, video)
 Ability to zoom in on details if needed (online images, maps)
 Able to print and display the item
 Rights status considered
Primary sources are the raw materials of history — original documents and objects which were created
at the time under study. They are different from secondary sources, accounts or interpretations of
events created by someone without firsthand experience.