Sourcing Practice

Hi there, OER Peeps!

One skill I'd really like to work on with my students this year is Sourcing. I just watched and enjoyed Ane Lintvedt 's 2021 OER Conference for the SS presentation on Sourcing (located in the Community Video Library) and liked it a lot - in particular, the regular practicing of the skill, and the shorter version of the graphic organizer (I am also intrigued and impressed by just focusing on the attribution line, and not the document content - Bold! But good!).

I tried Sourcing a couple of times last year with my on-level (Honors) students and found the Sourcing Tool a bit overwhelming for them and for me. In addition to getting a copy of Ane's shorter copy, I am curious to know what other tips or tricks, or strategies folks have used to get students into the habit of looking at the source info. first?

Andrea Wong over 2 years ago

Carrie Emmerson , I agree that the sourcing tool can be quite overwhelming. I have used a strategy of having students focus on one specific attribute/column from the sourcing tool. I also try to limit the number of times I require students to use the sourcing tool throughout the year, but I also struggle with having students look at the source info first!

I try to explain to them that it's almost like a cheat sheet because it gives you sooo much information about what you are going to read. I relate it to watching the trailer to a movie before buying a ticket. If students start asking me questions that they should know from the sourcing info, I remind them to "watch/read the trailer".
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Gwen Duralek over 2 years ago

I agree with you Carrie Emmerson -- the sourcing tool is a bit, umm, much. I tended to use the quick sourcing tool and like Andrea Wong , just asked students to focus on one component. I wonder if you had students jigsaw this activity, especially at the beginning of the year, where small groups of 4 could have each student focused on a different part of HAPPy, then shared out their information.

I'm looking forward to the new sourcing tool that's coming soon! It seems to be much more student-friendly.
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Kathy Hays over 2 years ago in reply to Gwen Duralek

Gwen Duralek and Carrie Emmerson the new Sourcing tool is available! Head to the Teacher Resource page to check it out!

https://www.oerproject.com/OER-Materials/OER-Media/PDFs/Teacher-Resources/WHP-Sourcing-Tool
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ERIN CUNNINGHAM over 2 years ago

Hi Carrie Emmerson , sourcing is a skill that I really started rethinking my approach to last year. Ultimately, I came up with this organizer that students glued into their World History notebooks. I teach 9th grade so sourcing is very new to them so there was a lot of scaffolding and modeling around this organizer. I also started using it well into 2nd semester last year so I remember having the most success with it and the Holocaust primary sources. Getting them to not only identify the important sourcing information but also the significance of that sourcing information in the context of the broader question at hand was huge.

I'm curious to learn what you end up trying out with your students!
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Gwen Duralek over 2 years ago in reply to ERIN CUNNINGHAM

I love the "so what?" component to your organizer, Erin! Even my juniors struggle with connecting their thinking from sourcing to the significance of that analysis. This is great, thank you for sharing this fabulous tool.
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ERIN CUNNINGHAM over 2 years ago in reply to Gwen Duralek

The "so what" was the real game changer for me! So simple but really important!
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