Designing Meaningful Instruction in History for Middle School Students through the Use of Archival Research and Primary Document Analysis as a Teaching Tool Available to Purchase

The article chronicles the use of a Civil War soldier's diary to teach Civil War history. The project was carried out over a two-semester period in a social studies pedagogy class. The professor and students in cooperative learning groups and whole group discussions interpreted the diary. In this unique process, they also discussed how primary sources might be used to teach middle school and high school students United States History as a dynamic process of real people and not simply facts.