The Teaching with Primary Sources Cookbook

As records of firsthand accounts, primary sources reveal something about their creators and cultural context.

Combining these two elements is a recipe for a transformative classroom experience.

The Teaching with Primary Sources Cookbook brings together the work of archivists, librarians, museum professionals, and other educators who evoke the power of primary sources to teach information literacy skills to a variety of audiences. The Cookbook is divided into six sections, with an appendix containing the full text of the Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy developed by a Society of American Archivists and ACRL’s Rare Books and Manuscript Section joint task force: Meal Prep: Teaching Archival LiteracyGood Orderer: Teaching Search and Discovery in Archives and Special Collections  Food Critics: Teaching Primary Source Literacy Something from the Cart: Exhibitions as Teaching and Learning  Takeout: Teaching with Digital Collections  Community Picnics: K–12 and Non-Course-Related Instruction This work aims to provide an entry point for those new to teaching with primary sources and to be a repository of creative ideas for experienced instructors to refresh their lesson plans.

It also endeavors to bring together the sometimes disparate realms of each of the professional niches of its authors.