Teaching With Primary Resources

     While we were creating our lessons on our country Mexico, we used a lot of primary sources.  In our first lesson, geography, we had students compare and contrast an old and a new map of Mexico.  The primary resource that we used for this lesson was the old map.  We then use an I see, I think, I wonder chart to analyze and compare the two maps.  For our old map, we completed the chart together and for the new map, students worked in partners to fill it out.  Our students did really well with filling out this chart, so we decided to use it again for our second lesson, history.  The primary resources that we used for this lesson was examples of Aztec codex's.  We had three different ones for this activity.  For the first two, they were given the photos and had to work together to figure out what the images meant.  After sharing their ideas, we would reveal what each symbol represented.  They then did the same for the last one, that was a catalogue.  They started to apply what they knew from the previous codex's to figure out what the new one was.  They would point out similar symbols that they recognized and filled out the I see, I think, I wonder chart.  They were then able to create their own codex to use throughout future lessons.  

    We noticed that they didn't enjoy repeating the same activity with the chart, so we started to brainstorm other ways that we can incorporate primary resources into our lessons.  For our economics lesson we used the primary source of a resource map to have students race to find and list as many resources as they could in a certain amount of time.  They did seem to enjoy this type of activity and were able to identify many resources on the map!  We also used primary resources in card hunt games.  For our culture lesson, students were given either a present picture of a Mexican tradition, or an old image of the tradition (primary source images) and they had to find who had the corresponding image.  An example is a primary resource image of a sugar skull, and they had to find their match that was a present-day sugar skull.  They would then share the similarities and differences that they noticed in their matches.  

    For our civics lesson, we had students analyze a newspaper article and they had to analyze and figure out which branch of government was being talked about.  The newspaper had a few highlighted sentences, and they had to work in parters to identify what jobs/information matched the branch of government.  Lastly, for our advocacy lesson, students were introduced to Guadelupe Posada through the story 'Funny Bones: Posada and His Day of the Dead Calaveras' by Duncan Tonatiuh.  The book talked about Posada, a Mexican advocate that used his artwork to boycott against violence in Mexico.  We then used primary resource images and artwork of him that students analyzed to figure out what he was advocating for.