 Welcome to, as Katie said, our fourth installment of DocsTeach for virtual learning. And today's session is how to analyze primary sources online with DocsTeach. Thank you for joining us. We have been talking about a lot of the features of DocsTeach, but it's all reliant on the primary sources that are included in the DocsTeach database from the holdings of the National Archives. And we always talk about primary sources and how we love working with them, because they really, putting them in students' hands, turn students into historians. And document analysis, being able to figure out those documents is kind of the first step in giving our young historians the tools they need to use these primary sources as historical evidence. And so I'm gonna today show you some activities that we have that are created specifically for going through the process of document analysis and talk about some of what that process is. So I'm going to get started and I'm gonna click on menu and activities. And what I'm gonna do is just go down to this area where I can refine my historical era thinking skill activity type or grade level. And I'm gonna click on activity type analyzing documents. So we're gonna jump right in here. And you can see a lot of results here, a whole variety of documents. These are all specifically for practice analyzing primary sources. You can see photographs, you can see written documents, et cetera, posters. And I'm gonna just select one to use as an example to show you how these types of activities work. So I'm gonna click on this particular letter. And here we are on this teacher page. If you've been in our other webinars, this is familiar, where we have say who it's created by, what era it falls into, where it fits on Bloom's taxonomy, the grade level, this one's recommended for high school, but it could certainly be user adapted for middle school level. And you've got some instructions about how to use it. And I'm gonna click on this start activity button and this is gonna bring up the student page. So this is the student version of the activity. And they don't get all that information, they're getting what is the highly secret matter. And so this student page is something that if you're teaching virtually, you could share like we're doing now through a Zoom meeting, a Google Meet, whatever your virtual platform is, or it's also something if you wanted your students to work on it asynchronously as an assignment, you could give them the URL to this activity or if you're using Google Classroom, click on the Google Classroom button and share as an assignment that way. So you can use this in more than one way, but I wanna show you what this kind of activity looks like and what these steps are. So here's our letter and we're gonna just go down and take a look before we get to into the letter, the process of document analysis. We've broken this into four steps and these four steps are always the same whether you're analyzing a photograph, a textual document, a poster. The individual questions under each section might vary but the basic process and those four steps are the same. So first we're gonna meet the document, then we're gonna observe its parts, we're gonna try and make sense of it and lastly use this document as historical evidence, that's an important piece. So if we go back up to our letter here, we'll take a look at this first section which is meet the document. And so we're just really getting the broad view, these are high level type of questions. So what type of document is this? So we know this is the letter right off the bat but it might be another type of document, it might be a presidential document for instance. And then we're asking students to describe it as if you're explaining it to someone who can't see it. So for instance, looking at our letter, we can zoom in, we know that it's got, it is a typed letter but it also has some handwritten notations on it. It's got some date notations on it, it's got some stamps on it. So it's a one page letter that's got notations. Then we can go to observe its parts. Who sent it and what's its title, who read and received it and when is it from? So if we go up to the letter, we can pick this letter apart. And again, you can discuss this with your students, if you're using this in a whole class or a small group meeting online, you could ask students to use the chat feature or to raise their hand virtually to chime in to pick this apart together. So we know it's addressed to the president, it doesn't say which president it is, we might need to figure that out. It's coming from a name here, your students may not be able to make this out. It says Henry L. Stimson, but it does say secretary of war. So we know that that's his role. We also could probably figure out who the president is because we've got a date here. We also have some other dates of, when the president saw it and there's something about the next day down here. So we're starting to pull the pieces together to figure out a little more about this document, but now is our step where we're gonna try and make sense of it. So this has some questions that are specific to this particular letter. These analyzing documents activities have some general questions, which are the majority of these, but some of these have been written specifically for this document. How many days passed between when the letter was written and when the president met with the author? What was the name of the president to whom this letter was written? Why did the author write it and what was happening when this document was created? So if we think about those questions and we go back up here, what is the president? So again, we can probably figure that out based on the date. We could also figure that we've got a note down here that says, Matt put on the list for tomorrow, Wednesday the 25th, HST. So we've got some initials there and between all that we can figure out that this is Harry S. Truman. And tomorrow, so the president saw this and the very next day, he asked to have this put on his schedule so that we're asking this question, but that's also prompting our students to think about the importance of this matter and what this might be about. It says, it's a very important to talk about this as soon as possible. It's a highly secret matter. We got some specific language in this document that gives us other clues. Even underlined here has to do with foreign relations and such an important effect on my thinking in this field. You ought to know about it without much further delay. And of course, foreign relations in April of 1945, we know that World War II is going on. We also could figure out in fact that President Truman had only been in office for I believe 12 days when he received this letter. So it's something urgent. It's something highly secret coming from the Secretary of War to the president. So we know all of that so far. And now we're gonna use it as historical evidence. What's the significance of the word secret being stamped in red? How long was this letter classified? So again, we've got secret up here crossed out. Our students tend to love things that were top secret at one point. It's a real great hook to get them interested and we can go down here and see these stamps. This is one thing we love about primary sources. The stamps really tell the story about how this document has a life. It wasn't just written once and sent, but it was written, it was received, people acted upon it. And even in this case, in the 1970s, you've got a 30, more than 30 years later, you have that this document still living because someone's acting on it. It's declassified that much later. So really important stuff here to be classified for so long, right? And then when you're done, students, of course, are being asked, what is the highly secret matter? And if we go back up to our letter here, then we've figured out based on all these clues, of course, that the secretary of war wants to tell the president all about the Manhattan Project. And a very interesting document, especially considering that Truman made the very large decision to use the atomic bomb and that it was less than four months after receiving this letter. So a really interesting document to kind of dive into. And there's so many great primary sources to dive into like this that don't take a lot of time to do. And again, you could use this in your full class or small group Zoom meeting, Google Meet, your virtual class, or you could ask students to work on this independently on time and come back to class. They could even turn it into you using the methods we've covered in the other webinars and fill out all these questions, turn it into you, and then you could choose a student's work to bring up to show the next day in class where you're going through the document as a group more quickly than you might do if you're all looking for the first time together. So I'm gonna show you some other examples of types of analyzing documents, activities. So I'm gonna close this one and go right back to my menu and activities. And again, I'm gonna just refine and choose my activity type as analyzing documents. And in this case, why don't we check out this photograph to just show you the difference between a photograph and a written document. So again, here's our teacher page and I'm gonna launch the student activity. This one is all about photographer Lewis Hine, a photograph that he took. This is providing information to the students that he worked for the National Child Labor Committee. It's this, in this case, the introduction is actually including this caption that went with the photo originally of this photograph from 1909. And so again, students are presented with the document and it's, I just wanna point out the same four steps, the same progression. So they're gonna meet the photographs, observe its parts, try and make sense of it and then use it as historical evidence. In this case, the questions are gonna be a little different. Quickly scan the photo, what things do you notice first? What type of photo is this? You know, is this a candid photo or is this a posed photo? An interesting question here. Is there a caption? Yes, it was provided. What are the people you see, the objects, the activities? In this case, if you go look at the photograph, there might be, so they might talk, they don't have names of people, of course, but they might notice that they're children. They might also notice what is not pictured. You know, there's not adults here or there's just a couple of adults in the picture. They have some tools, but not a lot of tools that they're working with. They do not have shoes, for instance. They do not have a lot of room in which to work. So just seeing the parts of the photo and pulling out what they can to make sense of it, which is the next step. Who took the photo? The caption might help. When, or where is it from? When is it from what was happening at this time when this photograph was taken and why do you think it was taken? So again, we have some answers from the caption that was provided. This is from Baltimore in 1909, working with String Beans in the packing company. Why was this taken? So the students have picked this apart, but now they're thinking about the perspective of the photographer. So they're looking at primary sources, but also understanding that everything is created from a specific perspective and from a specific person or people that maybe have an interest in causing a certain reaction by whoever views what they have created. And so lastly, use it as historical evidence. What did you find out about this photo? From this photo you wouldn't learn elsewhere. What other photos could you use to help you understand this event or topic? And then when you're done in this particular activity, they're gonna learn a little bit more about Lewis Hine, thinking about what parts of the scenes were impactful, how, what emotions they might convey in that kind of a thing. So it's an example of a photograph. We have, this tool works for all types of primary sources, works for written documents, for photographs. We've got questions about artifacts, posters, maps, cartoons, videos, audio, artwork, et cetera. So I'm gonna show you another example now. And in addition to all those types of primary sources that this type of activity, this analyzing documents activity can cover, it also can apply to different ages and different grades of students. So again, if I refine, I went search for activities, I'm in activity type analyzing documents. And I've got all of the same examples of activities before, but maybe now I wanna refine it further by grade level. So maybe I wanna choose this upper elementary grade level and see some examples here. And let's take a look at how these questions look different for elementary students. So this one's geared to upper elementary and I'm gonna click to start the activity so we can see this student view. Now this is for upper elementary students, but you could absolutely adapt this to younger students, even students who are just learning to read grade, first grade, second grade that have basic reading skills as long as you are walking them through this in a class setting. But you'll notice the progression is the same, meet the document, observe its parts, make sense of it and use it as historical evidence. But for the younger students, the language is different. It's a bit simpler. There are illustrations to help as well. This one has customized questions as we meet the document. What animal do you think is drawn at the top? In case you're wondering, that is a sea otter. And are there markings where we've got some illustrations to help. This one does have a stamp. Is it handwritten or typed? Again, who wrote it? Who read or received it? What's the date? So you're looking at the parts of the document. And in this case, since this is more than one page, you can click view entire document. And here we can go see this letter is from 1989. This is a student who is writing about the Exxon Valdez oil spill. You can look at page two where she's talking about her class is doing a sea otter project. They're very cute. Page three, she's asking to please clean up the oil spill. She's a second grader at Franklin School. And we've got some information about this document below as well, letting us know that she wrote to the Alaskan Regional Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service about cleaning up the oil spill. We return to the activity here. We can answer those questions now that we just talked about in observing its parts. And then we can think about making sense of it. What happened that made this author very mad? Why do you think that made her mad? Why do you think she wrote this document? And why do you think she sent it to where she did? And we can also use it as historical evidence. Where could you find out more about this event, the oil spill from 1989? And when you're done, questions particular to this document, do you think other kids have written letters like this about other events or what other kinds of events do you think kids might write to the government about? So this is for those younger elementary students, but it could be a step into civic participation and how people can participate in their government. And again, you can see the process is the same, but it's just a lot more scaffolding for this younger set. All right, I'm gonna close this out. I think I have, I'm gonna just show you very, very quickly one other activity for the younger set. So again, going to activities, and I'm gonna filter here. My activity type is analyzing documents. And if I look, for instance, at lower elementary, these are gonna be mostly photograph-based because we might be talking about students who are not readers yet or beginning readers. If we see the student activity here, again, these questions are slightly different because this is about a photograph, but the process is always the same. Need to observe the parts, make sense of it, use it as historical evidence. And in this case, you would wanna walk through this together because of the reading, but when you're done, students have done all that scaffolding and they can answer, what do you think Sally Ride's job was based on everything they see? So this primary source analysis looks quite different for your first graders than it does for your 12th graders or college students. But absolutely, this is still the process of primary source analysis. And they can do it even at this young age by picking apart clues with that scaffolding provided. So you can really use, I'm gonna close this activity. You can really use this process of document analysis with any primary source document that you find on Docs Teach. And if I go to menu here, I just wanna show you in this resources section, you can click document analysis. And here's our page talking about how to do document analysis with students. It includes this progression and about how to use it. What we really hope is students do this enough that they internalize the process and don't need to eventually, maybe to the end of the year, don't need to go through these types of activities anymore. But we have another resource here and we have a whole set of PDFs. So there's a whole set for younger or novice students or those learning English. I should mention too that the online activities that I showed you, I showed you some set of questions for secondary students, a set of questions for primary grade students, but we also have questions available for ELL students. So they might be more similar to those primary grade questions with a simpler language, but don't have the cute images so that it doesn't seem to juvenile for them. But so here we've got these PDF versions of these sheets. So for instance, for the younger students, we've got a photograph analysis sheet, same progression, same questions, but a different format here. So if you're using a platform like Seesaw or Google Classroom where you can provide this to students and you actually want them to annotate with their finger or stylus or whatever they're using, as opposed to typing in the other type of activity, you could do that. So we've got a photograph. I'll just show you a couple of examples, a map analysis for the younger students, et cetera. So all those PDF documents are available there to print or share electronically and then we've got them for the secondary students as well. So for instance, artifact, again, same progression, questions are written at a different level and the presentation style is different, but we've got these PDF sheets for every type of primary source here, political cartoons, for example. All right, and I think I have just a very, I'm gonna very, very quickly show you one last thing. And if I do a document search I mentioned, you can really do this with any document you find. So let's say I find I'm looking for a World War I poster. I'm gonna search for Liberty Bond and document type. I'm gonna go to a poster. So I'm looking for a World War I propaganda poster and I can click on this. I'm logged into my account right now. If I wanted to create one of those analyzing documents activities, it's really pretty quick to do so. I just click on this plus sign, create a new activity and put documents in it and add it. So it did create the activity. I just have to go to menu, my account and my activities. You can see this activity I created is right here. I'm just gonna click to edit it. And what I can do is choose activity type. I want it to be analyzing documents. I'll just call this example. You could give it a different title for students or teachers and I'm gonna save it and that's gonna turn it into an analyzing documents activity type. And you'll be able to see that the poster that I added to this activity. When I click on the elements tab, there's my poster, I will set it up. And what I just wanna show you really quickly is how you can set up those different analysis questions for your different primary source type, in this case poster or for the grade level of your students. So I'm just setting this up quickly, choosing to use this full poster in my activity. And then we'll get to the next step, which is choosing the questions. So here's my poster. If I click on analysis questions here, I can click on the level and you can see I can choose for younger students, for my ELL students or secondary students and I can choose my document type. Any of these artifact cartoon, map, poster, photo, sound, video, written document, et cetera. I'm gonna choose poster here and click save. And then it's gonna automatically populate my activity with these questions and here they are. You can also, there's check boxes here and down at the very bottom you would be able to, remove some questions or hide them if you want to, if you didn't want all of these questions in your activity. You also have a place here where you could type in your own custom question and add it to your activity. You could add your own questions, you could remove other questions. So you can really customize the questions you want but the same progression is here, you'll notice. Meet the poster, observe its parts, make sense of it and use it as evidence. So just gonna quickly skip, there's a lot of, not a lot, there's a couple of other steps that you need to do to get this ready. So for students, for instance, you would write your instructions and your conclusion texts and on the teachers tab you will choose an era and thinking skill and grade level. But just to sidestep those for a minute, we'll just go to preview the student activity. And here it is, here's the document I picked with all of these questions here. So it's really a very quick process to go ahead and create one of these analyzing documents types of activities yourself. All right, so that's how you can analyze documents on DocsTeach sort of in a quick nutshell and that kind of wraps up our DocsTeach for virtual learning series. Thank you all for joining us. If you go to menu, resources and look down here at webinars are recordings, you can find the recordings there of all of our past webinars and please make use of that resource and best of luck this school year.