Comparing Sources (Sample Lesson Plan)

This assignment works well when you want students to be able to both identify different source types and evaluate those source types.

Before the class:

• Choose sources on a specific topic familiar to the class.  
• Tips on choosing sources:

• Make sure you choose a number of sources that will allow you to break students into groups of no more than five.  
• Choose whatever mix of sources you want your students to be able to differentiate between. This may include scholarly or non-scholarly, primary, secondary or tertiary.
• Try putting links to the source, or a library database record about the source if applicable, in your D2L course rather than printing. However, don’t include the citation - just a link with a title like “source 1” so as to not give away too much information.

• Example:

A University of Texas (UT) freshman class about controversies on college campuses required that students use a mix of primary and secondary sources, including scholarly sources. The topic chosen for the activity was confederate statues at UT and it used the following three sources [a secondary scholarly article; a primary source (task force report); and a secondary news article]:

• Source 1:  Osborne, James F. “Counter-Monumentality and the Vulnerability of Memory.” Journal of Social Archaeology, vol. 17, no. 2, May 2017, pp. 163–87, doi:10.1177/1469605317705445.
• Source 2: Task Force on Historical Representation of Statuary at UT-Austin: Report to President Gregory L. Fenves, August 10, 2015
• Source 3: Crowe, Cailin. “What Happened When One University Moved a Confederate Statue to a Museum.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, Sept. 2018. The Chronicle of Higher Education, https://www.chronicle.com/article/What-Happened-When-One/244481.

During the class:

• It is preferable to give students the exercise without any discussion of source types or evaluation beforehand. Figuring it out in conversation with each other and the professor, rather than applying definitions, leads to a richer understanding.
• Break students into groups of no more than five and assign a source to each group. It is fine if more than one group has the same source.  
• Ask students to look at their source, discuss it together, and answer the questions listed below. Give them 10-15 minutes and tell them you will ask them to report out after. Remind them that they don’t necessarily need to read the entire source to do the exercise.
• Ask each group to report out and use their answers to the questions to generate discussion with the class as a whole. If you assigned the same source to more than one group, make it a conversation among groups to have them all report out at once. Because this activity asks students to identify source types, audience and purpose, and construct their process and criteria for evaluating these sources, discussion of each source as a class and discussion at the end drawing connections and distinctions between source types is valuable.

Questions for Activity:

Tip:  Make these questions into a Google Form, or hand them out on paper and collect them so you can see how students worked through the process.

1. Title of the source
2. What is the background and expertise of the person/people who wrote this source?
3. Why was this source created?
4. What is the audience for this source?
5. What type of source is this? Is it a primary source, secondary scholarly source, or popular source? (Change these options to match the source types you chose)
6. Would this source be helpful if you were researching this topic? Why or why not?

The Information Literacy Toolkit, created by University of Texas Libraries, was adapted by Portland State University Library in July 2019 and is licensed CC BY-NC.