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====Primary sources are the raw ingredients from which history is made. Secondary sources are developed from primary sources to provide information about a period of time. //American Memory Fellow// Gail Petri (2010) suggested that when students are exposed to the raw materials of history, inquiry skills are developed. With primary source documents, teachers go beyond the social studies textbook by providing context for a historical time period.==== ====Excellent social studies lessons begin with the premise that even elementary children can develop an understanding of the hands-on, minds-on work of social scientists. Primary sources make history real to students. From letters to photographs, prints and maps, the Internet provides access to millions of digitized historical artifacts. This article shares a Winthrop University Library of Congress grant project that engaged pre-service teachers in using historical literature, investigating online primary sources and planning lessons to engage elementary students in historical inquiry. South Carolina standards provide the infrastructure for the development of a wiki database that showcases literature projects with primary source documents for pre-service and in-service teachers. This wiki provides standards-based resources for using children's literature and primary sources to teach history.====

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//I teach social studies methods to preservice students who are assigned to elementary classes for field-based experiences. Book Backdrops are projects that new teachers complete using children's literature with primary sources. We have organized the work with South Carolina Standards for Elementary Social Studies. Find the standard that you need to teach and look for a book that addresses that standards. The PowerPoint files that you download include primary sources that enrich the children's book.//

We used the Library of Congress to begin our search for primary sources.

//2011 Standards for South Carolina Studies//



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