Investigating Barriers of the Mind

This is my second year teaching middle school history at Commonwealth Academy and last year I became particularly interested in helping my history students access primary source documents. Personally, I find historical documents fascinating — rich with context clues, archaic language, and a sense of purpose from the writers. Often, there is a voice to these documents that seems to inhabit their importance, even at the moment of writing or uttering — as if they knew, someday, we might be reading it, to gain more knowledge about this moment in history.

While I see it as a rich investigation and psychological exploration, I know this is not the experience for many students. Some students see history as a set of facts that need to be learned for tests. Unfortunately, others have had previous negative educational experiences which might hamper their motivation or confidence in future history assignments.

The Challenge and the Question

Reading primary sources is tough. Speeches are littered with long, run-on sentences. Legal documents rarely choose the simplest word to explain things; they want the most technically correct. Diaries and letters are often in an unfamiliar language and require a solid understanding of relevant vocabulary. This can be a mountain for students with learning differences around reading.

For my SET Lab project, I set out to find a better way for students to access primary sources, but I wasn’t sure where to start. It felt like a huge question, requiring technical expertise in a variety of areas. My initial question was: What strategies can help students with learning differences access and navigate text-based primary sources in history classes?

Where to Focus?

It was clear pretty quickly that I would need to do some preliminary research to narrow my question and the focus of the project. The blogosphere is full of valuable lesson plans and strategies to mix-it up with primary sources: document stations, mystery solving, categorizing and using organizers, using non-text sources, jigsaw activities, group discussions, inquiry-based, and even escape room approaches.

What seemed to be missing were strategies specifically to engage students with learning differences. As the peer reviewed research is based around Learning Disabilities (LD), rather than learning differences, I began in that space. When searching for the combined terms of “primary sources” and “dyslexia,” nothing relevant came up. Some of the few evidence-based strategies targeted for LD were video-based or comprehensive systems, rather than strategies for periodic instructional use.

What Happens Before the Instructional Strategy?

Reading an article in Learning Disabilities Research & Practice about Content Enhancement (one of these comprehensive systems), I came across this insight in the closing analysis (bold emphasis is mine):

While learning strategies and effective teaching practices are critical, if students lack the motivation to engage in learning, growth will be limited (Guthrie & Wigfield, 1997). It is motivation that activates the behavior to engage in learning. Because of repeated failure and disappointment, adolescents with LD frequently feel marginalized in the learning process and often choose to disengage. Learning about and being able to measure adolescents’ motivation to learn is an important element in being able to design more effective learning experiences for them in middle and high school settings.

Suddenly I was reminded that there are so many potential barriers for some students, even before they have started to read the primary source in question. First, a motivational hill (“Do I care enough to do this?”) and then confidence (“Do I think I can do this?”) and then, only then, if the student makes it over both hills, they will still need the relevant skills or supports to make it through a reading of the primary source document.

This brought me to my new research question: What are the potential barriers for students with learning differences to access primary source documents in the history classroom?

This project will investigate whether addressing engagement barriers, such as confidence and motivation, can better allow students to make use of tools and skills that can help them navigate primary source documents.

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