Working on a Teaching American History grant Cindy received for the state of North Dakota familiarized me with the concept of the historian’s craft [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Historian%27s_Craft]. This concept was also a core course for undergrad history majors at the university I worked for.
HIST 240. The Historian’s Craft. 3 Credits.
An introduction to research and writing history. Students will learn critical reading of secondary sources, how to locate and evaluate resources, how to analyze evidence, how to apply the style and form of historical writing, and how to utilize methods of research. Students will also study historiography and types of historical writing and practice. F,S.
The difference between primary and secondary sources and a way of thinking about how historians process primary sources into secondary sources (accounts of history) by application of the historian’s craft became useful in my own writing as a way to explain how all learners process inputs of all types into personal understanding.
Never a student of history having never taken a college history course, the concept of applying learned strategies intended to prevent personal bias in the consideration of documents, photos, interview transcripts, etc. in order to generate an account of an event or events seemed a useful way to describe the personal activities we all engage in as we learn. This insight did not result in a personal effort to study history in any formal way. (I did audit a history of psychology course my grad committee made me complete after what they described as an inadequate reply to a prelim question on the history of life-span developmental psychology asked by my major prof. I still claim it was a setup in reaction to me not taking an optional history course. I had read his chapter on this topic. Anyway, I digress …) I smile every time I encounter a reference to the availability of primary sources and related interpretive tasks for history students. This entire introduction serves only to allow me to identify a source for such resources and related learning tasks.
https://www.docsteach.org/ Docsteach offers primary sources culled from the National Archives in combination with online tools for analysis and suggestions for learning activities.