Primary sources come with the weight of authority because they are created by eyewitnesses and participants. Think of how folks use terms like, 'firsthand knowledge' or 'saw it with my own eyes' or 'pics or it didn't happen'. But students need to dig deeper to think about influences on one's perception of an event.
Evaluating sources is not a skill students will be taught in one week or in one course - you're laying the foundation for deeper skills that will be honed in a student's specific discipline.
You're teaching students the skills they need to evaluate viewpoints no matter where they find them - i.e. from vetted sources and from Twitter.
You will need to revisit the teaching of these skills throughout the semester.
Evaluating sources is intuitive to you - that is not the case for early researchers.
I avoid, come hell or high water, simplistic tests or mnemonic acronyms to use in evaluating info. You should, too. It doesn't allow for nuance and makes a complex process into a checklist.
Visual rhetoric (or, visual literacy):
Questions you may ask students about images:
The following can be downloaded or copied to your google drive. They were created for hands-on activities in physical collections, but you can adapt them to your goals and for digital archival material.
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