Salut mes amis,
Last class was enlightening for me in more ways than one. I had no idea that Richmond had a rare book/archives collection (an extensive one at that!) It was incredible to take a peek into the lives of strangers decades, even centuries after these documents were written. At the same time, I was very conscious of the fact that I was reading letters that were likely never meant to be read by any other parties aside from the writer and the intended recipient.
Put yourself in their shoes: imagine someone reading your diary entries from when you were a kid or your text messages, it’s a bit (or a lot) mortifying to think about. If we apply this to our classrooms, do you think that it is ethical to have students read and analyze personal primary sources? Is the historical significance and opportunity to gain knowledge too great? Maybe a bit of both?
Some of the readings from this week addressed the idea of adapting primary sources to make them more suitable for students, whether it be for grammatical reasons, changing the syntax, or making the vocabulary more age appropriate. In the Tampering with History: Adapting Primary Sources for Struggling Readers reading from this week, the authors “urge teachers to tamper with history.” They also acknowledge that many people vehemently condemn this idea and believe that it “cheapens the past.” Historians often talk about how vital reading and interpreting primary texts from the past are for our current understanding of historical figures and events. Do you think any of the integrity or benefits are lost when we alter primary sources?
I look forward to hearing from you all,
Jordann
Hi Jordann!
I was thinking about this towards the end of last week’s class as well. Today, we don’t think so save texts/personal letters because we don’t feel as though we are documenting history. I’m sure that these individuals didn’t feel as though they were documenting history either.
Typically when an older document is found it is typically read by the finder first. After the finder takes a look that’s when typically they decide if its an unimportant document or something interesting that is worth saving. This is where ethical issues come into place. Sometimes we can see it as the writing being long gone so no harm no foul, but it is still their intellectual property.
I do believe that if it was my letters, years after I had passed, I don’t think I would have a problem with people reading them to dig into the past and find a sense of relation from what I wrote. As some class members read through the letters, everyone became intrigued and invested in the storyline. That is something I believe could be a great legacy to leave. Even if some of my words or writings are misinterpreted, at least students would be actively engaging with my text.
Hi Jordann!
Thank you so much for your post! Your ideas are so important for future teachers to think about, and you did a really great job at being clear and detailed in your post.
Primary sources are extremely valuable for students to read and interpret. These first-hand documents allow students to visualize exactly what was happening during the time period or historical event that they’re studying. Primary sources help to reveal the truth about our history through letters, photos, videos, police reports, and other documents. I too enjoyed exploring the rare books collection, and was unaware that Richmond offers those collections. The one collection that really caught my eye were the love letters. I honestly didn’t even think of how personal the primary sources we study are or how the writer would feel about us studying them until I read these love letters. It almost seemed wrong that we were reading those letters and it felt I was invading people’s privacy. I don’t think these love letters helped me to understand any aspect of history; it was more just entertaining to read them. Therefore, I believe primary sources in the form of love letters don’t need to be shown to students because of how personal they are. Besides these specific letters, I don’t think it’s unethical for students to analyze primary sources and I do believe that the significant and importance of these sources outweigh the fact that the writer and recipients of these sources could possibly be uncomfortable with people reading them.
Personally, I believe teachers should only “tamper with history” while they are educating students if there is inappropriate language or certain facts in these sources that teachers strongly believe they should refrain from showing students, especially lower elementary school students. But in that case, I’m torn. If teachers really need to delete certain language, then they should just not even show the source to students. Although it doesn’t seem like a huge deal to modify a primary source document, deleting certain words or phrases or “unnecessary information” takes away the integrity of the document. Although I do understand why teachers would have reason to, primary sources just simply weren’t meant for teachers to be “editing” them.
Thanks Jordann and Dante for some very well developed and thoughtful posts regarding our last class session. I was a little overwhelmed by the amount of primary sources we had available to review and unfortunately I was only able to review 3 of the tables of information. First in reference to your post Jordann, I understand you are saying about private correspondence being made available for all to see but I would guess whomever provided the documents thought the importance of having as much historical information as possible was worth it. The one thing about history is that no matter if we like it or not, it did happen and we cannot change but we can definitely learn from it. In adapting any documents for better understanding by the learner is almost necessary when teaching history to younger students, although I think we should always strive to keep the integrity of the document facts and information intact. It is important that our students learn as much about history as possible because it provides the background knowledge of why our state/country is structured the way it is now.
Dante, I too spent a large amount of time reviewing the Wyatt Tee Walker information, I was aware of how much Martin Luther King depended on him but to see the daily work they put in just to ask that everyone is afforded equal rights, as stated in the Constitution, was a lot! So regarding your question, I was not aware that there are STILL places that are trying to uphold segregation but it is sad to hear this. I think there are far fewer differences in all people if you take time to talk to one another. During all of my school years, my classes were integrated which I understand now was not the norm. I started kindergarten in the early 70s in the Henrico county school system and never had any racial issue to happen nor did I hear of anything. Unfortunately, I think it is easy to stay with fear and stereotypes, then taking a step outside of that to try to get to know others as another human being. The places were you still have a lot of racism and segregation probably have persons that do not have the chance to interact with others that don’t look like them, this is a missed opportunity. We learn to live together with one another and stop being divided just because of the color of someone’s skin. I found a couple of articles about the tragedy of racism and not appreciating those that may not be “just like us”.
How racism hurts us all, including racists – New Hampshire Bulletin
https://newhampshirebulletin.com/2023/01/23/how-racism-hurts-us-all-including-racists/
The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” | Death Penalty Information Center
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/the-reverend-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-hate-cannot-drive-out-hate-only-love-can-do-that
Hi Jordann!
Thank you for your post!
I agree! Last class was so eye-opening to what we have at the tips of our fingers at Richmond. I had no idea that all of this was just in our basement library.
Although reading these personal letters was quite entertaining, it does raise the question in my head of how ethical it really is as well. I would not personally want my own letters/writings read, especially if they include such deep, personal feelings! Although it isn’t great to have students read such interpersonal details, I believe that if the family is going to be putting these things out there to be seen and analyzed by others, then there is not such an ethical issue. Now that we know what could happen to personal letters in the future, more people might be burning letters, or instructing their family members to not share their personal belongings after they’ve deceased. I do not believe that the personal relationships of one’s past life is very important for my future students to read/learn about, however, letters talking about wars, and past events could be extremely beneficial to student’s learning. As long as student’s are analyzing the documents to gain some new knowledge that will benefit them, not just gossip, I believe that it is valuable to have personal items at primary sources.
As the reading, Tampering with History: Adapting Primary Sources for Struggling Readers, did say, they want teacher’s to adapt primary sources, and change them around if necessary. Teachers can strike out, and remove unimportant information from primary sources. In my eyes, I would alter a primary source to only include information that is of importance to the student, not anything that would cheapen history per se.
This is a sensitive topic, so I am curious to read what my other classmates think!
Greetings, Jordann. Thanks for posing these questions!
With regard to the first point you bring up: I not only have no problem with the thought of people digging through my letters, emails and other personal effects in order to find out more about my life and surrounding society after I die, but actually relish the idea! I would be enormously flattered to know that anybody was sufficiently interested in me and my life to attempt to reconstruct it from whatever sources I left behind, and it is hard for me to understand how anybody could feel otherwise. I think this may be because I am a devout J. R. R. Tolkien fan, and the majority of his work, including many of the parts most important to him, was published after he died. An entire field of scholarship has grown up around analyzing and reconstructing his fictional languages and mythology based on the countless journals, letters and manuscripts he left behind. That is my model of what a literary career looks like, so the idea that someone will probably go through my things and maybe publish my private correspondences after I die is completely normalized for me. To me, it seems like the best possible way to honor somebody and their legacy—learning about things is always the best way to honor them. I do know some indigenous peoples disagree with this sentiment with regard to their own cultural knowledge and the remains of their ancestors, and I choose to have faith that they know what they’re talking about, and that they have the right to the power of a secret kept when they have been unjustly deprived of power in so many other areas—but I do not extend this faith to any non-indigenous groups or people. But maybe other commenters will be able to share perspectives I have not considered which will make me reconsider my permissive stance with regard to investigating the dead.
As for tampering with history, I cannot honestly dispute that altering primary sources makes them less valuable as primary sources, and “dumbs them down”, and removes critical information from them, etc. etc. exactly as critics of the practice claim. It certainly does all of those things! BUT—that is no reason not to alter primary sources for the classroom! Grade-school students are not professional scholars, and it would be a grave mistake to hold them to the same standards of rigor as professional scholars or assume that they are engaged in the same kind of enterprise. The point of a 4th-grade social studies class is not to induce eight-year-olds to come up with revolutionary insights about the past based on their own original analyses of primary-source documents—it is to teach them HOW to analyze primary-source documents, to guide them along the path of acquiring the skills they will need to conduct expert-level historical analysis in the future! Altered primary sources present no obstacle to this goal, whereas original primary sources will almost certainly be too difficult for students to really understand and thus inhibit their progress in the acquisition of historian’s skills. I would no more assign an ordinary fourth-grade class an unaltered primary source for their social studies lesson than I would assign them Paradise Lost for their reading lesson, or require them to conduct a rigorous scientific study on the molecular biology of fruit flies for their science lesson.
Hi Jordann!
Thanks so much for your post.
I too had little to no idea that we had such an extensive and informative rare books collection right on our campus. However, I am so glad that I have now become aware of these resources.
As we were reading the letters last class, the same question popped in my mind concerning the ethics behind having access to these private messages. In some aspects it felt as through I was intruding on a personal moment. Clearly, most of those letters had been written with the intent of being read by only ONE person and they were saved due to importance to the reader. Ultimately, I began to feel more comfortable with the idea once I remembered that these letters had been offered to the university by surviving family members. Therefore, there was most likely a discussion that took place beforehand on what the writer would have been comfortable with donating.
Primary sources are a wonderful teaching resources and I do feel history should be “tampered” with for the sake of the students — but ONLY if needed. I don’t see much harm in switching out certain language if it is genuinely inappropriate and if it is featured on a source that would be beneficial to the lesson being taught.
Hello Jordann!
Thank you for your wonderful reflection and your questions on last week’s class
To address your first one: I think it is ethical to look at some of the historical documents when using them as primary sources, even if they weren’t intended to read when they were written. I try to put myself in the shoes of Charlotte and Paul and those touching letters are very vulnerable, but also crucial to understanding the people of the time. I think in a lot of ways those letters showed me that they are more than just characters in a text book and they were real people with real lives. I would hope if anyone were to find things of mine they would use it to humanize my history. That being said, I do think we get into a little more of a grey area when we write/publish opinion pieces on the documents because that is where we are inserting our own view of the text and publishing it to a wider audience. In this instance, I we have to be careful to preserve the integrity of the documents and people mentioned, because as I said before, these are real people with real families.
For your second question, I think teachers should adapt the historical documents as little as possible with consideration to the developmental level of their students. If the primary source is hard to read/understand, I think leading the class in a group discussion of what they think the text means will not only help preserve the integrity of the document, but also helps students understand how to interpret them later on. If the document truly is to hard to understand independently or in a group setting, that is when I would consider adapting the document but making it very clear that this it is no longer a true primary source because I have adapted it to what I think is its interpretation.
Thank you for the questions!!
Carstyn K
Jordann,
Thank you for your insightful response!
I agree with you, it was very interesting exploring a part of UR that I was wholly unfamiliar with! Looking through the letters, maps, and documents truly allowed me to appreciate the interest and inquiry that primary sources can bring into the classroom. It made me excited to have my own students explore the primary documents that I might provide!
Your question is a very good one! Although they are very interesting documents, most of them were private. I think it is very essential that we as teachers preface every document with proper context and background OR to brainstorm with students the purposes and audiences of the letter! Even though these documents were not meant for our eyes, the families of the writers wanted to share history through UR’s archives, and it can help all learners engage more with their histories.
As for primary sources, I believe that teaching to both the original and adapted can be possible! For example, if you’re teaching about FDR’s fireside chats and how they connect to our history, you can provide an adapted historical document for students to complete an assignment on, while also providing the original audio and transcript to discuss as a class!
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3833257914F80DA9
I personally love the idea of Adapted Historical Documents to help students connect with history in a way that isn’t as frustrating, but you’re right Jordann! Let’s be cautious on… I guess you could say, “Rewriting History.”
Merci mon ami! (Courtesy of translate.google.com)
Ashley
Hi Jordann,
Thank you for taking the time to reflect on our last class and for posing such thought-provoking questions!
I did not have the opportunity to examine documents at the table that contained the love letters, although I definitely overheard some of you reading very juicy excerpts! You pose an interesting ethical question, but ultimately I think that all forms of primary sources, including diaries, personal letters, etc. are potentially worthy of examination, even if we can reasonably assume that the author’s intent was never to invite that level of public exposure. In particular, I find myself reflecting on the diary of Anne Frank, for example, as evidence that first person accounts (e.g. diary entries) can have a lasting impact on the public’s interpretation and understanding of an event. In fact, they may be viewed as some of the most credible primary sources in existence, because they are the least likely to have been edited or modified for a public audience. When I think critically about documents like the Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights, I wonder how many iterations existed prior to the final publication? What words were initially chosen and then replaced in previous drafts, and have fundamental elements contained in initial versions been modified, added, or deleted from the final version that could potentially change original intent and meaning? With personal primary source documents, we can reasonably assume that we’re getting the real, raw truth, at least from the author’s perspective, and I think there’s historical value in that.
In terms of adapting primary sources, I think there are varying degrees of adaptation, and like one of our articles mentioned, each decision must be intentional and well-thought-out because it’s a tradeoff. Personally, my eyesight is so bad that I would not have been able to read the original photocopy of the letter from the Women’s Political Council to the Mayor (during our lesson on Rosa Parks) without a magnifying glass. Our adapted version was probably the highest level of non-tampering — no meaningful changes, only font size and type, but it helped me to be able to participate in class. I like the concept of adapting primary sources for accessibility and differentiation, but I think we must be very mindful to not dilute the key messages. At some grade level — and I’m not sure which one it is, but am assuming somewhere in high school — I would imagine that we don’t want to be meaningfully adapting primary sources anymore beyond minimal tweaks (font size, white space, perhaps capitalization) because eventually students will need to learn how to critically analyze and evaluate primary sources without the level of support we’re potentially providing.
Thank you again for a great post that really made me think about some of the choices we’ll have to make as teachers!
Sue Anne
Hello Jordann,
Thank you for your reply concerning last week’s class that took place in the library. I agree, I had no idea that our library had such an enormous arrangement of materials for our learning journey. It is always interesting to read letters and items written for individuals from our history and be able to review them in our lifetime. I have always thought about our text messages and emails being reviewed by individuals who were not the intended recipient.
Our library has materials that are available to assist new teachers in being successful in our educational teacher journey as well as our careers as teachers. To allow us to teach information that is historical significance may be too great for some grades but can be helpful for other grades. Teachers should make that decision prior to planning any lessons on the topic.
Last week’s visit to the library was informative and enjoyable. I had an opportunity to review lots of materials and I got an even better understanding of the history of Richmond and our surrounding areas.
Militon
Hi Jordann,
Thank you so much for sharing this post!
I also had no idea we had a rare book/archives collection in the library! I am looking forward to exploring it more and using the resources for future lesson planning!!
Your idea about whether or not sharing some of these sources is ethical took me by surprise. I had not even thought about this as I was going through some of the sources. I think that some of the sources should be used in the classroom because they show significance to history, and pieces of history that have been covered up when they shouldn’t have been. I do believe that the sources that were love letters made me feel as if I was majorly invading someone’s privacy. Although they were VERY interesting, I would be mortified if I was in their shoes and anyone could read my personal love letters with my future husband. I also do not think that is something I would use in the classroom. That may be a personal preference, however I feel that sharing those goes against ethical teaching practices. The historical significance would be to show how people communicated in the past, and could be used to show how soldiers lived in the past. It still feels too invasive for me to want to include in my classroom in the future.
In terms of adapting sources, I think it is important to make sure the intended meaning of the source stays the same. The source should not be changed in terms of content, but it is helpful to have some sources typed out rather than the original handwritten source. I personally would like to have both an adapted source and the real original matching source.
Thank you again for your thoughtful post!
Alexa Cates
Hi Jordann!
Thank for the post, it was really interesting to see your take, as I had never thought about it in terms of “think of it like it was your own diary” – it really puts into perspective the audience!
However, I think it is more important than not to still provide these raw primary sources to students. I think that it is a doorway for them to see what the culture, the thoughts, and the ideals of life was like at that moment in history. If we provide children with just textbook readings or newpapers clippings, it can get mundane, I think, because they will continue to learn about history and think there was just no emotion. I can’t help but to think of all the old photographs – no one is smiling in them, and we know this because we now know that it takes a while for the subject to appear in the image and it was easier to keep a straight face than smile. With old photos and formal text, students will think that life was boring, and no one held strong emotions and so it shouldn’t be studied because no one seemed to care.
As for the tampering, I agree with most everyone else that the adaptations should only change the words (to get rid of bad words or find easier synonyms) but the meaning should not change. Changing the meaning would then change the the source away from primary, and its intended job at telling history would be different.
Hi Jordann,
Great question about the love letters and personal correspondence. I have to wonder if one dug deep into the file and a series of letters, would they find something different? What might the letters tell us about the war or life on the homefront? How would this help us better understand the conflict? I shared the excerpt from one of my grandmother’s letters to my dad while he was stationed in Pearl Harbor. Just that small bit told us a lot about the cuts people were living with as shortages occurred. So, even if I have mixed feelings about the personal nature of some letters, I do think they have value to scholars and historians.
As to the Tampering with History article, I actually think this type of differentiation is essential for some students. Just like with the Robinson letter, the version I typed that appeared on the back of the original simply made it easier for you to read. The content wasn’t changed. For documents with difficult vocabulary, including annotations with words defined will make a huge difference for some students. I don’t see these changes as detracting from the content or intent of the original documents, only making them accessible to more readers.
Thanks for posing these important questions.