Kindergarten Students Analyze Primary Sources

In the reading they talked about how they guided whole group discussion through the three stages of a primary source analysis process which is observation, reflection, and questioning. They would start off with engaging the students and closely observing a primary source. Then, they would prompt the students to make inferences and ask questions. Lastly, they encouraged the students to connect what they were observing with an existing topic of study and urged them to use their new learning to explore further. Basically what we did in class. We first observed the picture of the classroom. We wrote down as much as we could remember about the picture. Then, as a class we discussed about what we saw and discussed any assumptions we could make and even wrote down some questions we had. 

Last semester I was in a literature class where we talked about many strategies and activities we could do with our class. There was one where the professor showed us a picture of a tunnel, a dog and a mouse. She gave us 5 minutes to do a quick write using the pictures. I loved this activity so much I decided to try it with my own class. I am currently student teaching in a writing class, we try to do a lot of quick writes. I showed the kids a picture of a squirrel and basically did the same thing we did in class. My students loved it so much they wanted me to give them more time to finish their story. 

As I was thinking back to what we did in class with the classroom picture and what I did last semester I kept connecting the two. I think it would be a neat thing to combine the two. I could show the students a primary source picture and just have them quick write to it then as a whole group we can go through the three stages of a primary source analysis process. It is a great way to build their critical thinking and create new content knowledge.