In previous semesters I have assigned primary sources as homework with varying degrees of success.  I could rarely count on students having read the material well enough to jump feet first into discussions and their various levels of reading comprehension meant that quizzing them on the content of primary sources resulted in a lot of stress on mid-range students.

So, this semester I stripped my syllabus of primary source readings for homework with one exception; every week they have a historical newspaper to read.  My hope is that by making this a weekly assignment we can have in-class conversations about culture, politics, advertisements, and what makes front-page news.  I am trying to choose newspapers that correspond with class topics so this past week we had a New York Times paper that discussed the limits of Reconstruction which went well with our in-class primary source-based discussion of the various views on Reconstruction.

One of my goals for the semester was to put less pressure on individual documents and more of an emphasis on noticing trends, prioritizing information, and making connections across class sessions.  I’m not quizzing the students on the information in the newspapers but they do have to do several short reviews outlining what issues seem most important, the politics and beliefs of the newspaper, and the role of popular culture in the document.

This assignment seems cool in theory, but I’m finding some technological challenges in getting the newspaper to students effectively.  My institution has access to a variety of digitized newspapers but they are mostly searchable by article; pulling up the entire paper is tricky and time-consuming.  I thought about printing and scanning the newspaper but that has proved equally challenging because the pdf prints so small; I then need to use the copier to blow it up and I start losing readability.

I think my technological woes reflect how historians are using digitized sources. I am certainly grateful for keyword search capabilities in my research, but I don’t want my students to experience an article in a vacuum.  Newspapers are cool sources because they reflect the interests, concerns, and cultural tensions of a community.  But, one article from a newspaper only scratches the surface of the past and it presents a skewed version of history.  I want to help my students prioritize source material and to make decisions about what was important in American history based on their analytical skills.

Historians are accustomed to handling old documents; we embrace digitized documents in part because we know the pitfalls of dealing with physical texts all too well.  But, our students don’t have that same level of familiarity with texts.  I want my students to read these newspapers in part because I think they will help build analytical skills.  I also hope that the class will experience the excitement of finding an interesting story that excites them intellectually.

If I can find a successful way of delivering the material!