"It's a Primary Source, So It's True"
Ms. Rivera's fifth graders are studying the Boston Massacre with two sources: (1) an excerpt from Captain Thomas Preston's account, written weeks after the event, describing a crowd throwing snowballs and clubs and soldiers firing in fear; (2) Paul Revere's engraving, which the class text describes as showing a neat line of Redcoats firing in unison on unarmed, orderly colonists. During discussion Eli says, "The engraving is a primary source, so it's the true one. Preston was there, but he was British, so his doesn't count." Several classmates nod. Ms. Rivera has 40 minutes before the unit moves on to the Declaration of Independence, and the district assessment in two weeks asks students to compare two accounts of an event.
1. Evaluate Eli's reasoning. What is correct, what is confused, and what three separate questions is he collapsing into one?
Read the worked answer
Correct: Eli has noticed that a source's creator matters - that is genuine historical thinking, and it should be named and praised.
Confused: his rule "primary = true" and "British = doesn't count." Being primary speaks only to when and by whom a source was made, not to whether it is accurate. Revere was not an eyewitness to the shooting and made the engraving as a political argument; Preston was an eyewitness but had every reason to protect himself from blame. Both can be primary and both can be slanted.
The three questions he is collapsing:
- Is it primary? (Was the maker present or contemporary?)
- What is the maker's purpose and position? (Who are they trying to persuade?)
- Does it agree with other evidence? (Corroboration.)
A source can be primary and unreliable, and a biased source can still contain accurate details.
2. Design a 40-minute activity that teaches sourcing and corroboration rather than just delivering the "right" story.
Read the worked answer
1. Sort by question, not by source (10 min). Post three headings - When was it made? Who made it and why? What do other sources say? Students place each source under the question it answers, not under "true/false." This directly surfaces that the two sources answer different questions.
2. Sourcing chart (15 min). Pairs complete a four-box chart for each source: maker, date, audience/purpose, one detail that might be shaped by that purpose (for Revere: the orderly, unarmed crowd and the officer ordering the volley; for Preston: the snowballs and clubs).
3. Corroboration (10 min). Ask: what do both accounts agree on? (A crowd gathered, soldiers fired, people died.) What appears in only one? Then: what third source would you want - a colonist's diary, a trial transcript, a newspaper?
4. Exit (5 min): one sentence - "The engraving is useful evidence of ___ but not of ___."
3. Write an assessment item that measures whether students can source and corroborate, and describe the response features you would score.
Read the worked answer
Item: "A textbook says the engraving shows 'what really happened.' Using what you know about who made the engraving and why, explain whether you agree, and name one other source you would check."
Score features (0–2 each):
- Sourcing - identifies Revere as a colonist with a political purpose, not a neutral eyewitness. Full credit requires connecting purpose to a specific detail in the depiction, not just saying "he was biased."
- Epistemic status - states that being primary does not make a source accurate, and that a source can be valuable evidence of how people thought while being unreliable about events.
- Corroboration - proposes a specific independent source (trial record, eyewitness diary, newspaper) and says what it would confirm or contradict.
A student who simply says "the British account is wrong because they were the enemy" earns no credit on feature 1 - that is Eli's original error with the sides reversed.