Elementary and Secondary Examples

Elementary Students

Here is an example of a primary source analysis that might be made at the upper elementary level:

This source is from the kit, Elementary and Up Topic 8: Maryland's Fur Trade and Fauna Along the Chesapeake Bay.


 

Teacher’s Note

Note that the transcriptions in the Mayis Indigenous records might not be perfect or might not be what you expect! They have been transcribed by a computer, and computers make mistakes. Also, some letters have been identified incorrectly, forming a different word. It may help to look at the PDF of the document (linked on the page) to see if it makes more sense in that format. Also, remind students that many of these sources were written before the standardization of spelling, and there were multiple ways to spell the same word. Writers might double the last letter of a word (e.g., “severall” instead of “several”), or add a silent “e” (e.g., “greate” instead of “great”). Some use “u” instead of “v” (e.g., “five” becomes “fiue”). The older the document is, the more likely you and your students will encounter variations in the written language that are unusual to us today.

 

Modification for Younger Students

Much of the language in the Maryland State Archives documents is too advanced for lower elementary students. For these younger children, the “Observe, Reflect, Question” exercise becomes “See, Think, Wonder.”

Younger students can be pre-taught one or two essential terms (like “seize”) and coached to find the information that is familiar to them (the list of animals). Help students to contextualize sources. For example, you might want to share information about “Indian traders” before examining this source and others in this kit.

Secondary Students

The Observe-Reflect-Question model can be used for older students. Below is a example of what a secondary-level primary source analysis could look like. This analysis examines a source from Secondary Topic 3: Three Cultures: Indigenous People, European Colonists, and African Americans in Maryland. Secondary students will be able to take this exercise further and stay more focused on the goal of questioning Indigenous people’s presence in these records and stories.


 

Teacher’s Note

Abbreviations abound in the Mayis Indigenous records, and many are nonstandard. They can vary depending on the time and writer. Some court-related terms that you might see include “deft”/”defft” (defendant), “complt” (complainant), “planff” (plaintiff), and “excy” (excellency). Some shorthand abbreviations include superscript, like “ye” (the), “yt” (that), and “sd” (said).