Teacher Resources: Teaching with Material Culture, Oral Histories, and Other Primary Source Materials
Prepared by Robert Schmick, Ph.D.
Definitions:
Material culture consists of artifacts (and other pertinent historical evidence ) of the belief systems---the values, ideas, attitudes, and assumptions---of a particular community or society, usually across time (Schlereth 3). It can include “landscapes, tools, buildings, household goods, clothing, and art; “it is the communication of specific human messages through objects ( McDannell 2).
McDannell, Colleen. Material Christianity; Religion and Popular Culture in America. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995.
Schlereth, Thomas J. ed. Material Culture in America. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press, 1999.
Oral history is the recording, preservation and interpretation of historical information, based on the personal experiences and opinions of the speaker.
Evidence taken from the spoken words of people who have knowledge of past events and traditions.
www.fnmr.gov.sk.ca/community/glossary/
Collecting interviews of ordinary people to get their stories about their participation in events, which fills gaps in written records and tells of those who are often absent from official histories.
www.louisianavoices.org/edu_glossary.html
The audio recording or transcript which results from planned oral interviews with individuals. These created and preserved interviews are intended for use by researchers and historians.
osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/archives/handbook/definitions/
A verbal reminicense or description of past events or experiences, usually recorded in interviews.
Overview and Background
Summary: This unit will lead students through a study of their community’s history. They will see how events in their town’s past relate to the history of the State of Maine and the United States.
Subject: Social Studies
Topics: Geography, Sociology, Transportation, Industry, Economics, Citizenship, and Education
Suggested Materials :
Batignani, Karen Wentworth. Maine’s Coastal Cemeteries; A Historic Tour. Camden, ME: Down East Books, 2003.
Bond, C. Lawrence. Native Names of New England Towns and Villages. Reading, MA: Alan B. Bond, Publisher, 2000.
Cox, H. Russell and David L. Swett. History of Orrington, ME; History, Genealogy. Brewer, ME: Cay-Bel Publishing Co., 1988.
Day, Holman F. Up in Maine; stories of Yankee Life Told in Verse. Boston: Small, Maynard & Company Publishers, 1925.
Duling, Ennis. What’s in an American Name? Cobblestone: Volume 4, Number 1, January 1983.
Kalman, Bobbie. Early Travel. New York, NY: Crabtree Publishing, 1992.
Thayer, Mildred N. and Mrs. Edward W. Ames. Brewer-Orrington-Holden-Eddington; History & Families. Brewer, ME: L.H. Thompson, Inc., 1962.
Weitzman, David. My Backyard History Book. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1975.
Wolfman, Ira. Do People Grow on Family Trees? New York, NY: Workman Publishing Corp., 1991.
Resources: The Curran Homestead Living History Farm and Museum, Orrington Historical Society, Eddington Historical Society, Brewer Historical Society
State Standards Addressed
Stage 1: Identify Desired Results
Essential Questions:
- How has my community changed over time?
- How is my life different from those citizens who came before me?
Unit Questions:
- What is a primary source?
- Where do we find primary sources?
- What is an oral history?
- What is material culture?
- Where do we find material culture?
- How does the geography of my community affect its development?
- How did the developments in transportation affect the growth of my community?
- How did people in the past make a living in my community?
- What industries and businesses supported the development of my town?
- Who lived in my town?
- How does the architecture of my town give me clues about its past?
- What was going to school like in the past?
- What was the importance of the family farm in my community?
- What technological innovations changed life in rural Maine?
- What was daily life like in my community’s past?
- How can I be a good citizen of my community?
Understandings:
- Students will understand how to analyze a primary source document.
- Students will understand a primary source gives you a wealth of information about those who came before you.
- Students will understand the use of material culture in understanding the past and how to analyze it.
- Students will understand events in the Town of Orrington, Town of Eddington, or the City of Brewer directly relate to major events in regional, State of Maine, and United States history.
- Students will understand that geography affected the development of their community.
- Students will understand the development of transportation affected the growth of Orrington, Eddington, or Brewer.
- Students will understand the man-made environment hold important information about the community.
- Students will understand that schools play an important role in our development.
- Students will understand that school organization has changed over time.
- Students will understand that businesses are important to prosperity and growth of the community.
- Students will understand that immigrants have made important contributions to the community.
- Students will understand citizenship involves taking an active role in the community’s development.
Knowledge and Skills
Students will need to know:
Key terms: artifact, primary source, material culture, secondary source, historical document, oral history, geography, topography, community, rural, industry, transportation, immigration, architecture, census, inventory, public education, labor, tourism, citizenship.
Students will need to be able to:
- Collect and analyze information from primary sources and secondary sources.
- Read different types of maps.
- Write an essay, synthesizing information from a variety of resources.
- Conduct interviews
Stage 2: Determining Acceptable Evidence
Performance Tasks, Projects:
- Students will:
- Write an essay on a museum visit.
- Create a word portrait collage.
- Create a community map.
- Create a transportation poster.
- Conduct a survey and graph the data.
- Create a broadside for a historical business.
- Write a story of a day in school in the past.
- Develop a power point presentation tracing the history of one building.
- Conduct an interview with a community member and present the information in a news broadcast.
- Conduct and record an interview suitable for an oral history archive.
- Participate in a community service project linked to a museum, archive, or historical society in your community.
- Participate or assist in the organization of a town history day.
Quizzes, Tests, Academic Prompts:
vocabulary quizzes
group discussions
constructed response questions
Other Evidence:
teacher observation
group discussions
drafts of written work
Stage 3: Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction
Part I: Introduction to Primary Sources of Information
Activity 1
Students will bring into class a document about themselves
Materials: paper
Procedure:
- In class the next day, have each student share their document , providing the following information:
· What type of document is this?
· What is the date of the document?
· Who created the document?
· How does the document relate to you?
- When each student has shared, ask them to write a caption for their document that would explain it to people. Display the items in a class museum.
Activity 2
Students will learn the definition of a primary and a secondary source of information.
Materials:
Procedure:
- Have students sit in a line or circle.
- Write a one sentence message on a piece of paper. Give it to a student and ask the class to play the “telephone game.” The first student reads the message and returns it to the teacher. Then the student quietly tells another child what the message says. This student in turn passes the message along until everyone has heard the message. Ask the last student to stand and recite the message out loud.
- Write the original message and the final version of the message on the blackboard for comparison.
- Inform students that the original message is a “primary source” and the final version is a secondary, tertiary….source.
- Use the telephone game to suggest ways in which the retelling of stories over time can change our understanding of history. Primary sources can be much more reliable than secondary sources for studying past events. Ask students how they think information might change over time? Ask students to give examples of primary sources. Do people save primary sources for personal use? Why do we have save primary sources as a society? You may want to record ideas on a chart.
- Share some primary sources about yourself like a birth certificate. Copy one of the documents so each student may examine it. Using the document analysis worksheet, analyze this document together.
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