Teaching with Technology

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb302/is_2_34/ai_n45100149/?tag=content;col1

This week I will review another article from Teaching History: A Journal of Methods which appeared in the Fall 2009 publication. The title of the article is: Teaching with on-line primary sources: documents from the national archives. Michael Hussey is the author and he is writing about newly available information of a primary source nature and how it can be used to teach a lesson about “perspectives on the new immigrants” in the time period of 1903 to 1911 in New York City.

            Hussey describes the historical event/period he is talking about, which focuses on the annual report of the Commissioner of Immigration at Ellis Island in 1911 and a response from the Lower East Side’s Citizen’s Committee (primarily an immigrant neighborhood), which disagrees with some negative comments he has made about the immigrants in general. In addition, the Citizen’s Committee prepared a study documenting the good character and positive nature of their neighborhood. The author uses the on-line availability of these reports as well as numerous photographs from Ellis Island and the neighborhood to craft a lesson for students. The on-line primary sources are from the National Archives website: www.archives.gov/research.

            The main part of the article details a series of student activities based on the original source documents and photographs to highlight the differences of opinion regarding the large scale immigration that was occurring at the time and the incredibly crowded living conditions in the lower east side of New York City. While it is unclear if the original source data is just recently available or if the exercises are to be done in or outside of class, the article does show how these original sources can be used to give a far more realistic and meaningful lesson about immigration and urban life in New York City than just a dry paragraph in a textbook. Practically speaking, it appears to me that the class exercises could be done in or out of the classroom, depending upon available computer resources in the classroom.

            Specifically, there is a focus activity requiring the students to access photographs of immigrants from Ellis Island and from the lower east side neighborhoods. The students are to interpret them through a series of questions. Further they are then to review the written documents that were the basis of the original controversy. There are other suggested assignments including the students drafting letters to the Commissioner of Immigration regarding his initial comments from the viewpoint of the immigrants. In the end, the students are to write an essay in which “they formulate their own portrait ..” of the immigrant’s life based on their review of the original source data.

            I think this is an excellent use of primary sources and gets to the basic question in History of what it means to “Do History.” It is not just the memorization of facts or the discussion of a particular event and its broader implications. It is also the “detective work” which a historian must do to get to the bottom of what actually happened – in other words, what were the facts? Use of the primary sources with the guidance of the instructor, brings to mind Jenkin’s work on encouraging the use of new media, but guiding the student to be able to assess the veracity of on-line information as well as interpret differing points of view based on differing biases.

            It is clear that original source documentation is all over the internet. This documentation is a fertile ground for all sorts of teaching and learning activities. All that it requires is computer access plus a teacher who has taken the time to orient his students to the source sites so they can be actively involved in the project.