Primary Sources Get Personal

Earlier in Unit 1, you learned about primary sources, which are the lifeblood of the study of history. The art of telling stories using disparate sources and explaining past events is a carefully honed skill and requires critical reading, creative thinking, close observation, and evaluation of personal biases.

Your task this week is to tell me the story of part of your past (not your mom’s past or dad’s past or anyone else’s past) using at least three different primary sources. (That is, you can’t tell me a story using only photographs.) The story could be of falling in love, getting married, going to prom, restoring a car, making a friend, losing a loved one, etc. This is your opportunity to be creative and to make history, which sometimes seem so distant and irrelevant, quite personal.

As you begin thinking about what sources to use, keep in mind that I haven’t provided you with an exhaustive list of primary sources. Given modern technology, there are lots of options other than physical images and documents.

Some rules:

If you’re using documents, you’re either going to need to scan them or take pictures of high enough resolution that I can see what’s on the documents. Also, please refrain from using any documents where numbers like Social Security numbers or driver’s license numbers are legible. Either blur/black those numbers out or don’t use the document.
If you use a handwritten item and the handwriting is not clear, provide a transcript.
Same goes for photos. If you don’t have access to a scanner, you may simply have to take a photo of the photo. But your facsimile of that photo needs to be non-blurry.
If one of your sources is a physical object, take a clear photo of it.
It doesn’t matter to me how you present this story. You can put the photos and explanations in a Word doc, in a PowerPoint, in a Prezi, on a website, whatever. If you’re using a program like Pages or InDesign or something that will have a non-standard file extension, please convert your end product into a .pdf or .rtf. If I can’t read the file, I can’t grade the product.
Here’s what I’m grading you on:

Selection and presentation (meaning that images aren’t blurry or incomplete) of at least three different varieties of primary sources.
Explanation of why each of those types of sources are primary sources.
Telling of your story, weaving in how each source supports your story.
Answering of this question: What else can we learn about the past other than your personal past from these sources? That is, I know these sources will tell me part of your story, but what can they tell me about local, regional, national, and/or international history?
Ability to articulate your thoughts and express them using appropriate grammar, syntax, and mechanics. This is your story. Tell it well and with the effort it deserves.